Should there be resctrictions for prescription Rx bought outside the US ?

Question

I have to debate why there should or should not be restrictions placed on prescription drugs brought back into the US.
I need to know the pro's and the cons.

Answer 1

There are many great things about living in the US and one of which is restrictions placed on who can prescribe drugs. Now you have a medical professional with 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 3-5 years of post-graduate training all to learn how to prescribe medications without hurting the patient.

Outside of the US, Mexico (for example) their medications can be purchased over-the-counter. Everything from very powerful steroids to heart medications to antibiotics can be purchased as easily as a pack of gum. People end up mis-diagnosing and mis-treating themselves, frequently causing irreperable harm. Another wonderful thing about the US is the FDA. The FDA helps to regulate what's in a medication. If a company puts out a heart medication the company is required to actually put medication into the pill. Not so outside the US. Some of the over-the-counter medications may not have any active ingredients or they may be toxic with too many ingredients, both of which are dangerous.

Now, people shouldn't buy these medications in developing worlds anyway, but caveat empor. The problem comes when people buy these discount, dangerous medications and try to bring them back into the US to sell. Bad idea.

I'm assuming that your debate will center not on the problems with Mexico, but with Canada.

Think about this before slamming pharmacutical companies as leechs sucking away honest Americans' dollars. These companies spend MILLIONS of dollars on research and development to get one medication to the market. This doesn't even cover the thousands of medications that fail on the way to market. Every time you get sick and take a pill to improve your health, thank a pharmacutical company, the FDA, and your prescribing physician.

As people flood over the borders to Canada to buy subsidized medications know this. They don't deserve the medications... That sound's inflammatory but hear me out. Not paying full price for the medications defrauds the pharmacutical company as they are not getting paid for their honest work of making the medication. They also have fewer research-and-development dollars to put into new medications to treat the cancer you'll develop in 10-20 years. Also, they are defrauding the Canadians. The Canadians have agreed to a socialized medical system. Americans didn't. These hard-working Canadians agreed to have a big portion of their paycheck taken away from them to pay for medications should they need them. They did not agree to pay for greedy Americans tired of paying out of pocket for a product that they want to have for free. Essentially it's stealing. Plain and simple. Any rationalization behind it is just that... a rationalization.

Answer 2

Read the new book by Greg Cristler called Generation RX then make up your own mind. And it's actually the other way around, other countries would like to place restrictions on sending drugs to the US. Years ago this was a more common practice, but their supplies were being depleted, especially from the elderly, who were getting their medicines at a third of the price. It should be a crime what the drug companies get away with in this country!! The book will open your eyes and it has some really good information in it.

Answer 3

There are restrictions, but they are hard to enforce. The most obvious problem with drugs being sent to the US from other countries is the quality of the product. Countries like India manufacture generic brands that mimic the original drugs. There is little quality control of some of these companies. The good side of the argument, they cost a lot less.

Answer 4

No there shouldn't be restrictions on prescription medicine bought outside the country. All our political parasites are always gloating about how great the global economy is, until it hurts the corporate fat cats who own them lock, stock and barrel. If it was truely a global economy, we'd be able to buy anything, anywhere!

Answer 5

Hell no. We get price gouged enough as it is. Why is it that the same drug sells in another country for half the price or less???

I can't see any cons. Drug companies are ripping us off

Answer 6

That depends on whether you are talking about the drug supply then yes - or the individual purchases then - buyer beware

Answer 7

http://video.google.com:80/videoplay?doc...