24 Jul 2003 Vote on Drug Reimportation Today

The vote on the drug reimportation bill is expected in the House today. Both the Washington Post and Washington Times have editorials about it. Predictably, the Post favors the bill and the Times opposes it.

The Post’s support, however, is rather lukewarm. As they put it after endorsing the bill: “At the same time, the creation of a loophole in the American legal system is the wrong way, in the long term, to solve such a thorny problem, even if it makes consumers happier in the short term.”

The Times did a great job with their unsigned editorial. It is a tough subject to explain succinctly but whoever drafted their piece managed to cover a lot of ground in a few words and with tight prose. Had some quotes I hadn’t seen before, too, such as Rep. John Dingell saying the bill would “lead to needless injuries and deaths.”

We issued a press release. It contains some quotes from the bill’s lead sponsor, Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-MN). I was a little surprised at how bluntly he has been dismissing both the motives and the facts of those who disagree with him on this. He says, for example, that both the Bush and Clinton Administrations have been dishonest in refusing to certify drug importation as safe as “I think in truth they know it is safe.” (Personally, I have a higher opinion of President Bush’s integrity. Plus, I have it on the authority of quite a few leftist groups that Bush is in the pocket of the oil industry, so he can’t be in the pocket of the drug industry as well.) Gutknecht also says opponents of drug reimportation “never use the facts.” I’m not sure if that means we’re all liars or we’re all just stupid. Or maybe both, but in a very swift survey of major conservative groups and publications I easily found 19 that believe drug reimportation is bad public policy. That’s a lot of stupid liars.