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Pharmacy backs cross-border Rx communiqué

Forty-five national and state pharmacy associations applauded a communiqué issued by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and its Canadian counterpart pledging to work together on the issue of cross-border importation of drugs.

The American Pharmacists Association and the Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA) were joined by National Association of Chain Drug Stores and dozens of other U.S. pharmacy groups in endorsing the communiqué. In the carefully worded document, NABP and the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) pledged to work together to protect their citizens and to promote compliance with federal, state, and provincial laws in their respective jurisdictions.

While applauding the communiqué, APhA executive VP John Gans, Pharm.D., NACDS president-CEO Craig Fuller, and CPhA executive director Jeff Poston all urged active law enforcement to protect patient safety against the dangers of illegal drug importation. They also noted that importation severs the link between the patient and the pharmacist.

Prior to the statement released by APhA, NACDS had drafted a press release that resulted in a brouhaha with NABP and NAPRA officials. The draft version included minor inaccuracies and quotes attributed to Carmen Catizone, executive director of NABP, and NAPRA director Barbara Wells that were not cleared with them, according to Catizone.

"It's a whole big mess," Catizone told Drug Topics. "We are very concerned about attacks we're getting that we're in the pharmaceutical industry's back pocket. We've got to be very careful and don't want to do anything that would give our opponents more fuel. All we basically said [in the communiqué] is we're going to work together. But we don't have any problem with the APhA press release."

Carol Ukens

 

Carol Ukens. Pharmacy backs cross-border Rx communique. Drug Topics Jun. 2, 2003;147:14.