Battle brews over Canadian drug bill

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, May 12, 2005 | 9:40 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A showdown was expected today over a bill that would make it easier for Nevadans to import Canadian drugs.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said she expects opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and maybe the federal government on Assembly Bill 195, which was to be heard this morning in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.

The bill would create a state-run Web site that would link residents to pharmacies in Canada that have been approved by state inspectors.

Canadian drugs are significantly less expensive than drugs in the United States. The most common drug prescribed to seniors, Lipitor, costs about $35 in Canada but up to $74 using the Medicare card in the United States.

"It's not fair and it's not right," Buckley said Wednesday at a rally for lower drug costs coordinated with the AARP.

The bill won passage last month in the Assembly, 29-12, with objections coming from Republicans who said importing Canadian drugs cuts the profit that drug companies use to research and develop new drugs.

Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee, said he hasn't made up his mind yet on the bill.

"Everybody wants low-cost, safe prescription drugs," Townsend said Wednesday. "Is this the right vehicle? I don't know. We'll find out tomorrow."

But Townsend has invited Chris Ward, a former Canadian lawmaker and representative of the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America, to talk to the committee.

Townsend said that Ward should give his view on the increasing number of states and cities that are encouraging residents and employees to reimport Canadian drugs.

"He's just been asked to testify on what's going on," Townsend said. "We don't know how they do things up there."

But Buckley said that Ward is basically a representative of the drug industry, which worries that reimportation programs that cut into their profit.

Ward is an outspoken critic of states that encourage drug reimportation. He has been quoted in various publications as saying the drugs sold online might not be as regulated as other Canadian drugs and that the United States is tapping out Canada's drug supply.

The issue of prescription drug costs is emotional and tends to cross party lines. Claudia Higgins, a Carson City resident who attended the AARP rally in front of the Legislature on Wednesday, said she and her husband spend about half of their income on health care costs, including prescription drugs.

While she and her husband are both on Medicare and have private health care coverage, she said their prescription drug costs keep rising.

"They're going up all the time," the 70-year-old retiree said. "You wonder what they do with all this money."

Townsend said he has the same concerns that others have expressed with the bill: that it might violate federal drug laws, provide unsafe drugs to residents or open the state to liability.

"That and 50 more questions," he said.

Gov. Kenny Guinn has echoed those concerns, saying he won't sign a bill if he thinks Nevadans would be breaking federal law by using the Web site.

Buckley tried to assuage those concerns Wednesday by bringing in Cal Ludeman, the commissioner for the Department of Employee Relations in Minnesota, which implemented a drug reimportation program in 2004.

Ludeman said the state's Web site has helped fill about 12,000 prescriptions for Minnestoa's 5 million residents.

And about 5,000 prescriptions have been filled for the state's 120,000 employees, who pay no co-pay if they order through Canada.

Ludeman said there have been no legal problems, and no problems with people getting unsafe medication.

He admits that few people have taken advantage of the program, but he said it's a good start to getting affordable drugs and sending a message to Washington D.C. that people want meaningful drug reform.

"This is not an issue about the safety," he said. "This is about the pricing structure we've been told we have to live with not only in this country but throughout the world."

In fact, the program arose partly because the state's governor had concerns with people ordering drugs from Canada with no state oversight, Ludeman said.

"The governor said this is absurd and dangerous," Ludeman said.

Eight states currently have Web sites that link residents to Canadian pharmacies.