Crackdown eases on medications from Canada

A change in the government's policy on buying medication from Canada could make it easier for Americans to buy drugs from abroad but won't make such purchases legal, a Nebraska official said today.

"No matter how you slice or dice it, it's still against the law," said Roger Kaczmarek, chairman of the Nebraska Board of Pharmacy, which regulates drug sales in the state.

He commented on a Los Angeles Times report that the federal government plans to halt a controversial crackdown on discount drugs mailed from Canadian pharmacies to U.S. customers. Earlier this week, the Times said, customs officials sent an e-mail to some members of Congress indicating they would abandon the seizure policy next Monday.

Instead of the broad effort, the e-mail said, the agency would sample and test mail-order medications for counterfeits and ineffective ingredients on "randomly generated days throughout the fiscal year."

Kaczmarek said such a change could help catch counterfeit medications that are ineffective or harmful to customers, although he hadn't heard reports of people's health suffering from drugs they purchased from Canada.

Health authorities believe some of the medications come from the Middle East, Central America or other areas without sufficient quality controls.

Kaczmarek said the number of people buying drugs from Canada may have declined since last year, when Medicare added some drug coverage. Many of those making the purchases are senior citizens who otherwise had to pay the entire cost of their medications through U.S. pharmacies.

Some consumers order the drugs over the Internet. Since 2004, Canada Drug of Omaha, which has an office on West Center Road, has faxed customers' prescriptions to a pharmacy in Winnipeg, which then mails medications to consumers.

Suzi Hadan, who manages the office, said the medications that customers buy through the office are the same as those sold to the pharmacy's customers in Canada and the same as those purchased in the United States.

Thousands of people from across the United States order through the office, she said. In the past year three shipments have been seized. When that happens, the customer receives a letter from the customs office. The customer tells Canada Drug what happened, and the company sends a new shipment.

Hadan said the new federal policy apparently emphasizes catching counterfeit medications, a step she favors.

"Nobody wants counterfeits shipped into the states," she said. "That's defeating the purpose of getting medications at a fair price."

According to the Times report, the reversal by the Department of Homeland Security, which operates U.S. Customs and Border Protection, could eliminate much of the fear among senior citizens and other consumers that drugs purchased from Canadian mail-order houses would be confiscated.

The move reverses a policy that began last November around the time enrollment opened for the Medicare drug plan. The Canadian shipments had been confiscated out of concern about safety, but consumer advocates and others argued that the crackdown was an effort to limit competition in the pharmaceutical market and force senior citizens on fixed incomes to sign up for new Medicare plans.

The change comes as millions of senior citizens on Medicare drug plans were expected to hit the "doughnut hole," the gap in coverage created by Medicare law that requires enrollees to pay the full cost of medicines after their total annual drug spending exceeds $2,250. Coverage kicks in again only if annual drug expenses hit $5,100.

As a result, many low-income senior citizens were considering going without needed medications through the end of the year, advocates said.

Although it is illegal for individuals to import pharmaceuticals to take advantage of price differences, the Food and Drug Administration historically had turned a blind eye to personal purchases of non-narcotic prescription drugs from Canada and Mexico in shipments of as much as three months' worth.

That changed Nov. 17 when Customs got involved and began a quiet crackdown on foreign mail-order drugs. By some estimates, more than 40,000 packages were seized.

Canadian mail-order pharmacies said seizures jumped from between 3 percent and 5 percent of their U.S. shipments to a peak earlier this year of more than 20 percent. They said seizures declined after the crackdown was disclosed in news reports.