Rx: Canadian Drugs

In a grass-roots movement that has swelled to a stampede over the past several years, U.S. citizens are heading to Canada to buy cheaper prescription drugs. They are crossing the border in person, by telephone, by fax, and by modem, in numbers estimated at a million or more, aided by a growing number of entrepreneurial storefront and Internet middlemen. Although the market share represented by these purchases is still small — an estimated $500 million to $1 billion over the past year, in contrast to the $156.5 billion spent in retail pharmacies — it is likely to grow quickly. The . . .