Senate OK's Canadian drug import plan

Prescription drugs -- even those manufactured in the United States -- are generally sold at cheaper prices in Canada.

``We should demand that [Customs and Border Protection] focus on the true priority that we face on the war on terror," said Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, of efforts to secure US borders. ``Stripping small amounts of prescription drugs from the hands of seniors . . . that should not be a priority."

Vitter's plan, which was embraced by Democrats, specifically would prohibit Customs and Border Protection from stopping people with doctors' prescriptions for FDA-approved drugs from bringing the medicine into this country from Canada.

But Republican leaders vociferously opposed the plan for fear, they said, the drugs could be unsafe for consumers -- or even present a terror risk.

Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said the proposal was an attempt to push the FDA into reversing itself while ``creating a massive hole on our capacity to secure our borders and protect ourselves."

``If I were a creative terrorist, I would say to myself, `Hey, listen, all I've got to do is produce a can here that says `Lipitor' on it, make it look like the original Lipitor bottle, which isn't too hard to do, fill it with anthrax," Gregg said.

Lipitor is a cholesterol-lowering drug.

Aides said the drug import plan was likely to be stripped out of the legislation -- as it has been in past years -- whenever it got to a conference of House and Senate lawmakers who will negotiate the final version.

The administration also has opposed efforts to loosen the restrictions.

Two House spending bills this year -- to fund the Homeland Security and Agriculture departments in 2007 -- include the drug importation plan, said Kirstin Brost, spokeswoman for Representative David Obey of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.