Quest for Cheaper (Prescription) Drugs Can End in a Mexican Jail

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexpill5sep05,1,5193788.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Californians shopping for cheaper prescription drugs may have gotten a break when the Legislature voted to ease access to low-cost medicines from Canada, but south of the border, bargain-hunters can pay an unexpected, traumatic cost — time in a Mexican slammer.

Since early last year, at least 67 Americans have been jailed here for buying medicines without a prescription from a Mexican doctor. Most recently, a 53-year-old U.S. woman was arrested here in July and spent a day in jail after buying 90 Valium tablets, a standard prescription amount, without the requisite Mexican doctor's order.

Drug shoppers in Mexico are on the same quest for discounts that has driven many Californians to buy mail-order medications from Canada, where prices also can be dramatically lower.

Late last month, days after a group of elderly Southern Californian protesters chartered a train called the "Rx Express" to buy medicines in Vancouver, the California Legislature gave final approval to a package of bills allowing cheaper drug imports from Canada. The legislation is still being considered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

<snip>

In a notorious case, an Iowa woman was raped while in custody late last year after Mexican police arrested her and her husband for possession of Ritalin they had bought in Tijuana for their 9-year-old son.

[Downtown Hound]

1. I've been following the Dawn Wilson case

It's tragic. The poor woman had no idea she was violating any laws and ended up with a five year prison sentence. Read more about it at

www.dawnwilson.com

[Gman]

12. In Mexico, it doesn't matter if you know the law or not

It happens a lot to dove hunters who aren't aware they're not allowed to bring any guns across.

And sometimes you don't know the law because the federales just made the law up on the spot.

[Downtown Hound]

16. Yeah, I know

I just feel really sorry for her. She had a problem with seizures, and lived on a boat. She bought a large amount of medication because she wasn't on land very often, got stopped by the cops, and ended up in prison for five years. That just seems so excessive for someone who had no intent other than to stay healthy. She's already had two seizures in prison, with no medication.

[Gman]

19. You should have been around in the late 60's/early 70's when

if you were in Mexico and you had long hair, chances were good you would would get detained and somehow miraculously, you were carrying a joint. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still people in jail down there for that.

That's why I never even thought about going to Mexico until long after I cut my hair.

[Radius]

2. 30 day

Thats 3 a day on a script. Thats a lot of any bene unless you have seizures.

Ritalin, an amphetamine, is a schedule 2 drug, like percocet and Demerol, oxycontin, morphine.

Both cases here are substances with red flags for abuse. Ritalin generic is about 8 - 14 dollars a month, Valium (lorazapam) is just as cheap, dirt cheap. Kind of funny to go to Mexico to get them, you would probably pay more in gas.

There are lots of massively overpriced drugs, those are just massively abused cheap drugs.

Canada or the net, at least you get a clean cell and a fair trial.

[foo_bar]

5. red flags for abuse

In a notorious case, an Iowa woman was raped while in custody late last year after Mexican police arrested her and her husband for possession of Ritalin they had bought in Tijuana for their 9-year-old son.

If only she paid retail for the little junkie. Tsk, tsk.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
- Anatole France

[Radius]

8. 15 dollars?

ritalin is basically amphetamine. It is dirt cheap in generic form and the only reason to buy it somewhere else is to skirt the 30 day cycle controls.

Like I said, you will spend more on gasoline driving there to buy that s2 drug than you would on legally buying it here. Plus you open your self up to federal prosecution. If you transfer it to a bottle issued by a pharmacy you can still get caught. Each bottle is recorded and linked to inventory controls and to the DEA.

Cancer meds, name brand anti depressants (paxil, etc) makes sense. They are vastly overpriced here.

It does not make sense to go to mexico to but cheap amphetamine or lorazapam. I took valuim before having my wisdom teeth yanked, $6 for 8 pills, no insurance then. The demerol generic was around $14 for 30.

[foo_bar]

13. why ascribe to malice what's reported as incompetence?

People aren't attuned to the subtleties of DEA scheduling. My pharmacy used a little firecracker to denote schedule IV (certainly without roman numerals). A 30-day prescription doesn't merit torture and human rights abuses from our fellow NAFTA partner.

At least that's what I'd say if I were the defense attorney.

[amazona]

3. this is way overblown

People know when they buy scheduled drugs in Mexico or anywhere else, yes, in Canada too, that they are breaking the law and can go to jail. There is no way that someone doesn't know that Valium is not a scheduled drug of abuse, sheesh. I have purchased drugs safely and inexpensively in Mexico and been treated very well but I would never abuse the hospitality of a foreign country by purchasing known drugs of abuse there. People need to have a little common sense in my humble opinion.

