elgatoloco
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Quest for Cheaper Drugs Can End in a Mexican Jail
Police crack down on Americans who buy medications without local prescriptions.
By Chris Kraul
Times Staff Writer
September 5, 2004
TIJUANA ? 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.
To the south, thousands of Americans, mostly senior citizens, cross the border daily to buy prescription drugs at places such as Tijuana and Algodones
on the California border, Nogales south of Arizona and Ciudad Juarez opposite El Paso. They are pursuing savings of up to 75% on medicines ranging
from antibiotics and antidepressants to heart medication and chemotherapy agents.
Mexican druggists who sell to Americans without a prescription are also breaking the law, but the police more frequently target the customers, knowing
they are easy arrests and in many cases will be only too willing to pay bribes of hundreds of dollars to avoid jail.
Facing a sharp decline in tourism in recent months, some Tijuana pharmacists are mounting a campaign to warn visitors of the hazards of buying drugs
without prescriptions ? and to repair Tijuana's image.
"Americans come here with no idea that they need a prescription, a Mexican prescription, to get their medicines," said Ignacio Romo Calderon,
president of the Tijuana Pharmacists Assn.
"We are trying to educate the tourists because [the arrests] have given the city a bad name."
Pharmacies have multiplied here to more than 1,300 ? three times the number in San Diego, with roughly the same population ? as Mexico becomes known
as an alternative to cost-conscious U.S. consumers.
Law-abiding druggists along Pharmacy Row will either refuse to sell the drugs or send consumers to one of the many doctor's offices here where
physicians are known to write prescriptions for $40.
Some of the buyers arrested here obviously intended to traffick the suspiciously large quantities of drugs they bought, officials at the U.S.
Consulate here said.
A Seattle man was arrested in September 2003 after allegedly buying more than 6,000 pills of medications, including controlled substances. Two clerks
at Tijuana's Trip Pharmacy, where the purchases were made, were also jailed.
But most trans-border consumers are elderly Americans who simply are buying medicines for their own ailments or those of family members. Most walk
into the Mexican pharmacies with a U.S. prescription or with none at all.
Alfonso Gonzalez, a San Diego retiree, drives to Tijuana every month to buy eyedrops for his glaucoma. He pays $20 for the same monthly supply of
drops that in San Diego costs $90. That's a considerable savings for 70-year-old Gonzalez and his wife, who subsist on the $1,100 a month they receive
in Social Security benefits.
"We retirees are the ones who suffer the most because the drug business is so controlled in the United States. It's why you never see a price
reduction," said Gonzalez, who said that Medicare did not cover the cost of his drops, which he said were vital in keeping his eyesight.
He said the Tijuana pharmacy he patronized sold him his drops without a prescription.
Although police are likely to look the other way a case such as Gonzalez's eyedrops, they can come down hard on those who buy controlled substances,
such as those known by their U.S. brand names Valium, Ritalin, Percodan and Darvon.
The average length of jail time is 48 hours.
Although most of those arrested are released after producing documentation proving a medical need, those who can't or who are suspected of buying
drugs with trafficking in mind can be sentenced to lengthy terms.
In the most highly publicized case here, Dawn Marie Wilson, 48, received a five-year term for buying a variety of prescription drugs in Baja
California last year, including anti- epilepsy medication and Valium.
Through her lawyer, she said she did not buy all the drugs listed by Mexican authorities in her court papers. Wilson is now in an Ensenada jail but is
scheduled to be transferred to U.S. custody this month.
Raymond Lindell, 66, of Phoenix was held in a Nogales jail for eight weeks this year after being caught with 270 Valium pills he had bought for his
wife. Lindell argued that he went to Mexico to buy the drugs after his insurer stopped reimbursing him and his wife for the cost of the tranquilizer.
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.
The arrests of U.S. shoppers have contributed to Tijuana's dubious status as the place where more Americans are arrested ? an average of more than
seven a day ? than in any other foreign city with a consular presence. Most arrests are for drunkenness and disorderly conduct.
Baja California accounts for 20% of all arrests of U.S. nationals on foreign soil each year.
MAGA
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mcgyver
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That guy Lindell lives in a million and 1/2 dollar house in Sun city, the news paper did an article on him, he is just another rich drug pusher that
has gotten away with it yet again! He can make a $1000 selling them on the course during his morning golf game.
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elgatoloco
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Lindell
Which paper? The guy sounds like a meat head. 270 valium!! WOW! 
MAGA
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JESSE
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When i used to work at the Tijuana Hard Rock Cafe in revolucion street, i almost daily had to kick out americans stuffing their pants or filling
aspiring bottles with drugs (pills) in the restroom, and these wherent colesterol or high blood pressure pills, we are talking Valium, Rophies, and
other nasty stuff, by the hundreds and even thousands, another thing that surprised me is that the people doing it wherent the stereotypical criminal,
most of the people i kicked out looked very decent and law abiding.
