Cross Border Shopping

[bcholmes]

The other day, I was reading an article from the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Chronicle in Iowa. It warned its readers of the grave dangers of buying drugs from discount Canadian Internet Pharmacies.

I have no opinion about using the Internet to buy drugs (except that it's one of the ways that trans folk without many options can get access to hormones). But the article was full of such fear/uncertainty/doubt tactics, it was annoying. Consider this caution:

Second, who said anything about purity or quality-control standards? [...] Most important, there is no United States Food and Drug Administration regulation of Canadian pharmacies, so you can never be assured that the drugs you get from Canada have been FDA-approved. [...] Were these drugs produced in high-quality Canadian labs or where they made in somebody's garage? How would you know?

That's right. Here in Canada, we let just anyone make drugs.

The thing that's interesting is that this is so familiar. Growing up in a border town, the debates about cross-border shopping were endless. For several years, Sarnians didn't buy their gas in Sarnia 'cause the price difference made it a lot cheaper in Port Huron (even with the exchange rate). Gas station managers would be interviewed about the dramatic loss of business and they'd say, "Well, sure, if people don't care what that gas is doing to their cars..." (There was some fact buried in this fiction. I don't know if this is still true, but at the time, the US allowed a number of additives to be added to the gasoline that Canada banned. American cars seemed to tolerate the additives. I suspect there's a pollution difference, though).

But it's interesting that the F/U/D tactics are on that side of the border. I don't think I've seen that before.

I was talking with someone a while ago about how growing up in a border town affected my attitudes about borders and customs and what-have-you. I said, "We'd cross the border once a week. As a result, I've never seen customs as remotely intimidating."

And my friend said, "Why did you cross the border every week?" As if to ask, "why did you need to cross the border?"

But that's the difference. We didn't need to cross the border; we'd cross the border for dinner. We'd go for that Chicken-in-the-rough restaurant, or the fancy-schmancy seafood place. I'd buy my comics from the big comic store on the main stretch in Port Huron. It was like the border didn't really exist, except as this place where you had to stop and state your citizenship.