Rhode Island Board Of Pharmacy
R.I. law for Canadian drug importation may fail WARWICK, R.I. -- A controversial Rhode Island law supporting Canadian drug importation could be blocked on legal grounds before it takes effect. Approved earlier this year by the state's General Assembly, the law authorized the state board of pharmacy to issue licenses to pharmacies in Canadian provinces the same way it grants licenses to mail order services located in the United States.
"We are the only state in the nation that has passed a law to license Canadian pharmacies in direct violation of [Food and Drug Administration] statutes," Jack Hutson, executive director of the Rhode Island Pharmacists Association, told Drug Store News.
Hutson said he was shocked to find out during a hearing held earlier this month that the Department of Health took a bare-minimum approach to writing regulations that would put the law, scheduled to take effect Jan. 15, into action. "All they did was in three different places add the word Canada or Provinces of Canada," he noted.
The governor of Rhode Island allowed the measure to pass into law without his signature.
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