Millions buying meds abroad

As drug prices spiral, many are importing them illegally

As drug prices have spiraled upward in the past decade, tens of millions of generally law-abiding Americans have committed an illegal act in response: They have bought prescriptions outside the U.S. and imported them.

One was Debra Miller, of Collinston, La., who traveled to Mexico four times a year for 10 years to get diabetes and blood pressure medicine. She quit in 2011 after the border patrol caught her returning to the U.S. with a threemonth supply that had cost her $40. The former truck driver drew a stern warning not to do it again but got to keep her pills.

“I didn’t know what I did wrong,” said Miller, 51, who now pays $120 a month at Wal-Mart for her five medications while she waits to join Medicaid.

It’s no secret that some Americans regularly buy prescription drugs on the internet or while traveling abroad. But the popularity of the approach is underscored by the results of a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in November. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

Eight percent of respondents said they or someone in their household had imported a drug at some point, a figure that would translate to about 19 million adults in the U.S. based on current Census Bureau population estimates.

Even the proportion found in the poll may be low, said Andrew Zullo, a clinical pharmacist and a doctoral student at the Brown University School of Public Health who has researched the subject.

“People are uncomfortable talking about the cost of their own health care, and they don’t want to admit they are struggling to pay for their own meds,” he said.

The internet has made it easier for Americans to buy prescription drugs abroad, frequently from disreputable sources, ac Jaime Ruiz, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said.

The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned that many online pharmacies aren’t what they seem to be. An international crackdown in 2014 found that many packages of medicines purportedly from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. contained drugs from other countries, including India, China and Laos.

Zullo acknowledged that imported medications could be inferior or expired. Some could be counterfeits. When purchased outside the country, many prescription medicines cost half or less than they do in the U.S.

According to the FDA’s website, it is generally illegal for Americans to import drugs into the U.S. for personal use. The law isn’t rigorously enforced.

Amanda Mazumder, a 27-year-old graphic designer in St. Paul, Minn., was stressed trying to buy birth control pills while in college five years ago. She couldn’t afford to pay $150 a month for her birth control but found an online Canadian pharmacy that sold her a three-month supply for $60.

“That was the most difficult part, trying to be an honest citizen but also getting an affordable prescription,” she said.