[Downtown Hound]

17. A lot of Mexican pharmacies

sell the drugs openly without asking for a prescription. As a result many Americans aren't aware that they're actually breaking the law, or they think that a U.S. prescription is good enough. Sure it may be naive, but I don't think that there's any real malice intended except in some cases. It's not like they're doing back alley street deals or anything. They're going to a legitimate pharmacy. Prison seems a little harsh for buying something at a legally recognized distributer. If Mexico is really serious about not wanting foreigners to buy prescription drugs there without a Mexican prescription, they ought to make the pharmacies stop selling them.

[Warpy]

4. Wow.

I've always made it a policy to carry my US prescription bottles with me, so there isn't any hassle at the border. I've managed to buy 6 month quantities of everything including my pain meds with no problem.

There are some folks I know who go to Mexico for things their docs quite rightly won't prescribe here. The usual dodge is to visit a Mexican doc and get a Mexican scrip for them. People who buy directly from a pharmy have always been asking for the trouble at the border, if not from Mexican authorities.

Now if we could only get them to tighten up their antibiotic prescirbing...

[WolverineDG]

6. just pay a mexican dr. $10 for a script!

or make sure you're not buying massive quantities. i just came back w/3 mos' worth of my meds. my ins. co-pay is $10/mo. & the ins. company will only let me fill it one month at a time ($120/month), even tho my dr. writes the script to allow me 3 mos' at a time. in mexico, the same drug is $4.20 for a month's supply. same manufacturer, different box, much lower price.

dg

[Radius]

9. Possession Limits

Some drugs like oxycontin or ritalin and morphine have possession limits. A doc in the US can't write you a script for 200 percocet pills, you can't posses that much legally.

No one really cares all that much, but if you get caught for something else and happen to have 200 percocets or demerol pills you are going to be charged with a felony.

Just saying buying any schedule 2 drug in a foreign country in mass can cause you a very big problem. Many of these charges fall under federal manditory sentencing guidelines.

[WolverineDG]

18. i didn't go across to get that stuff

:)

but my goodness, were they ever pushing pain killers & such on me yesterday!

dg

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Exactly: $10 - $20 will get you a rx from a mexican physician

that's a lot cheaper than getting out of a mexican prison.

[leesa]

7. There is an excellent book out, 'The Truth About the Drug Companies'

by Dr Marcia Angell, who was the former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine for some twenty years. She exposes the pharma industry like no one else.
'In 2002 the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the profits of all the other 490 companies combined'.
Pharmaceuticals are enormously powerful and they have to be stopped.

[Radius]

11. Clarification

There are lots of drugs that warrant purchasing online or across borders. Cancer meds, name brands with no generic equivs(paxil, other ssris), etc. I'm not saying people should not go to Canada or Mexico to get these.

However anything on the schedule 2 list or abused drugs(benes), mexican doctor or not, I would be very weary with. Most of these drugs are available in cheap generic form. You can get in serious deep shit bringing theese across borders. Transferring them into an american bottle is a felony.

edit:spelling

[meti57b]

14. about 15 years ago, my (then) neighbors used to fly a small...

single-engine plane to Mexico for their yearly vacation. The last year they did that the plane crashed in Mexico. He had many broken bones and she had a back injury and could never walk again. But what is important here, they were taken to a Mexican hospital, which brought them to the attention of the Mexican authorities who assumed they were drug dealers, because apparently drug dealers frequently use small planes.

I don't recollect if they said they were taken to jail, or were in a prison section of the hospital or were just under arrest for drug dealing and would be jailed after they recovered somewhat from their injuries. Somehow, she knew the wife of the president of Mexico or maybe the wife's in-law or someone like that, whom they were able to get a message to, and she (the wife of the president or in-law or whatever) arranged for their release and return to California.

We had moved by then but we heard about this and visited them in the hospital here in the Los Angeles area and saw they were injured and heard the story first-hand from them.

Personally, I would recommend not going into Mexico for any reason.

[Gloria]

15. Our Senior center here sends a bus with a pharmacist aboard....

every month or so. They used to charter a 45 seat bus, but funding was cut, so now they are just going to use the 15 seat center van and limit it to first-time participants to show them the ropes.

(This is Las Cruces, NM....)