Rx Depot Ordered to Close Stores

[RedEarth]

Rx Depot ordered to close stores
By THERESA AGOVINO
The Associated Press

MIAMI - The Justice Department has ordered Rx Depot to close up shop, as the Bush administration is seeking to close stores that help consumers buy cheaper drugs from Canada.

In a letter Tuesday to Rx Depot's president, Carl Moore, the Justice Department said it will sue Moore unless he agrees by Thursday to shut down the company's 85 stores.

Rx Depot has a franchise at 7317 W. 95th St. in Overland Park.

The Justice Department said the stores, which are sometimes called Rx of Canada, violate federal law by helping U.S. consumers import drugs from Canada. Only manufacturers are allowed to import medicines into the country.

Moore said he had no intention of signing the agreement.

"Just because this is the federal government, this does not scare me," he said. "I look forward to my day in court."

"We're doing nothing illegal," said Hunt-Hansen, whose store has been open for nine weeks. She said her customers, mainly senior citizens, save 50 percent or more ordering their prescriptive drugs through her from a Canadian pharmacy.

"How can the Justice Department do this to all the senior citizens of the country? This has to be coming from the pharmaceutical industry, since profits are involved," Hunt-Hansen said.





This is another example of how Ashcroft and b... have been bought off by big pharmaceutical companies. For seniors and many others, the ability to be able to buy drugs cheaper in Canada is the only way they can afford to purchase their medicine. For the government to say they are doing this for safety reasons is total nonesense, since the drugs that are sold in Canada are the same drugs available in the US. However, in the US they cost twice as much.

I stongly urge everyone to write their representatives in Congress to urge them to stop these kinds of lawsuits as well as other legislation that prevents the public from buying pharmaceuticals in Canada.




http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/6731586.htm

[hang a left]

1. Don't these pricks have

other things to do. The scarey thing for Rx is that they will ruin them financially. Never ending litigation.

[Ediacara]

2. I hope this gets major press

Fucking over seniors (and well EVERYONE else too) is shitty. The only people who don't want cheaper drugs are pharmaceutical CEOs... The DOJ has tried to play this off as a safety issue, which is BS. Most of these drugs from Canada are manufactured in the United States, and even if manufactured in Canada, it's CANADA! It's not like it's freaking Somali or Tajik manfactured drugs....

[disgruntella]

3. similar article from my state

Cheaper drugs from Canada forbidden here
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2003/08/08/build/local/45-rx.inc

The arguments for higher drug prices are simply ludicrous: "Consumer safety" -- how safe am I if I can't afford to take medication I need to survive? Then there's the pharmaceutical companies' legal bills, that I guess we as consumers should be more than happy to pay for. :puke:

[RedEarth]

9. What you just said is exactly right...

If you can't afford your medicine, you certainly aren't safe. I know an owner(a former independent pharmacist)of one these Rx Depot pharmacies and he mentioned the majority of his customers are senior citizens and people that are unemployed(or underemployed). He said if they couldn't order through him, they would not be able to afford to take their medicine. So as you pointed out, how safe is that!

On a side note....the owner of this Rx Depot franchise, mentioned he used to be a repub, but has now switched to the Democratic party. He said it took him 55 years to finally see the light, but now realizes how corrupt the repubs are.

[Occulus]

4. My Letter to the Editor

of this paper:

My name is XXXXX, and I'm from ZZZ. I'd just like to point out that this article is just another example of how corporate personhood ruins people's lives.
 
We are Americans. We should be able to buy any product we can buy here from any country with whom we have normal trade relations, yet US corporations, as persons under the law, can claim that since I'm not buying their product from their own official market, we're costing them money (the same argument the RIAA uses). Actually they're only losing profits. Big deal, and so what. They're still making money, just not as much, and I consider all their arguments that steps should be taken legally to minimize lost profits to be a horrible, unpatriotic, and outright dangerous use of the American legal system.
 
Also, the argument that these drugs are somehow less safe in Canada than they are here is a) an insult to Canada, b) an insult to the intelligence of Americans, and c) pure drug industry propaganda. In truth, the drugs sold in Canada are exactly the same ones as those sold here in the US... just a whole lot cheaper. And that, friend, is why Herr Ashkroft is considering suit.
 
As persons, corporations can and do contribute money into our political system. That alone has created such an incredible amount of corruption in our government (legislation is being written by corporations, not citizens, and being submitted for consideration by the people they contribute during campaigns to the most; this is true throughout the political spectrum).
 
This article is yet another perfect example of the ruination of our country by the legal fiction of corporate personhood. And guess what? The drug companies have a billion dollar bullhorn, people. Our voices will simply get drowned out by the buzzing drone of their propaganda and will just never be heard unless we, like these seniors and Mr. Moore, begin to defy, to say no, to... bring the power back to We, the People.
 
Cheers.
 

[Timefortruth]

5. They must consider the victims of this policy to be absolute morons.

DOJ is supposedly concerned about the SAFETY OF THE MEDICINE? You have got to be kidding! There isn’t even a brainwashed Republican that would fall for that, is there?

