The Insanity of Re importation

[ThomWV]

In the last week or so I have noticed Spam postings in various Internet discussion forums in which the poster is selling cigarettes by the carton at some very low price, $14.95 I think it is. I have been told that these are indeed American cigarettes that are being sent back into this country from Asia or somewhere. OK, that's one thing. This is apparently legal, or at least I've not seen anything on the news to the contrary.

I am also aware, because the news tells me so, that a good number of people are buying prescription drugs from Canada because of a substantial price difference and that most of these drugs were in fact originally manufactured in the US and are being re imported. In some instances this re importation is illegal. So that's the next thing.

The news tells me that there are some dangers with the Canadian drugs, implying that there is no system to protect the public from drug frauds or counterfeits, or whatever in Canada. Some of the news I've seen also even goes so far as to hint that there is something unamerican and maybe even antiamerican in buying foreign drugs, but for the most part they make it out as a safety issue. New laws are called for and I'm told that there are existing laws on the books that ban a person from buying the drugs they need from Canada.

So am I understanding this correctly, we can not bring healing drugs into the country because they are bad for us but at the same time we can import Cigarettes? What on earth is wrong in this picture?

Thom