In reality, despite overwhelming support in polls, importation is a terrible idea. Drug costs are lower in other countries because they impose price controls, so importation amounts to imposing price controls in the United States.

Foreign countries contribute little or nothing to the huge costs of researching new drugs — estimated to be $800 million per product — and they produce few medical breakthroughs. Price controls would slow down medical progress here, too.

And Canada, the first country of choice for importation, can’t handle a major upsurge in demand from the United States. Its drug market is only 10 percent the size of ours, so prices there would skyrocket if millions of Americans started buying. Canada’s health minister has said Canada doesn’t want to be America’s drugstore.

So, if mass imports are to be permitted, they would have to cover Europe and Latin America as sources. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration conceivably could monitor warehouses in a few nations, but the cost of doing so all over the world would be prohibitive. Adulterated and fake products — or poisons planted by terrorists — would inevitably find their way into the United States.

Regardless of logic or danger, however, there’s a tidal wave of popular support for drug importation, driven partly by high U.S. drug prices and falling respect for the drug industry.

In reality, despite overwhelming support in polls, importation is a terrible idea. Drug costs are lower in other countries because they impose price controls, so importation amounts to imposing price controls in the United States.

Foreign countries contribute little or nothing to the huge costs of researching new drugs — estimated to be $800 million per product — and they produce few medical breakthroughs. Price controls would slow down medical progress here, too.

And Canada, the first country of choice for importation, can’t handle a major upsurge in demand from the United States. Its drug market is only 10 percent the size of ours, so prices there would skyrocket if millions of Americans started buying. Canada’s health minister has said Canada doesn’t want to be America’s drugstore.

So, if mass imports are to be permitted, they would have to cover Europe and Latin America as sources. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration conceivably could monitor warehouses in a few nations, but the cost of doing so all over the world would be prohibitive. Adulterated and fake products — or poisons planted by terrorists — would inevitably find their way into the United States.

Regardless of logic or danger, however, there’s a tidal wave of popular support for drug importation, driven partly by high U.S. drug prices and falling respect for the drug industry.