THE GREAT DRUG DEBATE.

This article discusses the issue of importing Canadian prescription drugs to the United States and its impact on the presidential elections in November 2004. It's been running since the summer in U.S. newspapers and magazines and is based on what happened when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration replied to spam from a website offering prescription savings from north of the border. Therein lies the strategy of the big pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and the Bush administration. Question the safety of importing Canadian prescription drugs, and question it often--and protect a U.S. market worth a whopping US $200 billion a year, even from their own increasingly irate citizens. Staunching the flow of cheaper brand name drugs from Canada--where they can cost up to 80 per cent less than in the U.S. because of federal regulations here and the weaker Canadian currency--is good only for short-term profits, argues Rost. Opening the market further to U.S. states, or even the Costcos and Wal-Marts of the world, adds MacKay, would be ruinous for exporters because Canada simply doesn't have enough drugs to supply that kind of surge in U.S. demand.