Border Rx

It looks like a road trip, or a scene from “Easy Rider.”

A bus full of people barreling through the desert, heading through the barren deserts of southeastern California, after many hours pulls into a Mexican border town.

Cash and smiles are exchanged, bags are filled with drugs, and the bus re-fills for the long trek back through the desert.

But on closer inspection, the soundtrack might better be “Born To Be Mild.” The bus passengers are all elderly and frail. The Mexican “drugs” stuffed into suitcases? All legal.

For growing numbers of Americans, trips to Mexican border towns are a medical necessity. Bus trips take passengers to buy legal medicines at far cheaper prices than north of the Border.

With prescription drug prices skyrocketing stateside, these trips are becoming a medical necessity to fixed-income elderly Americans. They can save many hundreds of dollars, and often stock up on prescriptions that will last them for many months.

Bus routes have sprouted up catering to the elderly for these trips, and they try to turn the journeys into fun for the passengers.

Some ten to fifteen thousand people cross the most popular border points each day, many of them to load up on drugs.

The town of Algodones, Mexico, with a one mile radius, has 25 pharmacies. Some drug stores even offer free margaritas with any purchase.

It is a cross between spring break and a trip to the corner drug store. But the stakes are far more serious than a collegiate retreat.

In March, the Food and Drug Administration took action against an Arkansas store that sells discount medicine imported from Canada. The FDA has also warned consumers about the potentially grave risks associated with so-called “imported” drugs.

For years, states in the Northeast and Midwest have also grappled with growing numbers of senior citizens traveling across their borders to Canada in search of cheaper pharmaceuticals.

Both the Canadian and Mexican governments negotiate directly with pharmaceuticals to obtain lower medicine costs for their constituents.

Vermont’s Congressman Bernard Sanders has organized two such bus trips and also introduced a bill that would allow the import of FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada at lower prices.

In 2000, Maine imposed price caps on prescription medicine with bipartisan support from the state’s Republican and Democratic legislators.

California’s State Senate Republican Caucus came out against such measures in January of 2002 while an earlier senate bill, SB 393, mandated that Medicare beneficiaries would be able to receive Medi-Cal prices on their prescriptions.

In the meantime, Golden State residents in their golden years will most likely continue to make annual treks to Mexico. As a participant in one such trip noted: “I always have to make choices… I’d rather be going out to dinner a couple nights a week than spending money on pills.” there, who I need, and how to approach them.”