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MrBillM
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This article, which I had read in the Los Angeles Times, seems to be another attempt
to scare the unknowing. It gives the impression that the purchase of any medication
which requires a U.S. prescription could put you in danger of arrest in Mexico. In
fact, ONLY the purchases made of drugs which require a Mexican prescription is a
legal problem. Most of the medications which the seniors take do not require pre-
scriptions in Mexico. For the most part, only narcotic medications require said
prescriptions. Of course, the buyer, though legal in Mexico, is in violation of U.S.
law, but again, unless they are narcotic, I've found Customs not to be interested.
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Anonymous
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Trip to Tijuana to fill prescription ends in jail time and a good scare
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/10678073p-11596668c...
By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
September 9, 2004
David Andrews of Susanville was so confident buying prescription drugs in Mexico he stopped a police officer in Tijuana to ask for directions to the
border.
And so began his harrowing, 68-day journey through the Mexican legal system that has similarly ensnared untold numbers of Americans.
Like others, the 22-year-old Andrews went looking for cheap medication, lured by border-town farmacias that seem anything but rigid or risky.
What he got was jail time and a good scare - two months in a Mexican prison, sharing a 10-by-15-foot cell with 15 other inmates and giant bugs and no
earthly idea what he'd done wrong.
I first began chronicling the Mexican prescription-drug story last March, with the unsuccessful efforts by Dawn Marie Wilson of San Diego to win
release from a federal prison in Ensenada. The 49-year-old woman, a longtime boater in Baja California, was sentenced to five years after being
stopped in April 2003 with a large supply of what she says was anti-seizure medication purchased in Tijuana. She did not have a Mexican doctor's
prescription, as required by law.
But David Andrews did. The 2000 Lassen High graduate did his homework on the Internet and had that base covered - or so he thought, as he set out for
Tijuana with a friend June 4 to pick up more Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication.
As Andrews explains it, he began feeling depressed and anxious around others several years ago. He quit college, moved back home last year and found
solitary work as a security guard. He got a U.S. doctor's prescription for the drug to deal with his condition.
Why he felt compelled to get a Mexican doctor's prescription for more was, he says ruefully, a judgment error that "kind of goes with the disease."
It was nearly catastrophic.
Having made one successful trip to Tijuana in March to get the Mexican equivalent of the drug, he thought nothing of filling it again. But when he and
his friend asked a police officer for directions, he said, they were thrown against a wall and searched.
"Immediately, they put us in the back of the van and said, 'If you have $1,000 right now, we'll let you go...' But we had no money, nothing."
After a visit in jail from the U.S. Consulate's office, which gave the young men a list of attorneys, they were told by one lawyer: "$5,000 and you
two can leave tonight, or you're going to be in jail for five years."
His friend was released 39 hours later. But not David.
Back home, Bob Andrews and his wife, Liz Norton, didn't learn about their son's arrest until June 7, their 29th wedding anniversary. They hired
another attorney. They contacted elected officials but got little response.
"It was devastating," said Norton. "We lost a lot of nights' sleep."
"Frankly," said Bob Andrews," we wondered if we'd see our son again."
They were certainly not alone. In July, a 66-year-old Phoenix retiree, Raymond Lindell, was released after spending eight weeks in prison for buying
270 Valium tablets for his wife in Nogales without a Mexican prescription. (Like Andrews and Wilson, his wife did have a U.S. prescription.)
The U.S. Embassy cautions in a recent consular information sheet that "U.S. citizens not travel to Mexico for the sole purpose of buying prescription
drugs." Laws are "enforced selectively," it warns, and "counterfeit or substandard medications in Mexico could be as high as 25 percent."
Curiously, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana said this week Andrews' case was still "open."
He would disagree. In early August, the young man living among rats and roaches met with a Mexican judge, though he still was unsure of the charges.
"I guess it was a trial," he said.
And when it was over, he was free. Released Aug. 10, he walked an hour to the border the following day and called his parents, who wired money.
He took a Greyhound home.
David Andrews lost his job as a security guard but gained something immeasurable: a new start, he says.
He has returned to college. Along with his family, his girlfriend stuck by him. He relishes eating chocolate and listening to music again.
"In a way, it was actually good," he said. "I wasn't doing the right things, I was kind of going down the wrong road in my life...
"This opened my eyes to see how good I had it here in the U.S."
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Anonymous
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-08-12-prescription-...
By Charisse Jones and Valerie Alvord
8/12/2004
Officials and politicians on both sides of the border are taking steps to clarify the rules about Americans buying prescription drugs and bringing
them back to the U.S. after a 66-year-old Phoenix man was arrested and spent nearly eight weeks in a Mexican prison.
Raymond Lindell was arrested in Nogales, Mexico, after he bought 270 Valium pills in May at a local pharmacy, according to the Mexican Federal Police.
News reports said he was initially charged with possession of the drug for sale and transport over the border. The charges were eventually dismissed,
and Lindell was released last month.
The retiree says he went to Mexico in search of cheaper medicine for his wife after his insurance company stopped covering Valium, a popular
tranquilizer.
Lindell's case raises questions given that he had a large amount of a controlled substance and allegedly did not have a valid prescription.But the
incident has also focused attention on the plight of seniors who travel to Mexico and Canada to buy prescription drugs that are more expensive at
home.
