WEST PALM BEACH - Palm Beach County commissioners decided Tuesday to pursue the possibility of illegally buying prescription drugs from Canada for government employees.
Such a move would put the county at the front of the angry national debate over prescription drug prices.
Assistant County Attorney Tammy Fields warned that it would violate federal law, but Commissioner Tony Masilotti predicted the county would never be prosecuted.
Masilotti cited the lack of action against other local governments importing Canadian drugs as a reason not to fear trouble from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
There has been widespread media attention to local governments across the country thinking about importing Canadian drugs for employees and retired employees, but county staffers who studied the issue found only two actually doing it: Springfield, Mass., and Burlington, Vt.
Commissioner Jeff Koons said Palm Beach County needs to join them.
"I think we ought to push the envelope here. This is a big issue," Koons said.
Tom McGinnis, director of pharmacy affairs at FDA headquarters in Rockville, Md., said Canadian drugs are not a panacea.
"We don't know anything about them, whether they meet any kind of strength, quality or purity standards," he said. "It definitely is illegal under federal law to bring non-FDA-approved drugs into the United States," he added. "If it's an illegal operation, they do run the risk of enforcement action."
County Commissioner Mary McCarty, who was out of the country Tuesday, last week accused Commissioner Burt Aaronson of proposing the idea only for the publicity.
Assistant County Administrator Brad Merriman estimated savings of $175,000 a year for the 5,000 employees and retirees in departments under the commission.
But Aaronson said it could save $3.2-million if it included all the elected countywide officeholders and the biggest local-government employer, the Palm Beach County School District.
Dianne Howard, director of employee benefits for the school district, said officials are eager to reduce prescription drug costs for employees, but they don't want to buy medicines from Canada.
"I'm not recommending it," she said. "It's illegal."
