Drug smugglers have a new cargo: cheap prescription meds from Mexico
News Sunday, March 2nd, 2014PBS: February 18, 2014
MARFA, Texas — In borderland Texas, a widespread lack of health insurance is linked to poverty and high rates of diseases such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.
Cheaper prescription drugs to treat these conditions are available across the border in Mexico. But physicians and law enforcement are tracking a relatively new trend — the smuggling of medicine in bulk from Mexico to U.S. patients who no longer feel safe shopping for them in Mexico.
Mexican Pharmacist Jorge Sandoval says people who buy his medicines these days often buy for people they don’t even know.
“There’s a trade in legal prescription medication,” he said in Spanish from his shop in Chihuahua, Mexico, about an hour south of the border. “The trade is generated by people (in both countries) who want to buy medicine at a lower price. People are bringing in ice chests to fill with medicines that they sell to friends and relatives.” Read More
