MONTPELIER, Vt. – State officials plan to ask the Food and Drug Administration for permission to help state workers get better deals on prescription drugs by importing them from Canada.

Borrowing from a program established by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Vermont Gov. James Douglas announced Wednesday the state’s first tentative steps toward moving state employees toward the lower-priced Canadian drugs.

Douglas is reluctant to flout federal law that does not explicitly permit drugs, which were originally manufactured in the United States to be sold in Canada, to be reimported at a reduced cost.

So for the time being he has directed the state Personnel Department to publicize among state workers, retirees and their families that the state does reimburse individuals who buy drugs north of the border.

“We believe providing information to employees would be acceptable to the federal Food and Drug Administration,” Douglas said of himself and Pawlenty. “By putting information on the [state] Web site, we shouldn’t run afoul of the FDA.”

Administration Secretary Michael Smith and Personnel Commissioner Cynthia LaWare are working on an application to the FDA for permission to provide additional information and perhaps assistance to state employees in buying their drugs through Canada.

Ultimately, they would like the FDA’s approval to hire a company or agency in Canada to essentially act as a broker to buy the prescriptions and forward them to state workers.

“The extent to what we can put [on the state Web site] might vary depending on the response of the FDA,” Douglas said.

Smith said the application would probably be filed with the FDA within the next two weeks. The Personnel Department is still researching how much savings might be available through Canadian reimportation, but Smith said a rough guess is that the savings could be between 10 percent and 20 percent.

Douglas conceded that even if his administration is successful with the FDA, there still is no mechanism to actually reduce drug costs. “The cost of prescription drugs is perplexing to policymakers and individuals, and has for some time,” he said.

Not even the Medicare reform bill approved by Congress this week seeks to reduce costs.

For the time being, Douglas said, buying drugs through Canada is a good policy to pursue for the state’s employees.

“I believe reimportation is not a long-term solution, but rather a way to bring Vermonters short-term relief,” he said.