US federal lawmakers are asking the State Department to issue a warning for the sale of drugs containing fentanyl and other substances in Mexican pharmacies.
The University of California, Los Angeles study says they found potent drugs like fentanyl in drugs purchased without a prescription in Mexico from dozens of pharmacies that went through almost half of the pills they they analyzed were contaminated.
Forty pharmacies in four Mexican cities near the U.S. border or in northwest Aztec country were selling over-the-counter medication contaminated with potent drugs such as fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine, a study found.
“30% of oxycodone contained fentanyl or heroin, and 80% of adderall contained methamphetamine,” said Dr. David Goodman-Meza, an infectious disease physician at UCLA.
Another of the drugs analyzed in Mexican pharmacies is Xanax, which did not contain any drug in the samples taken.
To protect the identities of the researchers, UCLA did not reveal the location of the pharmacies, but during all visits the drugs were sold to people who spoke English and appeared to be tourists. Pharmacists almost in all cases warned customers about the danger of overdose.
“There are certain biases that the study cannot differentiate,” Goodman-Meza said.
The deadly drug passes itself off as drugs for anxiety and depression, but it can kill those who use it.
Among these distinction differences, the UCLA researcher assures that there would be Mexican residents who buy prescription drugs in Mexico.
“It really causes mistrust in medical tourism, so that’s another reason why it shouldn’t happen,” the doctor added.
Concern over the proliferation of fentanyl in Mexico has led members of the US Congress to ask the State Department to issue a travel advisory to the Aztec country.
Goodman-Meza added that “the State Department and the DEA need to be a little more clear and explicit about the existence of this risk.”
But Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes a very different stance on the fentanyl crisis.
“Here we don’t produce fentanyl and we don’t consume fentanyl,” said the president of Mexico.
However, the UCLA researcher says the Mexican government needs to recognize the problem in order to tackle the crisis, starting with stopping the sale of these powerful drugs in pharmacies.
“Especially if they have fentanyl which causes an overdose and can lead to death, as we already know from cases that have happened,” he said.
Another of the recommendations of the UCLA researchers is to always buy prescription drugs in Mexico and to go to pharmacies recommended by doctors and acquaintances. Experts say over-the-counter users should keep drugs like Narcan on hand in case of an overdose.