DRUG-TRADE CHALLENGE

The backlash was inevitable. Now that importing lower-cost drugs from Canada has become so popular among Americans, residents north of the border are worried that their drug supply is being raided by their southern neighbors, putting Canadians at risk of shortages of needed medicines. The fear may not be warranted, but this whole situation could be avoided if U.S. officials would negotiate lower drug prices for their citizens just like other developed countries do.

It is estimated that 65 million Americans, many of them elderly, can’t afford prescription drugs in the United States. Increasingly, they are turning to Canada, often through Internet-based pharmacies. An estimated $1 billion worth of prescription drugs are sent from Canada to the United States each year. Because the Canadian government regulates drug prices as part of its national health-care system, prices are often half that in the United States for the same medication.

Last month, Gov. John Baldacci asked the Department of Health and Human Services for permission to re-import drugs from Canada, which would be distributed by the Penobscot Nation first to the uninsured and underinsured and later to the general population. Other states and municipalities are importing drugs from Canada for

their employees to save money.

Now, Canadian groups representing seniors and pharmacies are calling on their government to stop such practices. “I don’t want to see our health system decimated by forcing Canadians to compete with American for our drug supply,” Lothar Dueck, president of the Coalition for Manitoba Pharmacy, said recently. He said his pharmacy, in a small town near the U.S. border, has run out of some drugs and must negotiate with colleagues to get enough of others for his patients. This is because some large U.S. drug makers have cut supplies to pharmacies they suspect of selling medicines to Americans.

Canadian health officials say that bargain-hunting American customers do not threaten the country’s drug supply.

Still, the United States should solve this problem on its own without raiding Canadian medicine chests. Instead, Congress passed a Medicare reform bill last year that forbid the federal government from negotiating lower drugs prices. Efforts are under way to reverse that ban. Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced legislation earlier this year that would give the HHS secretary authority to negotiate lower drug prices for participants in the Medicare program.

In the interim, this measure would legalize re-importation and expand it to include other countries, such as Britain and Australia, to reduce the reliance on Canada while creating a broader marketplace. A bill sponsored by Maine Reps. Mike Michaud and Tom Allen would also reverse the re-importation ban for Medicare.

Canadian fears of drug shortages may be overblown, but if the United States does not begin to negotiate prices, expect more conflict over the increasing popular cross-border drug trade.