Esmeralda Aguirre, who works for the Mexican Federal Police, says Americans are arrested for carrying controlled substances without a prescription
roughly two or three times a month.
"Usually it's Valium," Aguirre says. "Sometimes they are younger, and they want to sell it on the streets. But it's very common for them to be senior
citizens. ... They come here to buy it because it's cheaper. What happens is they forget their prescriptions at home. That's when they get busted, and
that's when they get in trouble."
There have not been any arrests since June, and Aguirre says she knew of no crackdown on U.S. residents. "It may be that the pharmacies are being more
careful."
But the Nogales Chamber of Commerce is eager to lure wary tourists. The chamber is working with city and state officials in Mexico to create a guide
on prescription drugs that would be placed in pharmacies and distributed along the border to U.S. citizens.
The newest edition of a legal guide for tourists in Tijuana will include a page on prescription medicines. And an information sheet provided by the
U.S. Consulate discourages Americans from going to Mexico to make such purchases.
It points out that U.S. citizens have been "arrested and their medicines confiscated by the Mexican authorities" even though people had prescriptions.
Arizona state Rep. John Huppenthal says thousands of seniors travel from his state each month to buy medicine in Mexico. But the rules governing the
purchase of prescription drugs can be confusing.
Technically it's illegal to bring a controlled substance from another country into the USA. It's also illegal to bring in prescription drugs. But U.S.
citizens are generally allowed to bring in medicine so long as the amount is not so great that it appears to be for sale rather than personal use,
says William Hubbard of the Food and Drug Administration. Those suffering from a life-threatening illness such as cancer or AIDS can bring home a
90-day supply of an experimental drug not available in the USA.
"If they declare the drug to our inspector, they'll advise it's not legal," Hubbard says. "But we don't arrest them or take the drugs away unless it's
a large amount ? like if ... your trunk's full."
Customs officials are more specific, allowing people to bring in a 60- to 90-day supply of medicine, says Jim Michie, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs
and Border Protection. The person with the prescription must declare the medicine and have it in its original container. The person must also have a
copy of the prescription or a letter from the doctor, Michie says.
In Mexico, laws regarding the purchase of prescription drugs can be unclear. Luis Cabrera, consul general of Mexico in San Diego says that "for the
drugs that require a prescription in Mexico, that's the law and it has to be complied with."
Yet in border towns, where people pass out fliers directing tourists to the myriad pharmacies lining the streets, some say a prescription can be
bought for only a few dollars.
"Generally, the enforcement in Mexico has been weak and haphazard," says Paul Ganster of the Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias at San
Diego State University. "And when occasionally Mexico decides to enforce things, someone walks out of the door of a pharmacy and gets arrested."
Despite the risks, buying prescription medicines across the Mexican border remains appealing because they can be at least 30% to 50% cheaper, experts
say.
In Europe and Canada, such drugs are often sold for 40% to 60% less than in the United States, says U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. He is a sponsor of
a bill that would allow importing drugs OK'd by the FDA from approved facilities in 25 industrialized nations, including Canada and members of the
European Union, but not Mexico. The bill passed the House of Representatives in July 2003 and is awaiting action by the Senate.
"Literally thousands of people in my district rely on buying drugs in Mexico and many of them are seniors," says U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, a Democrat who
represents San Diego. "Theoretically, if you have a prescription, it's legal in Mexico to buy them. But we have a lot of situations where we have
people in jail right now for buying prescription drugs. And some think it's because they just didn't pay the right bribe."
Even with the prescription discount cards available this year under the new Medicare legislation, seniors are finding it more cost effective to buy
medicines off the Internet or abroad, Emanuel and others say.
Official figures on the number of people crossing into Mexico to buy prescription drugs were not available. But Marv Shepherd, a pharmacy professor at
the University of Texas in Austin, estimates that 25% to 30% of the roughly 25,000 Americans crossing the bridge at Laredo, Texas, into Mexico on any
given Saturday are making prescription purchases.
"It's an enormous benefit of living in a border state that you can, without too much expense, go take advantage of the fact there are lower-priced
drugs nearby," Huppenthal says.
Sandra Santos, 48, works for a private customs broker in Laredo, but she has no insurance and crosses the border to get prescription sinus medicine."I
try very hard to make sure I have my prescription with me all the time, and I check to make sure I get it back from the pharmacist," Santos says. "If
I couldn't get the medicine there, I really don't know what I would do."
In addition to legal issues, some point out that there is also a safety concern.
The information sheet provided by the U.S. Consulate says law enforcement officials believe that as much as 25% of the medicines in Mexico could be
"counterfeit and substandard."
But seniors and others continue to flock across the border.
Once a month, Rockport Tours in Corpus Christi, Texas, takes a bus with 50 people, most of them seniors, on a 2?-hour ride to Nuevo Progreso, Mexico,
near the southern tip of Texas.
While half the passengers are seeking a pleasant meal and maybe a margarita, the other half are getting dental work, buying eyeglasses and purchasing
medicine, says Rockport Tours' owner, John Leyland.
"I know there are some who go down every month or every other month simply for that reason," he says. Mostly, "they're going down to get ... things
for diabetes or rheumatism."
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synch
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Only dopes use dope ...
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