Mexico shutters 23 pharmacies at Caribbean coast resorts after US warned of dangerous pill sales
Mexico has closed 23 pharmacies at Caribbean coast resorts, six months after a research report warned that drug stores in Mexico were offering foreigners pills they passed off as Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall
MEXICO CITY — Mexico has shuttered 23 pharmacies at Caribbean coast resorts, six months after a research report warned that drug stores in Mexico were offering foreigners pills they passed off as Oxycodone, Percocet and Adderall without prescriptions, authorities said Tuesday.
A four-day inspection raid targeted drugstores in Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
In March, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning about sales of such pills, and the practice appears to be widespread.
The Navy Department said Tuesday that irregular sales were found at 23 of the 55 drug stores inspected.
The Navy said the pharmacies usually offered the pills only to tourists, and the drugstores advertised such pills, and even offered home delivery services for them.
The Navy said it found outdated medications and some for which there was no record of the supplier, as well as blank or unsigned prescription forms.
In February, the University of California, Los Angeles announced that researchers there had found that 68% of the 40 Mexican pharmacies visited in four northern Mexico cities sold Oxycodone, Xanax or Adderall, and that 27% of those pharmacies were selling fake pills.
UCLA said the study, published in January, found that “brick and mortar pharmacies in Northern Mexican tourist towns are selling counterfeit pills containing fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine. These pills are sold mainly to US tourists, and are often passed off as controlled substances such as Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall.”
“These counterfeit
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