AUGUSTA – An apparent increase in the seizure of mail-order drugs from other countries, mostly Canada, is angering members of Congress and causing concern among advocates that some seniors could be placed at risk.

“It is unacceptable,” Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe said in an interview last week. “It is regrettable, frankly, that individuals … face confiscation of medications that they have felt compelled to go across the border to buy because they cannot afford them in the United States.”

Snowe said reports from Canadian pharmacies that drug seizures by U.S. Customs have increased dramatically are troubling to her and will likely lead to further attempts to legalize the sales. One pharmacy reported that more than 800 shipments to the U.S. were seized in January, as compared to a typical month when 15 had been seized.

“I think officials are being overly aggressive,” Snowe said. “They should not be doing that and it is unfortunate that they are doing that.”

Rep. Tom Allen said last week he shares Snowe’s outrage. He said Congress has made it clear that Americans should be able to bring a 90-day supply of medications into the country for their own use and the seizures would violate that policy.

“The underlying problem is that Congress has done nothing to drive down the cost of prescription drugs for Americans,” he said. “In many cases, it’s cheaper to do mail order. It’s cheaper to buy from Canada than it is to go through these Medicare prescription drug plans run by the insurance companies.”

Officials at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency deny an increase in seizures, but a survey of 30 of the largest Canadian pharmacies indicates otherwise. A California senior citizen advocacy group said their survey indicates seizures doubled in December and doubled again in January.

John Carr, president of the Maine Council of Senior Citizens, agrees with Allen. He said seniors as well as other Mainers are buying drugs through Canadian pharmacies.

“We have a lot of uninsured or those that have that catastrophic coverage that buy their own drugs,” he said. “They are getting the very same drugs from Canada for a lot less than they can buy them here.”

The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured estimates that Maine has about 131,000 uninsured adults and children. The research group estimates another 53,000 Mainers are covered by individual policies of all types. There is no breakdown by type of insurance coverage available.

Most Mainers, an estimated 653,000, have insurance coverage through their employers and about 230,000 are covered by Medicaid.

Carr said the council used to organize bus trips to Canada for seniors, but that has been replaced by mail-order and Internet purchases. He said the bus trips have become too expensive with increased fuel costs.

“We just did not have the money to continue to help pay for them,” he said. “But we have been giving out the name of some Canadian pharmacies. This is big business for Canada.”

Carr said that although he is not aware of any cases where Mainers have had drugs seized recently, he “would not be surprised” if some seizures had been made.

No one tracks how many Mainers are buying their drugs from Canadian pharmacies, but they number “in the thousands,” according to Jude Walsh of the Maine Governor’s Office of Health Policy. She said while Maine is doing better than the nation as a whole in the numbers of citizens with health insurance coverage, about 5 percent of the prescriptions sold in the state are cash sales.

“That’s a small percentage, but it is still too many individuals,” she said. “When people pay the cash price, they are paying the highest price.”

She said insurers and the Medicaid program negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers.

Mary McPherson with the Maine Equal Justice Project, a group that advocates for low-income Mainers, said there is another group that may be turning to Canadian pharmacies as an unintended consequence of the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.

“We have been hearing from people that were getting free or reduced drugs from programs offered by the drug companies,” she said. “They were notified when the Part D program took effect that they were no longer going to get that help.”

McPherson said many can get coverage through the new Medicare benefit, but not all.

Snowe said Congress should allow imported drugs to be sold in American pharmacies. She said the drug industry is “the most protected” in the nation and competition would lower drug prices for all Americans.