Rx bus excursion returns to Auburn State and national pressure grows to allow reimportation from Canada

AUBURN – Maine senior citizens have made at least 10 bus trips to Canada to buy cheaper prescription drugs during the last six years, but an organizer said he hoped the trip that ended Thursday will be the last.

“That’s certainly our hope. That’s for sure,” said John Carr, president of the Maine Council of Senior Citizens, as the bus stopped at Dysart’s truck stop outside of Bangor en route to its final destination in Auburn.

Carr said there’s considerable political pressure in Congress to ease the federal law that bars the reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada.

President Bush, who defends the rules as a consumer safety measure, has acknowledged congressional support for loosening the ban on reimportation and said his administration is looking into rules allowing it.

At the same time, Gov. John Baldacci is asking the federal government for a waiver to allow the state to reimport drugs, which would be distributed by the Penobscot Indians from their reservation in Old Town.

Carr said the 3,000-member seniors’ group has been involved in at least 10 prescription drug runs to Canada since 1998. The council is affiliated with the Alliance for Retired Americans and the national AFL-CIO.

The bus trips from Maine have been used as stages in political campaigns since 1998. Prescription drug reimportation remains a prominent issue in this year’s presidential and congressional races.

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, a Democrat who’s seeking re-election in Maine’s 2nd District, greeted the senior citizens on the bus when it arrived in Auburn. Both Michaud and his GOP challenger Brian Hamel support reimportation.

Former independent Gov. Angus King, who has endorsed Democrat John Kerry for president, also welcomed the senior citizens back.

Carr said the seniors who made the two-day trip to Canada would have saved more than $19,000 by having their long-term prescriptions filled across the border.

The bus completed its trip less than a day after a chartered train called the “Rx Express” rolled into Toronto on a whistle-stop tour to buy lower-cost Canadian prescription drugs. More than two dozen seniors and patients were to visit an unnamed Toronto pharmacy Thursday to make their purchases.

The tour began Monday in Miami, with two private cars attached to a regular Amtrak train. When the train reached upstate New York, Amtrak officials let members of the group get out at stops to talk to local media about the drug issue, group organizer Jerry Flanagan said.