SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Responding to consumer complaints about the high cost of prescription drugs, the state Assembly voted to create a Web site to help Californians buy cheaper medications through Canadian pharmacies.

By a 48-17 vote Wednesday, lawmakers sent the Senate a bill by Assemblyman Dario Frommer, D-Los Angeles, that would require the Department of Health Services to set up the site by July 1, 2005.

It would require the Web site to include a comparison of prices charged in California and Canada for the 50 most commonly prescribed brand-name medications and to list links to Canadian pharmacies that meet requirements designed to ensure the drugs they sell are safe.

To be listed on the Web site, a pharmacy would have to be licensed by a Canadian province and meet California's pharmacy standards. Also, the pharmacy could only sell drugs approved by the Therapeutic Products Directorate of Health Canada, which Frommer likened to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Frommer said many Californians are forced to go without medications or to reduce their dosages because of high prices for prescription drugs in the United States. "What good are the new breakthrough drugs if we can't afford them when we are sick?" he asked.

Prices of prescriptions are 40 percent to 75 percent lower in Canada, where the government regulates drug costs, Frommer said.

He said that many Californians are already buying mail-order drugs from Canada to avoid the high prices here. "All this bill does is allow Californians to know that the pharmacies they are dealing with are reputable and safe," he said.

San Francisco and five states -- Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Minnesota and Rhode Island -- have already set up similar Web sites, his office said.

The Senate has already approved a similar bill by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, that would require the state Board of Pharmacy to list on the Web Canadian pharmacies that meet standards for selling safe prescriptions.

Opponents questioned whether Frommer's bill would provide enough protections to ensure that Californians didn't get dangerous or inadequate medications shipped to Canada from other countries. Critics also complained that the bill would endorse breaking the law.

"There is one overarching concept that we need to understand," said Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico. "It's the term illegal. It's illegal for us to do this, for us to facilitate an illegal activity.

"If we want people to have respect for what we do on this floor then we cannot facilitate helping people disregard federal law or the laws of this state.... We become hypocritical."

Assemblyman Robert Pacheco, R-Walnut, said the state could end up being sued if the bill resulted in a California resident receiving a faulty prescription.

Frommer said federal law "allows for the importation of drugs from other countries" but the FDA has never adopted guidelines to implement that provision.

He also said the FDA has not found "one incident of a drug imported from a Canadian pharmacy that was impure, counterfeit or bad."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.