by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Jun 21, 2013 | Advocacy, Healthcare Reform, Politics
Maine residents may soon have easier access to lower cost prescription drugs from international online pharmacies, if Governor Paul LePage signs a bill recently passed by the Maine Legislature. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support – 107 yeas to 37 nays and seven abstentions in the House, and 30 yeas to four nays, with one excused in the Senate. The new law would make it expressly legal, not just “permitted,” to import medication for personal use. The bill was written partly as a response to the Maine Attorney General shutting down importation programs last September that were clearly safe and helping cut prescription costs. The bill’s passage would allow those programs to operate.
PharmacyChecker.com vice president Gabriel Levitt weighed in on Maine Public Broadcasting Network yesterday, defending consumers by explaining that millions of Americans who can’t afford medication are wrongly dissuaded from ordering it online: “The problem is certain groups, often funded by the pharmaceutical industry, are telling Americans that there’s no way to get medications safely online, and it is just not true.”
Listen to the broadcast and read the accompanying article here.
Tagged with: Maine, NPR
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | Mar 14, 2013 | Drug Importation, Politics, Saving Money on Prescription Drugs
The personal drug importation saga continues in the State of Maine this this week as legislators consider a bill that would allow state residents to order prescription medication from foreign pharmacies. The bill follows in the wake of – and as a response to – Maine Attorney General William Schneider’s suspension of drug importation programs last September. Pressured by local pharmacies, Schneider argued that licensed foreign pharmacies could not sell to Maine residents because they were not licensed by Maine.
As the bill’s name makes clear, An Act to Ensure Consumer Choice in the Purchase of Prescription Drugs (LD 449) aims to preserve consumer choice and facilitate personal drug importation in order to bring down drug costs. This bill calls for legal personal importation from the following countries: Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, South Africa, and any country in the European Union or European Economic Area.
According to a December poll conducted by the Press Herald, 92% of respondents felt that state residents should be allowed to purchase prescription drugs from Canada. LD 449 has support from Governor Paul LePage and the Maine State Employees Association. The City of Portland claims it saved $3.2 million through the importation program suspended by Attorney General Schneider.
The bill also has support from private employers. Scott Wellman, CFO of Hardwood Products Company, cited savings of $638,000 over the six years that the company’s employees imported medicine through CanaRx, a Canadian international mail-order pharmacy service.
The importation bill is noteworthy for declaring the existing legal impediments to importation an “emergency,” requiring that the legislation’s provisions take immediate effect. Maine’s legislators are taking a very progressive stance on personal drug importation, one that we’ll certainly continue to closely follow.
Tagged with: Maine
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Dec 20, 2012 | Advocacy, Online Pharmacies, Personal Drug Importation
The City of Portland, Maine, is up in arms because the Maine Attorney General recently shutdown that city’s personal drug importation program, Portlandmeds, as reported by the Press Herald. Portlandmeds has saved the city $3.2 million over the past eight years, and is a clear example of a municipal drug importation program that has worked extremely well.
Public response has been critical of the ban. A Press Herald survey asked “Should Maine allow residents to purchased prescription drugs from Canada?” The response: 715 out of 769 – 93% – voted yes.
Portland City Mayor Michael Brennan and other city officials expressed their grievances to 9 of 10 of Portland’s State lawmakers, asking them to back a bill allowing Maine residents to import medication from Canada as well as other countries. Mayor Brennan communicated that Maine’s governor, Paul LePage also supports the resumption of the drug importation program.
Opponents of personal drug importation are almost always funded by corporate interests seeking to protect their profits. The opposition in Maine is no exception. The Retail Association of Maine, which includes on its executive board employees of huge pharmacy chains Walgreens and Walmart, vehemently opposes Portlandmeds. As reported in the Press Herald, that association’s executive director’s communicated: “CanaRx is not licensed to do business in Maine…That makes it difficult to know exactly where the drugs are coming from, and possibly puts patients at risk.” CanaRx – the Canadian pharmacy dispensing medication for the Portlandmeds program, is duly licensed in Canada where the medication is just as safe as the medication sold in the United States. We don’t know of a single adverse health effect after eight years of the successful Portlandmeds program.
We know how much money personal drug importation can save Americans – safely – and wish the City of Portland luck in resuming its program.
Tagged with: Drug Importation, Maine, Municipal Drug Importation, PortlandMeds
