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Yesterday, the Florida House Legislature voted 93-22 passing HB 19. The bill creates programs and processes for importing prescription drugs from Canada, as well as from other countries

An article I wrote that was recently published in The Nation hopefully brings to greater public attention the FDA’s conflation of clearly safe channels for personal prescription imports with counterfeit drugs, the opioid crisis, and rogue online pharmacies. On February 27, in a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for FDA funding, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree asked then–FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb for his thoughts on drug importation from Canada, noting that people from Maine can buy much lower cost medicines across the border [watch from 1:34:23 for this exchange]. In its press release, the FDA weaves a sinister narrative, using language that is eerily similar to that employed by organizations and experts funded by drug companies: “Operations like CanaRx use their names to imply that patients are receiving medicines approved in Canada, when it’s likely that patients are receiving medicines from other countries, and which may be sub-potent, super-potent or counterfeit. Until we actually lower prices in the United States, the FDA should not aggravate the crisis of high drug prices in America by trying to shut down CanaRx or other avenues of safe personal-drug importation.

This week Purdue Pharma settled with the state of Oklahoma for $270 million to avoid a trial charging the company with what I call opioid drug dealing. As drug companies and their allies in the drug supply chain continue to use the opioid crisis as a means to oppose prescription drug importation to lower drug prices in the U.S., we can only look on with amazement at their audacity. In the meantime, some of those same drug companies can celebrate because now patients who are addicted to opioid drugs need prescription narcotic treatments. Most rehabilitation programs don’t include use of opioid-based treatments based on the belief that you can’t treat opioid addiction with other medicines containing opioids.

However, it does criticize the Trump administration’s drug importation idea, proposed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, which calls for a working group to discuss limited drug importation of lower-cost, foreign-approved versions of single source medications. The FGI Report is specifically dismissive of Secretary Azar’s idea for new, limited drug importation of off-patent medicines where there is limited competition in the U. S. marketplace: The FGI Report is correct that we must give federal agencies what they need to combat dangerous online pharmacies, counterfeit drugs and the opioid crisis, with a particular emphasis on illegal imports of fentanyl and other narcotics. Let’s harness the knowledge imparted about law enforcement within the FGI Report so that we’re laser focused on the sources of real public health threats: such as acts by drug companies that lead to the overprescribing of opioid drugs; stopping illegal fentanyl and other opioid drugs from getting into the country; increasing penalties against people who actually make fake medicine and intentionally sell it, with a particular focus on counterfeit drugs made with fentanyl ingredients.