Drugs

When Brian Schweitzer got elected Governor I made the prediction that prescription drugs would come pouring over the border from Canada thanks to his <s>hare-brained scheme</s> <a href="http://www.brianschweitzer.com/drug_plan.html" target="_blank">prescription drug plan</a>.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>Schweitzer's plan calls for allowing local Montana pharmacists to re-import safe, affordable prescription drugs from Canada, where American made, U.S. taxpayer subsidized medicine is sold for as little as half the US retail price.</blockquote><br />n<br />nSounds like a perfectly resonable idea but has anyone talked to the Canadians about it? It seems the Canadian health minister has a <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041111/ap_on_re_ca/canada_drugs" target="_blank">little problem</a> with this idea.<br />n<br />n<blockquote> "It is difficult for me to conceive of how a small country like Canada could meet the prescription drug needs of approximately 280 million Americans without putting our own supply at serious risk," Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said in prepared text for a speech at Harvard Medical School<br />n<br />n"To me it is a matter of common sense that Canada cannot be the drug store of the United States," he said. "Neither American consumers nor Canadian suppliers should have any illusions otherwise." </blockquote><br />n<br />nSo according to Canada our Governor-elect's prescription drug plan is an illusion. We'll have to see how his other promises turn out.<br />n<br />n<b>For it is a land of illusion, a place in the mind, a shimmering mirage of riches and mystery and death. These illusions have distorted its landscape and contorted its history. Richard E. Lingenfelter</b>