WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has again found itself on the wrong side of a hot-button political issue. This time it’s prescription drug importation, which a majority of Americans and members of Congress support. Without a compelling argument to support their case against drug importation, the administration has resorted to a familiar tactic in their political playbook: fear.

In hopes of swaying Americans from the truth, the administration and its allies in the drug industry are out making phony and scary claims. They warn that drug importation is inherently unsafe, that imported drugs aren’t subject to the same rigorous safety standards as in the United States, and that allowing importation will flood the market with dangerous counterfeit drugs.

But the facts and just plain common sense belie their scare tactics.

First, allowing prescription drugs to move across international borders does not make them inherently unsafe. If it did, then why did Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson just announce that the United States will be importing more than 1 million doses of flu vaccine from Europe?

Drugs bought in the United States, Canada and other developed countries are produced all over the globe. Many of the drugs American consumers buy from Canada are actually produced in the United States.

Ironically, the drug giant PhRMA doesn’t question the safety of their drugs sold in Canada. It’s only when consumers jeopardize domestic profits by importing cheaper drugs that manufacturers claim those same drugs are somehow inherently unsafe.

Second, Canada and other developed countries have just as strong, if not stronger, regulations regarding the safety of prescription drugs. All pharmaceuticals must go through an extensive approval process and are subject to stringent distribution safety requirements similar to those in the United States.

If safety concerns are to be directed anywhere, it might be toward our own Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has demonstrated a troubling tendency to bow to the pressures of pharmaceutical manufacturers, even failing recently to keep the dangerous drug Vioxx off the shelves.

Third, counterfeit drugs are always a cause for concern, but there are few recorded cases of imported drugs actually being fakes. However, counterfeit medications do have a thriving black market here in the United States, posing a much greater threat to consumers than imported drugs. There would not be a market for these fake drugs if the real drugs were affordable and readily available.

Ensuring that all drugs purchased in the United States are safe and effective is paramount to any importation system. But in a global economy, it’s not credible for the Bush administration to argue that it is impossible to do.

The United States can create a cost-effective system in which consumers have access to safe pharmacies and drugs abroad. It isn’t complicated to require importation from licensed pharmacies that purchase drugs from licensed wholesalers or direct from the manufacturers.

Maintaining the status quo does more to safeguard drug company profits than to protect consumer safety. Opponents of importation are not genuinely fearful about the safety of drugs from other countries, they’re afraid of lowering the cost of prescription drugs in the United States.

Drug manufacturers continue to claim that prices in the United States must remain high to fund research and development. But this argument doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Pfizer alone has $38 billion in profits socked away overseas, which could be put to good use for more research and development. But Pfizer is not the only culprit.

Pharmaceutical companies are raking in profits hand over fist all around the globe, but continue to gouge American consumers simply because the administration refuses to tell them any different.

It’s long past time for a real solution to rising prescription drug prices. Importation of cheaper drugs from Canada is not the long-term solution to the problem of soaring drug costs, but it is one sure way to immediately lower prices.