MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico has closed 23 pharmacies in Caribbean coast resorts after a research report cautioned about the sale of prescription drugs without prescriptions to foreigners, including pills falsely labeled as Oxycodone, Percocet, and Adderall, authorities revealed on Tuesday.
A four-day inspection operation targeted drugstores in Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum.
In March, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning regarding the sale of such drugs, and the practice seems to be prevalent.
The Navy Department confirmed on Tuesday that irregular sales were detected in 23 out of the 55 drug stores that were inspected.
The Navy stated that the pharmacies typically offered these pills exclusively to tourists, and that they advertised the drugs and even offered home delivery services for them.
The Navy discovered expired medications, as well as medications with no supplier records, and blank or unsigned prescription forms.
In February, the University of California, Los Angeles announced that their researchers had discovered that 68% of the 40 Mexican pharmacies visited in four cities in northern Mexico were selling Oxycodone, Xanax, or Adderall, and that 27% of those pharmacies were selling counterfeit pills.
UCLA stated that their 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 pills pose a serious overdose risk to buyers who believe they are getting a known quantity of a weaker drug,” said Chelsea Shover, assistant professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in February.
And the U.S. State Department’s travel warning in March stated that the counterfeit pills being sold at Mexican pharmacies “may contain deadly doses of fentanyl.”
The Mexican Navy did not confirm whether any fentanyl-laced pills were discovered in last week’s raid, but stated that the medications would be seized for testing to determine if they contained fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is significantly more potent than morphine, and it is responsible for around 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States. Mexican drug cartels produce it using precursor chemicals smuggled from China, and they often press it into pills that resemble other medications.