PBS attracting smugglers, as Australians pay just a fraction of drug costs

The export of medicines supplied under Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) has been illegal since 1999, with the only exemptions being for personal use by tourists and Australian residents who are temporarily overseas. However, numerous reports in local newspapers of seizures of quantities of PBS drugs at airports and from parcels intercepted at post offices, indicate the practice is growing, according to the Marketletter's sources in the country.

The PBS system attracts smugglers because Australians pay only a small proportion of the real cost of taxpayer subsidized medication, while people in many neighboring countries pay the full cost. Smugglers often export the medicines for profit, while others send subsidized drugs to help relatives overseas. Those caught face confiscation of the drugs and a fine.

Medicare/ACS using data mining to stop the illegal trade