Dr Ron Paul is a medical doctor by training who has a seat in the US House of Representatives as a Republican. Dr Paul has been nicknamed "Dr No" for his consistency in saying no to corporate welfare and big government. He is scathing about those who profess to be free-marketeers but, through some weird intellectual gymnastics, simultaneously argue that consumers should not be allowed to buy pharmaceuticals from abroad.

In 2003, when a bill to allow imported drugs was being debated, he stood up in the House and said:

...I wish to express my disappointment with the numerous D.C.-based "free-market" organizations that are opposing this bill. Anyone following this debate could be excused for thinking they have entered into a Twilight Zone episode where "libertarian" policy wonks argue that the federal government must protect citizens from purchasing the pharmaceuticals of their choice, endorse protectionism, and argue that the federal government has a moral duty to fashion polices designed to protect the pharmaceutical companies' profit margins. I do not wish to speculate on the motivation behind this deviation from free-market principles among groups that normally uphold the principles of liberty. However, I do hope the vehemence with which these organizations are attacking this bill is motivated by sincere, if misguided, principle, not by the large donations some organizations have received from the pharmaceutical industry. If the latter is they case, then these groups have discredited themselves by suggesting that their free-market principles can be compromised when it serves the interests of their corporate donors.

He later wrote:

...while Americans ostensibly enjoy a freer economy than the rest of the world, they perversely pay more for their prescriptions than residents of any other nation.

The pharmaceutical industry obviously likes this, and it worked overtime lobbying against the reimportation measure - paying off some strange bedfellows in the process. Several supposedly free-market groups came out against reimportation, making tortured attempts to argue that the free-market principles they normally promote somehow just don't apply to imported prescription drugs. Some even made the outrageous argument that reimportation will threaten the pharmaceutical industry's profits, as though it is the job of government to ensure the profitability of any industry!

The truth is that many of the organizations opposing reimportation either directly represent the pharmaceutical industry, or receive funding from it. They are transparently willing to abandon their free-market "principles" when necessary to protect their bottom line.