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There are. It is mostly illegal to import drugs from overseas. There used to be 90 day exemptions that did in fact lead to many older Americans creating tour gr
by hiram112 10y ago
There are. It is mostly illegal to import drugs from overseas. There used to be 90 day exemptions that did in fact lead to many older Americans creating tour groups with the express purpose of crossing into either Canada or Mexico to purchase 90 days worth of drugs.
Big pharma lobbied to end this practice and it appears to be in a bit of a gray zone. When it comes to visa workers, we know that the rallying cry is 'severe shortage of skilled workers'. The analog talking point for drug imports is 'safety - think of poor grandma ordering some blood pressure meds and instead getting fakes or worse'. We can't allow imports and it's for your own good, citizen.
It is absolutely illegal for a wholesaler to import drugs for resale, though. This would essentially destroy big pharma's monopoly overnight, and it is absurd that this is rarely discussed. American consumers essentially subsidize the cost of medicine for the rest of the world (similar to military protection), and it is a large reason we spend more per capita with worse health than every other peer.
Interestingly, Trump is one of the few candidates that has ever pledged allow imports and cut off the pharma industry embargo. See point #7 on his page's plan for health care reform. Hillary's plan says vague things like 'more affordable health care for all working families' with no description of how this will be accomplished.