Seniors make up 12.5 percent of the U.S. population, but use 33 percent of the nation’s medications, according to the pharmaceutical industry. And at least one-third of U.S. seniors don’t have prescription drug insurance coverage. They either pay full price, do without or find other alternatives.

One alternative used increasingly involves contacting Canadian pharmacies where brand-name drugs can be purchased at greatly reduced prices. Some call on the phone. Some use the Internet. Some actually go. Regardless of the method, seniors who “reimport” U.S.-made prescription drugs are in violation of federal regulations.

It’s not difficult for seniors who have been law-abiding all their lives to justify this elderly brand of drug running. After all, U.S. Customs officials are well aware of what the seniors are up to. The seniors don’t try to hide it, yet Customs lets them pass with a reasonable amount of drugs for personal use.

Patronizing Canadian pharmacies is such a broad-based, “in-your-face,” challenge that even members of the U.S. Congress and national elderly organizations have embraced it. The Alliance for Retired Americans, an organization of 2.7 million retired labor union members, periodically sponsors Rx Express bus trips to Canadian pharmacies for its members. Last summer, 375 persons from Oregon, Washington, Ohio, Michigan, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maine, Indiana, Connecticut and Minnesota boarded Rx Express buses. Afterward, the Washington D.C.-based organization reported the results to Congressional leaders.

The annual savings of the drugs seniors brought home and the refills they will receive totaled $506,845.

The federal view

There is a good reason why federal officials let people get away with purchasing drugs in foreign countries in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The regulators and enforcers are swamped by the tide. The volume is so great that it is a physical impossibility to control it.

Those who purchase prescriptions from foreign sources offered by more than 100 Internet sites take serious risks, Hubbard said. Foreign outlets may dispense expired, sub potent, contaminated or counterfeit products. The FDA cannot assure consumers that the products were made under current good manufacturing practice standards.

The U.S. drug industry view

Pharmaceutical industry spokeswoman Jackie Cottrell was sympathetic to the plight of seniors who seek relief from the high cost of medications by purchasing them in Canada and other foreign countries.

“The industry is very concerned when seniors can’t afford medications,” said Cottrell, who speaks for the Washington D.C.-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s main lobbying agency. “We are advocating a prescription drug benefit under Medicare … Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t acted.”

AARP weighs in

The pressure on Congress to act increased last fall when the nation’s largest health insurer, AARP-affiliated UnitedHealth Group Inc., notified 97,000 people that it would reimburse them for prescriptions filled in Canada and other foreign countries. The AARP has been critical of the pharmaceutical industry and has supported bills to create a Medicare drug benefit.