Rhode Island Drafts Regulations for Licensing Canadian Pharmacies Under Rx Drug Reimportation Law

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 20 Jun 2005 - 3:00 PDT

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The Rhode Island Department of Health has created draft rules to regulate licensing of Canadian pharmacies under the state's reimportation law, the Providence Journal reports. The law is the first in the nation in which a state plans to grant pharmacy licenses to Canadian pharmacies. The draft rules would require Canadian pharmacies that reimport drugs to:

• Ship only FDA-approved drugs and follow other FDA rules regarding the processing and handling of drugs;
  


• Buy $5 million in product liability insurance;
  


• Offer patients counseling on their medications;
  


• Maintain patient confidentiality;
  


• Document where drugs are manufactured; and
  


• Litigate any case concerning reimported drugs in Rhode Island courts.
  

In addition, the rules would prohibit the reimportation of several controlled substances, drugs that can spoil in transit, commonly counterfeited drugs and some other types of drugs. There will be a public hearing on the draft rules on Wednesday. The rules would replace a set of regulations in which the health department substituted the names of Canadian provinces into the existing law on mail-order regulations. Those regulations took effect Jan. 19. According to the Journal, the most recent draft rules "represent a turnaround for the health department," which initially opposed the law. Four Canadian pharmacies have applied for Rhode Island pharmacy licenses, but the applications have not been processed because of the ongoing rule-making process (Freyer, Providence Journal, 6/13).

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