The nation’s largest senior advocacy group, AARP, threw its support Wednesday behind Maine U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s proposed legislation to legalize prescription drug imports from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Switzerland.

The endorsement is seen as crucial for the bill that Snowe, John McCain and 22 other senators from both parties want passed this summer.

If passed, it could put an end to bus trips to Canada, said Neena Quirion of the Maine Council of Senior Citizens. Quirion has organized many bus trips for Maine seniors to Canada, where drug prices are typically half those in the United States because they are regulated by the government.

“This is something we’ve been fighting for a long time now,” Quirion said. “It’s good that AARP is on board. They have so many members it will help.”

AARP has 200,000 members in Maine, and represents 47 percent of people ages 50 and up.

“We’re absolutely tickled pink that AARP is endorsing this,” Snowe spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier said Wednesday. “AARP is by far the largest senior organization in the country. Their power is their voice, their ability to activate seniors and representatives. This kind of endorsement adds increased impetus to the undecided members of the Senate.”

Ferrier said the endorsement should also help influence the Bush administration, which, along with the drug industry, does not support importation.

A statement by Alan F. Holmer, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, has said importation is not the solution to high prices and that the Food and Drug Administration has testified importing drugs poses health risks and undermines the safety of the medicine supply.

But as international trade swells and as drug prices continue to rise, fewer consumers are heeding PhRMA’s warnings.

In Washington, drug company lobbyists are expected to outnumber senior citizen lobbyists this session, scheduled to end Sept. 30, Ferrier said. But AARP will activate millions of seniors urging them to call members of Congress.

“That’s huge for us,” Ferrier said. In the 41 days left in the session, “this adds a huge amount of ground troops to get this passed this year.”

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Washington, Snowe pledged that, “Relief is near” for seniors who “pay the world’s highest prices.”

Her legislation would allow pharmacies, drug wholesalers and individuals to import drugs through the mail. The bill would punish any manufacturers that try to block importation, Snowe said. The legislation has several safety components that convinced the AARP to support it, said a spokesman for the AARP Maine chapter.

“This is a no-brainer,” said AARP Maine Director Jud Dolphin. “We’ll be working to get other senators to co-sponsor it.” The chapter will call on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to support the bill, Dolphin said.

Collins now backs a different importation bill, but said Wednesday she’d be happy to see either, or one that combines the best of both, pass this year. Collins said she has always been a strong advocate for prescription reimportation, having sponsored such a bill in 1998. AARP’s endorsement “helps build momentum for a long overdue change,” she said.

While pleased that the importation bill got an AARP boost Wednesday, the solution is for the federal government to limit or negotiate drug prices like other countries do, Quirion said.

Snowe favors price negotiation, but not regulation. The intent of this importation bill “is to make a market” that would force drug companies to lower prices, Ferrier said.

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