Homeland Security intercepts drugs from Canada....is this plausible?

I saw this letter to the editor today, and it really got my attention. I have no idea if this really happened or not. If it did, it is very upsetting.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051227/NEWS/512270310/1037/EDIT

Published Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Harsh Medicine

It's nothing but a KGB wannabe.

Who thought up the name?

Why not call it "Fatherland Security" and be done with it?

Shouldn't George Orwell be getting a nickel everytime someone uses the term "Homeland Security"? Isn't this copyright infringement?

Doug D.

to buy medicine unless it is medicine approve by us?

Freedom my ass, Liberty my ass, Democracy my ass.

seriously - I've heard this, that the drugs purchased in Canada aren't regulated by the FDA and people may not be getting what they pay for and may be harmed. Of course this is a big pile of smelly horseshit, because the drugs all come from the same manufacturer.

They'll probably give the Zocor back to Astra-Zeneca to resell, since they Canadian government is cheating them out of their profits. :eyes:

So much for them protecting Americans from unsafe drugs.

in cahoots with Merck because of the huge profits to be made. The drug was rushed through clinical trials and known side effects were overlooked by a whole group of people, including those within the FDA. Corporations run this country; big pharma is in charge.

What really pisses me off about B*shCabal™ is that they
are never content to simply lie, cheat, steal and murder;
they have a "bully mentality" COMPULSION to insult our intelligence
while they do it.

That and the fact that the majority of the fools in this country lack the intelligence to figure it out!

...the "COMPULSION to insult our intelligence
while they do it"...

That's what absolutely INFURIATES me as well!

:rant:

:kick:

I read this and just got angry. I can not believe this kind of stuff is happening in this once great country.

They scare us with scary black market knockoffs from Mexico; but we all know manufacturing isn't profitable and everything is done outside the US anyway. The medical industry will not lower its profits in the name of safety; that much is obvious.

I just did a search and found several things. This really upset me.

http://geoffandwen.com/Blind/newsarticle.asp?u_id=9514

Canada prescription pipeline drying up
11/1/2005

From: Florida Today
By: BRIAN MONROE, FLORIDA TODAY
Submitted by Leon Gilbert

Business is dwindling for cheaper drugs from Canada

CAPTION: Suntree Pharmacy owner Ross Clark, right, said the difference in prices between drugs received from Canada and a local pharmacy is shrinking. In some cases, local pharmacies have better prices, he said. Tim Shortt, FLORIDA TODAY

"Charles Barker, 75, comes to Melbourne every few weeks to pick up his mail-order prescription medications.

Parker gets them from Canada to save more than $300 a month. He lived in Palm Bay for more than 50 years but is moving to the Panhandle.

When he checked his post office box recently, though, he didn't get his three-month supply of glaucoma medicine. Instead, he found a letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration saying his medicine had been confiscated. He never got it back. Barker's pharmacy in Canada had to resend it to him. He hopes it doesn't get intercepted again.

"If it was marijuana, fine, grab it," Barker said, adding that all of his prescription notes are from a doctor in Melbourne. His wife, Ava, also gets her medicines from Canada.

"These are the same drugs I can get at a local pharmacy, but there, I would pay twice the price," Charles Barker said.

Experts say what the Barkers experienced was a "spot check." But many retirees and others without insurance are finding it more difficult to slip their prescriptions past the FDA or find a local outlet willing to help them find cheaper medicine across the border -- a $1 billion industry.

In January 2003, there were at least five Canadian drug outlet storefronts in Brevard County, boasting savings to retirees of between 30 percent and 70 percent.

Now, it appears only two remain: Canada Connection in Rockledge and Senior Care Insurance Advisors in Titusville. This trend of dwindling Canadian outlets is occurring for two reasons, experts said.

First, the state two years ago issued cease-and-desist orders, threatening jail time to operators of major outlets in that helped import Canadian drugs. Many operations have closed, and others that didn't are trying to fly under the radar."

and leave the seniors alone.

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:IRooXfhPr-oJ:www.elderlawanswers.com/news/xcnewsplus.asp%3Fcmd%3Dview%26articleid%3D217+zocor,+confiscated,+canada&hl=en

Buying Prescription Drugs From Canada: Legal or Illegal?
Mail To A Friend

Date: 10/30/2002
Written By: ElderLawAnswers.com
"Thousands of U.S. citizens have discovered that one way to beat the high cost of prescription drugs is to buy them from Canada, where the government controls drug prices. First there were organized bus trips across the border to fill prescriptions. Now, some 50 licensed Internet pharmacies with names like CanadaMeds.com, RxNorth.com and PayLessMeds.com have sprung up across Canada to fill orders from American consumers.

The savings can be dramatic. A three-month supply of the cholesterol drug Zocor costs $327.86 from U.S.-based Drugstore.com, but only $189.55 if ordered from the Manitoba-based Hometownmeds.com. Ninety 20-mg tablets of the breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen sell for $287 in the U.S. and less than $50 in Canada.

But is it legal to buy medications from Canadian pharmacies? The answer is, technically no, but U.S. officials are allowing it to happen.

Under the Prescription Drug Marketing Act of 1987, it is illegal for anyone other than the original manufacturer to bring prescription drugs into the country. However, federal officials have decided to exercise "enforcement discretion" in dealing with prescription drugs brought across the border, provided the drugs are not narcotics or other controlled substances. This means that as long as a person brings back no more than a three-month supply for personal use, border officials generally look the other way, Thomas McGinnis, director of pharmacy affairs for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in March 2001. Patients generally may order refills in amounts up to a three-month supply without interference.

What about ordering over the Internet? Prescription drugs cannot be legally mailed into the United States by foreign "e-pharmacies." But here again officials are employing "enforcement discretion," preferring to use limited resources to crack down on large commercial drug supplies and narcotics, not prescription-drug shipments for personal consumption. Thus, customs officials allow the companies to mail up to 90-day supplies of medications. "

the real 'war on drugs' was. Like, we ever had a serious one to begin with. Darn Canada, cutting into our big pharma profits.:sarcasm:

in fact, my mother can't get more than a month or two of her drugs at a time......because of the possibility that she might sell them to an American.

The US is the ONLY country in the world that has no cap on drugs. Period.

That's an outrageous abuse of corporate power, especially since the bulk of their expenses aren't for R&D.......it's for advertising.

On average, drugs here are about 1/3 of the American price. Of course, part of that is that instead of allowing the druggist to charge whatever markup the market will bear, there is a mandated dispensing fee.......at least, there is in Ontario.

with abominable standards that we obviously need protection from. :sarcasm:

The only thing "Homeland Security" is protecting is the profits of American drug corporations. They don't give a rat's bum about the citizens.