Ordering drugs online from foreign pharmacies also tends to go largely unchallenged. People familiar with the practice say you generally can pass through customs without much hassle if you have no more than three months’ worth of a medication, you declare it to customs agents and you show them a doctor’s prescription or a personal note attesting it is for personal use, along with contact information for your physician.Įven in the worst-case scenario, an unsympathetic agent might confiscate the drugs - but not arrest you. You should think twice before bringing in quantities larger than that because if authorities suspect you have commercial intentions, you could land in legal jeopardy - and lose the drugs. Personal use generally means no more than a 90-day supply. Second: It is unlikely you will be prosecuted.ĭespite the official prohibition, FDA guidelines allow federal agents to refrain from enforcement “when the quantity and purpose are clearly for personal use, and the product does not present an unreasonable risk to the user.” If you are planning to cross the border for your medications, or get them through an online pharmacy abroad, here are two things you should know. “I left Tijuana that day absolutely trembling because I could not believe how easy it was for me to get my insulin,” she says, “but also how little money it cost and how badly I was being extorted in the U.S.” prices for insulin can be a matter of life and death, which is why so many families look to Canada or Mexico to meet their needs. pharmacies.įor people with diabetes, the inability to pay U.S. “The reality is that literally millions of people get their medications this way each year, and they are either saving a lot of money or they are getting a drug they wouldn’t have been able to get because prices are too high here,” says Gabriel Levitt, president of Pharmac圜, an online company that allows people to compare prescription drug prices among international and U.S. And they do it despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, echoed by the pharmaceutical industry, about the risk of contaminated or counterfeit products. It’s the only way they can afford the drugs they need to stay healthy - or alive. In some cases, they do it out of desperation.
But the plan addresses imports only at the wholesale level it is silent about the transactions by millions of Americans who already buy their medications outside the United States.Īmericans routinely skirt federal law by crossing into Canada and Mexico or tapping online pharmacies abroad to buy prescription medications at a fraction of the price they would pay at home. In its effort to temper the sky-high prices Americans pay for many vital medications, the Trump administration last month unveiled a plan that would legalize the importation of selected prescription drugs from countries where they sell for far less.