AUGUSTA – For years, Maine seniors have been making trips to Canada to buy prescriptions at about half the cost of what’s charged in the United States.

Next year, the state would make the trip for Maine seniors – and anyone else – by buying Canadian drugs wholesale in bulk, then distributing the prescriptions to pharmacies throughout Maine, under a plan announced Thursday by Gov. John Baldacci.

All the state needs is a huge warehouse and permission from the federal government that so far has said no and has insisted that importing prescriptions from Canada is unsafe.

In making the announcement, Baldacci said that U.S. drug makers charge Americans more than citizens in other countries. “This is simply wrong,” he said.

The cost of prescriptions is a growing crisis that calls out for a remedy at the federal level, Baldacci said. Because no remedy has been found, “Maine cannot wait any longer,” he told a news conference at the State House.

Baldacci, a Democrat, sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson seeking a federal waiver to reimport prescription drugs from Canada.

The plan calls for the drugs to be distributed by the Penobscot Indian Nation, which would operate a warehouse on its reservation in Old Town. Baldacci presented a $400,000 grant to the Penobscots on Thursday to start the project.

Maine would like to begin importing drugs from Canada next year, “but that depends on the federal government,” said Trish Riley, who heads the Governor’s Office on Health Care and Finance.

Under the plan, all maintenance drugs would be trucked from Canada. Buying through the state warehouse, then at a local pharmacy, would be safer than buying on the Web, “because we’d license the warehouse and do quality control,” Riley said. Plus it would help Maine pharmacies by no longer bypassing them.

Consumer demand for Canadian drugs – many of which are made by American companies – would be high, Riley predicted. “People are concerned about the high costs of drugs. This would provide an option.”

Baldacci said he’s optimistic that the Bush administration will authorize Maine to reimport drugs from Canada. While Republicans have not allowed a vote on the issue this year, President Bush said at a campaign event in August that his administration is looking into reimportation as pressure builds in Congress.

Bush’s presidential rival, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, commended the plan in a statement Thursday. “I urge the Bush administration to change their longstanding opposition to reimportation and approve this plan that will provide the people of Maine relief,” Kerry said.

And U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, who is sponsoring legislation to allow importation from Canada, said Congress must act, that Maine has little choice because drug prices “are rising at two to three times the rate of inflation.” Too many citizens are faced with the choice of affording food or medicine, she said. There’s no reason why the Food and Drug Administration can’t make drug importation work, Snowe said.

Also on Thursday, Baldacci announced a new program called Rural Rx, which he said will provide savings of 25 to 50 percent to uninsured and underinsured Mainers.

That would be accomplished by matching local pharmacies throughout the state with dozens of health centers and hospitals that have federal authorization to purchase drugs at reduced rates. Discounts will be passed on to those small pharmacies, giving many of them needed business to keep afloat, and then on to consumers.

House Minority Leader Joe Bruno, R-Raymond, said the Baldacci’s programs sound good, but won’t help nearly as many as the governor says. Bruno, who owns 14 pharmacies in Maine and is familiar with the federal drug discounting program, said Rural Rx was “obviously put together by people who have no understanding of the drug distribution network in this country.”

Bruno also questioned how the safety of drugs reimported from Canada can be assured. But Baldacci’s letter to Thompson said safety concerns will be met in the program he set into motion.

If nothing is done, “many Maine people will continue to reimport prescription drugs on their own,” said state Senate Majority Leader Sharon Treat, D-Farmingdale, “because they simply can’t afford their medications any other way.”

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.