Grace Hickman heard about it from her Leisure World lawn bowling club: There's a store nearby where prescription medicine can be had at cut-rate prices.
Grace takes 10 pills a day, and her husband, Gerard, a retired restaurant owner, takes three. Their costs were so high that three months ago Grace stopped taking the pill to lower her cholesterol.
Some of their friends in the Laguna Woods retirement community buy medicine on bus trips to Mexico, but not the Hickmans, who worry about quality. As for finding better deals on the Internet, they can't tell the difference between a hard drive and a line drive.
So they went to Rx of Canada in Laguna Hills, one of a growing number of stores around the nation that help customers who are more comfortable in a store than on the Web buy drugs inexpensively from Canada.
FDA officials say the stores are illegal. Business owners say they're providing seniors a way to reduce their drug bills. On Friday, the FDA faxed a letter to an Arkansas affiliate of Rx of Canada, warning that it had 15 days to close or face legal action.
Rx of Canada's Laguna Hills store is the seventh branch -- offering discounts of 20% to 80% below U.S. prices -- it has opened within two months. It is surrounded by 18,000 seniors living in Leisure World. Three weeks earlier, the company, owned by professional soccer player Joe-Max Moore, opened a store in La Mesa in San Diego County. Five more are scheduled to open today, in Woodland Hills, Colorado, Florida and Oklahoma, with still more to come.
Just as ambitious is Earle Turow, a former clothing manufacturer who owns Discount Drugs of Canada in Delray Beach, Fla. He said he has signed deals to open 40 franchises next week, 40 the week after and an additional 100 in three months, including one in Palm Springs.
The emergence of such stores is the latest way for consumers to sidestep the high cost of prescription medicines -- especially seniors, who use the most drugs and often lack insurance to pay for them.
"This is a growing phenomenon," said David Certner, director of federal affairs for the AARP. "It will continue to grow, and from what we hear, exponentially. It's partly a sign of the desperation of people trying to afford prescription drugs."
The Canadian government caps drug prices, and a weak Canadian dollar also helps keep costs lower for Americans.
