WASHINGTON – Senators from Maine and New Hampshire exchanged barbs about the safety of importing prescription drugs during a debate over a bill that would allow pharmacists to buy Canadian drugs and sell them at lower costs.

In a fiery exchange Tuesday on the Senate floor, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., accused Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, of throwing away 100 years of federal law and regulation by advocating the bill. “If you buy a pill, you want it to cure you, not kill you,” Gregg said.

Snowe replied that Gregg was not describing the bill accurately. She said the bill would allow only drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration and manufactured at plants the FDA had inspected to be imported.

The bill under debate would allow wholesalers and pharmacists to import drugs from Canada, Europe and other countries, provided those drugs have been approved by the FDA and come from regulated manufacturing plants.

The exchange between two of northern New England’s senior senators underscores just how tempered opinions are even among neighboring states so close to the border over allowing American consumers to import drugs at cheaper costs.

In both states, poor and uninsured residents routinely travel to Canada to buy medicines at about half price.

The bill’s opponents argue that curbing drug prices could discourage research into new and innovative medication. But Snowe said drug research and development in the United States totals $32 billion, compared to $26 billion in Europe.

David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner, had said during testimony that legalizing prescription-drug imports from Canada and elsewhere would make the practice safer for U.S. consumers.