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After I did an IP lookup and saw that DoctorSolve.com is registered with an address in Surrey, B.C., my interest was piqued. Surrey, long the subject of regional jokes, is regarded as a sketchy place with sketchy people... at least for people who have lived there (which I did.) But it's also a city with cheap office space, so you can't immediately fault anyone for locating there.
So what do I do? I checked with PharmacyChecker.com, which lists the site as an "approved" pharmacy affiliate and lists some contact information. DoctorSolve.com was not approved with LegitScript.com's checker-- which isn't surprising, as LegitScript automatically disapproves of any Canadian outfit, period.
U.S. regulations are sort of strange -- in 2006 U.S. Customs officials were officially allowed to exercise discretion in allowing international shipments of a 90-day's worth supply of personal medication from Canada. Or, as B.C. Business writer Claudia Cornwall puts it:
That’s probably why, in the fall of 2006 during the heat of the congressional elections, U.S. president George W. Bush promised to ease up on enforcement. The optics of irate seniors complaining about being cut off from life-saving medicines were not good. Bringing the drugs in was still illegal. However, a memorandum allowed customs officials to use their discretion about shipments of drugs, provided they were brought in for personal use.
And even though the governors of some states (I'm looking at you Illinois, Vermont, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada) gave out-of-state licenses to select Canadian pharmacies, it remained and remains technically illegal under federal law to import prescriptions drugs into the U.S..
But why this focus on Canada? Claudia Cornwall explains that some drugs are cheaper in Canada because of national patent price controls that started in 1987 and because the country's 10 provinces band together to buy generics in bulk.
That's why busloads of seniors from northern U.S. states take day trips to southern Canadian cities -- to stock up on refills that would cost sometimes a third as much as what they could get them for at home. (The exchange rate of the two currencies 10 and 20 years ago sweetened the deal too.) With the opening of Internet pharmacies in the late 1990s, it made sense for more and more customers to stay home and just order the pills online.
Cornwall also quotes Dr. Paul Zickler, one of the co-founders of DoctorSolve.com, which gets its drug orders filled through a B.C.-licensed pharmacy called Canada Coastal Pharmacy. That business is managed by Grace Kim, who is licensed by the B.C. Board of Pharmacists, and requires customers to present a prescription from a U.S. doctor. DoctorSolve.com also says it doesn't deal in controlled substances.
Looks legit enough to me. I mean, it's based in Surrey too, but like I said, so was I. (And Canada Coastal Pharmacy's address listing puts it in South Surrey, which we all know has a slightly better reputation.)
Cornwall writes that 30 percent of the 'legal' online pharmacies in Canada in 2007 were based in British Columbia (probably in Surrey and Vancouver), and 50 percent were based in Manitoba. That is totally news to me.
Manitoba: Online Pharma Capital of Canada. Who knew?
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