[tlcandie]

6. NAFTA...free trade, outsourcing is only for corporations ..

Not for our elderly and sick :(

MORE MONEY!! What a greedy, hungry machine they've created!

[prolesunited]

8. Unfortunately

Yes there are. Welcome to DU. :hi: It certainly is time for truth.

It's all about protecting profits. Congressman Bernie Sanders has a great section on his Web site devoted to this issue which is worth checking out.

Using the newly released Fortune 500 numbers as raw data, Sanders' comparison shows the top seven pharmaceutical companies took in more in pure profit than the top seven auto companies, the top seven oil companies, the top seven airline companies, and the top seven media companies.

One study, Prescription Drug Pricing in Vermont: An International Price Comparison, investigates the pricing of the ten brand name prescription drugs with the highest dollar sales to the elderly in the United States. The study compares the prices that senior citizens who buy their own prescription drugs must pay for these drugs in Cong. Sanders’ district with the prices that consumers who buy their own drugs must pay for the same drugs in Canada or Mexico.

The study finds that the average prices that senior citizens in Vermont must pay are 81% higher than the average prices that Canadian consumers must pay and 112% higher than the average prices that Mexican consumers must pay.

http://bernie.house.gov/prescriptions/profits.asp

With all this wrangling over whose going to pay, I think we're missing the big picture in why it costs so much in the first place.

[Timefortruth]

10. Thanks for the welcome.

[RedEarth]

15. Thanks for the link....also

posted on Congressman Sanders site is this article regarding US Drug mfg. cutting supplies to Canadian wholesalers that sell to internet pharmacies....looks like greed is the motivating factor.

Canadian Wholesaler Cuts GlaxoSmithKline Supplies to Internet Pharmacies Selling to U.S. Customers
by Tom Cohen

A Canadian drug wholesaler said Wednesday it has stopped supplying GlaxoSmithKline Inc. products to pharmacists who sell medicine to U.S. patients over the Internet.

GlaxoSmithKline said last week it would cut off wholesalers if they supply the company's products to 29 blacklisted pharmacies that sell medicine from Canada to U.S. customers.

Wayne Rivers, chief executive officer of United Pharmacists Ltd., said in a telephone interview his company had no choice but to comply with the GlaxoSmithKline directive. Otherwise, he said, a cutoff in GlaxoSmithKline products would have left Canadian customers unable to get needed medicine.

Some popular medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other chronic conditions are significantly cheaper in Canada, where the government regulates prices.


http://bernie.house.gov/documents/articles/20030130144328.asp

[FlaGranny]

7. Canadian drugs are SAFER!!!

My niece buys her drugs from Canada. They come in their original sealed containers, usually 100 tablets. Contrast that to a pharmacy in the US. In the US they open the sealed container, count out pills, and put them into new bottles, with labels the pharmacy prints out. Tell me how that is safer that what Canada does. She can easily see she got the right prescription at the right dosage. This same niece worked in a pharmacy and told me of some of the errors made by the pharmacy techs. The pharmacist is supposed to double check these prescriptions, but rarely does. Sometimes the US pharmacies give the wrong medication, sometimes they get two different people's prescriptions mixed up, and sometimes they give the wrong dosages. The patient will never know unless he is 100% certain what his prescription should look like. When the patient gets his prescriptions from Canada, in the original container, the patient need only read what's on the bottle and knows what's in there.

[BiggJawn]

11. And those "unsafe" Canadien sealed bottles say "Made in USA"...

...Right?
This is a bunch of crap.
Last week, I heard a doctor on NPR repeating the "You can't be sure of what you're getting when you buy 'furrin' drugs..." chestnut.
Turned out he's the brother of Scotty-Boy, Ari Fly-shit's replacement...

"it's a family affair, it's a family affair..."

[elfwitch]

14. Mexican Rx

I've been getting mine online from Mexico.
Same deal as the Canadian ones.
They come in the original boxes.
They are much cheaper and just as good.
The only down side is that they take 1 month to come in through the mail.

[Tracer]

12. What Happened to the Legislation ...

... that was going to allow U.S. citizens to purchase drugs from Canada?

[0007]

13. Pleeesse Pleeeease Master General Ashcroft!

I can't go back to eating Alpo and Gravey Train. My stomach can't take it anymore.

I remember you saying to the Bob Jones University graduating class, "I have no King but Jays,'us." Are you the
King or practicing to be like Jays',us?

[Bamboo]

16. Gambling and Pharmacy boats outside 3 mile limit.

Pills from Canada and Europe are packaged in blister packs which extends life and makes counting contents easy.Counting and bottling pills adds another layer of profit which could be eliminated by handing out prepackaged boxes at pharmacy.My mother got eardrops which were labeled for use in eye.I just purchased flouride from Canada which requires no prescription in Canada but does in USA,I acted unilaterally because of corrupting influence in White House.