Cherokee leaders are scouting the money-making potential of a business venture other tribes have found lucrative: selling discount prescription drugs by mail.

They might also import cheaper pharmaceuticals from Canada for a future business that could fill prescriptions for tribal members and for people who live far beyond the boundaries of Cherokee land in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

But that would set up an age-old conflict between a tribe that argues it has the rights of a sovereign nation that exempt it from federal laws and federal health officials who say selling Canadian drugs in the United States is illegal and, perhaps, unsafe.

"We've definitely looked at the Canada option," said Michell Hicks, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. "That definitely could go under sovereignty."

While discussions about starting this new business are still preliminary, tribal health officials have already toured mail-order pharmacies run by other tribes, Hicks said.

"We've visited with other tribes to see what they do and to see if it makes sense for us," Hicks said. "It's not just for external sales. We want to see whether volume purchases would lead to better prices for our tribal members."

These fact-finding missions include a trip to a pharmacy operation owned by the Mashantucket Pequots of Connecticut that generates more than $15 million in revenue a year, Hicks said.

The Pequots are one of a half-dozen tribes across the country that run direct-mail pharmacies with different degrees of sophistication, all of them buying drugs from U.S. wholesalers. A small tribe with about 650 members, the Pequots also own Foxwoods, the world's largest casino, with more than 10,000 employees.

The Cherokees aren't certain that they will import Canadian drugs; some tribal mail-order pharmacies have tried it, and other tribes say they want to, despite a federal crackdown on bulk purchases from north of the border.

Hicks said his tribe might follow the model of the Pequots and the Penobscots of Maine, who sell only U.S.-manufactured drugs they have been able to purchase at a deeply discounted price because of the volume of business their mail-order pharmacies conduct.

Either way, if the Cherokees open a business that fills prescriptions for people who aren't tribal members, they'll have to get a pharmacy permit from the N.C. Board of Pharmacy, said Jay Campbell, executive director of the occupational licensing board. Statewide, the board licenses 11,000 pharmacists, 3,000 pharmacies and 11,000 pharmacy technicians.

"Nobody can sell prescription drugs to the people of North Carolina without a permit from us," Campbell said.

Selling drugs from Canada violates federal law and bypasses federal drug safety and testing standards, Campbell said.

Counterfeiting concern

The chief worry of federal officials isn't the safety of Canadian drugs -- the pharmaecuticals meet the high standards of Canada's health ministry and are often manufactured at the same plants as drugs made for the U.S. market. Rather, officials are concerned about opening an unmonitored route for counterfeit drugs masquerading as products of Canada.

State and federal laws also require a "legitimate" relationship between patients and the physician who writes them a prescription, Campbell said.

"The issue is whether a patient is actually being treated for a medical problem a doctor has diagnosed versus asking for a prescription a doctor somewhere just stamps out," he said.

Sovereignty rights

If the Cherokees decide to purchase drugs from Canada, Hicks said they'll cite sovereignty rights granted the tribe by 18th- and 19th-century treaties as a shield against any federal crackdown.

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