Rumor has had it that Medical Tourists will no longer be able to purchase subscriptions in Mexican farmacias without a prescription from a Mexican Doctor.
This may be true. The truth is that a lot of antibiotics are misused in treating diseases that they have no effect on. This can cause antibiotic resistance and lead to the rise of “super bugs”. Unfortunately, both Mexico and the United States are pumping livestock full of antibiotics with total disregard of the human health consequences or of the probable rise of “super-bugs.”
That is as it is…If you do wish to purchase antibiotics in Mexico, ask the pharmacist. (Remember not everyone in a white coat is a pharmacist) ask for the :farmacista”. If you have problems the local doctor down the street will write you a prescription for whatever you want. No examination needed. Don’t pay over $10 or so. There is a Farmacia Simi, that caters directly to the poor people. They have an on staff doctor that will give you an examination of sorts, and write any prescription you want. A few years back I saw one for just $2.50 American. Yes you read correctly. Of course the drugs are generic and made mostly in Mexico. I wouldn’t use them for any life-threatening condition.
Medical Pharmacies can be life savers. But the short and long of it is that there is no need to panic There is the law and then there is the enforcement of it. On the north side of the border Homeland Security has bigger fish to worry about than your little anti-biotic stash. Personally I would avoid crossing tranquilizers and narcotics. Officials anywhere in the world have been trained to alert for these. About other prescription drugs I don’t think they know as much as you and me.
Of course if they are really out to get you the CBP (Homeland Security Immigration) can do all sorts of horrible things to you. But I think they do have their limits…
Per example:
Standing in line waiting to clear US customs, it was like déjà vu all over again (thanks Yogi). A loquacious, affable early baby bomber guy (white hair, bib overalls and a beard) was going through the cursory interrogation by (again, an aging baby-boomer, with crew-cut and an intimidating, grouchy and curt demeanor. He was Mexican American, but he had a decidedly Germanic, “Papers Pleze!!” attitude.
I’d heard this same conversation many times before, ever since Americans were required to have passports to get back into their own country after stepping across the border for a brief visit.
The conversation went something like this:
“You‘re supposed to have a passport. Why don’t you have one etc. etc?”
“Well, I left it in the truck.”
“Then let me see your birth certificate!”
“It’s in the truck too”
“If it’s in the truck you don’t have it, do you?”
“Ýea, I do have it, but it’s in the truck!? ”
This circular conversation could still be looping on ad infinitum. To bring it to a merciful end White Beard and Bib Overalls finally had to say he didn’t have his passport or birth certificate, although of course he did. It was just in the truck in the parking lot, about a two minute walk away.
Then grumpy crew cut CBP told him to pay his liquor tax, and so the line moved on.
Lot’s of Americans come back without passports and they always get a royal ass chewing. I believe though that without the reasonable suspicion that a person is not an American Citizen they can not be detained, But, then, does anyone know what is really in the Patriot Act? If they can hold you, they don’t really dare do it. At least not yet.
Adventure always awaits in the sunny pueblito they call Nuevo Progreso, Mexico. Even when you get back home.
