Recently a group of 12 wealthy Bellevue women meeting to play bridge were asked about the illegal purchasing of drugs. They were all very concerned about the use of marijuana but when asked about buying prescription drugs from Canada, they were not even aware that it was illegal. Ten of the twelve women were actually buying prescription drugs from Canada, an action that is technically illegal in Washington state.
If wealthy Bellevue women are purchasing Canadian drugs, many other Washington citizens are no doubt doing the same. Pressure has been building recently to legalize buying prescription drugs from Canada. In the recent Washington legislative session, a bill to legalize prescription drugs from Canada, HB 2469, passed in the House on February 13, 2004 but did not come to a vote in the Senate. It is true that American drug prices are high and that it is difficult for many Americans to pay for the medicine they need. But buying drugs from Canada is not the answer.
Brand name drugs are cheaper in Canada because the government sets the manufacturers' prices for all patented drugs in Canada. Generic drugs actually cost more in Canada, however, as the government sets their price at 70% of the brand name drug it is replacing. Many generic drugs are sold on the Internet to Americans who think they are getting a bargain but may not be.
Buying prescription drugs from Canada is not a viable long-term solution to shield Americans from high drug costs. Because the amount of drugs in Canada is only a very small proportion of the total number of prescription drugs used in America, exporting from Canada will quickly use up the government-approved Canadian supply. In 2003, for instance, Canadians spent $14.6 billion on prescription drugs in 2003 while Americans spent more than $160 billion.
Therefore, if Americans continue to export from Canada, the drugs they will be getting will be from non-Canadian sources, that have merely been routed through Canada or sold off Canadian websites. While the Canadian government guarantees the safety of the limited amount of drugs needed for its own citizens, there is no guarantee that drugs that are illegally imported from Canada are safe. Drugs bought off Canadian websites may actually be from Iran, Argentina, South Africa or Brazil. Drugs from such countries may be counterfeit and contaminated - in Brazil, for instance, over 50% of some classes of drugs are counterfeit. The profits for counterfeiting drugs are better than counterfeiting money and the punishments are far less (the maximum sentence for counterfeiting a medicine is three years in jail - often they can get off with just probation).
The experience of one of the speakers at Washington Policy Center's recent Health Care 2004 Conference, Rick Roberts, illustrates the dangers and reality of counterfeit drugs. Roberts, a University of San Francisco professor, became ill in 1988 with AIDS and failed to respond well to a number of initial treatments. He finally found a drug that he responded well to, but several months after beginning the drug he began to notice a stinging at the injection site. When he next saw the pharmacist, two months later, he asked if something was wrong. The pharmacist responded: "You might have gotten some of the fake stuff."
After months of intensive lab work, they discovered that he had received two different types of counterfeit medicine - the first was the hormone that women produce when they are pregnant and the second was 1/6 of the strength of the growth hormone that he was supposed to be taking and had been contaminated.
The counterfeit medicine that Roberts received was packaged identically to the authentic medicine and there was no way a lay person could have told the difference between the two medicines. Counterfeits such as this are more likely when drugs are brought in illegally from other countries, such as Canada. The longer the supply chain becomes, the harder it is to guarantee the safety of a prescription drug. Roberts declared that he had found from his own experience: "No discount is worth risking your life."