New York ? As CEO of Canadameds.com, one of the popular new enterprises selling low-price prescription drugs from Canada to U.S. customers, Mike Hicks is used to watching business grow fast.

But even he is unsure how he would respond if the city of Boston, which recently announced a plan to buy drugs from Canada, asked his firm to handle prescriptions for a pilot program open to roughly 7,000 of its current and retired employees?

“It would be exciting — and frightening,” Hicks said. “That would be a lot of stress on our operation.”

Executives at Canadian pharmacies that sell drugs to Americans are watching with a mixture of delight and dread as more and more cities and states announce they are exploring purchasing drugs north of the border to save money.

While they want business to keep increasing, they aren’t sure how to, or whether they could, handle a massive influx of new customers. They also don’t want to taunt the pharmaceutical industry, which is already limiting supplies to Canada to discourage the sales.

Already, New Hampshire’s state government has announced plans to purchase some drugs from Canada. And representatives from a dozen states met with six Canadian drug companies to discuss business possibilities. So far, only Springfield, Mass., has a program that allows its employees to purchase Canadian drugs.

“I think even if half the people talking about buying from Canada did it, there would be problems,” said Hicks, whose company is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

No one believes that Canadian Internet pharmacies are a long-term solution to soaring drug costs and the pressure felt by state and city budgets. At some point — and no one knows when — availability will become an issue: There are only 31 million people in Canada, and there is no way drug companies will ship enough medicine there to supply possibly millions of American state and city workers.

Some officials, like those in Boston, believe buying Canadian drugs will send a powerful message to federal regulators, requiring them to act before supply becomes a problem.

Mediplan Health Consulting Inc. owners, from left Chantelle and Mark Rzepka and Andrew and Catherine Strempler discuss some of the hundreds of orders that came in for drugs from the United States at their pharmacy in Minnedosa, Manitoba. Andrew Strempler holds a stack of the U.S. orders on Jan. 3, 2002. Executives at Canadian pharmacies are becoming concerned about their supplies as U.S. cities and states announce they are exploring purchasing drugs from them.

“The more states and cities that buy Canadian drugs, the more pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to address the problem of the high cost of medication in this country,” said John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission.

It is illegal for anyone but drug manufacturers to bring their products into the United States, and U.S. regulators have cracked down on some storefront operations. The FDA also says that the safety and quality of drugs imported from Canada can’t be assured.