They're Trying To Poison You

Especially if you're an American tourist in Mexico

Credit: Deborah Bonello

A new investigation from Vice shows that the cartels are now praying on American tourists and ex-pats in Mexico.

Mom-and-pop pharmacies in tourist towns — Cabo San Lucas, Tulum, Cancun, Playa Del Carmen — are selling Percocet, Xanax, Adderall, you name it, as many pills as you want, without a prescription. Except they’re often fake, cut with fentanyl or meth.

These pharmacies prey on dumb stoners, yes, but also retirees who legitimately seek a deal on their pain meds. Even worse, some parents buy ADHD medicine in Mexico, meaning they could be giving their children meth.

This was an intrepid, quite-dangerous investigation undertaken by steely Vice News editor Deborah Bonello and the Bunk Police, which is the drug-checking service I profiled in Fentanyl, Inc. If you haven’t read the book (shame) I traveled to Slovenia to meet the company’s founder Adam Auctor, who also helped me plan my undercover reporting in fentanyl operations in China.

To return the favor, I served as an informal advisor on this investigation in Mexico, and am quoted in the story:

“It’s an elaborate hoax. Somebody went to the trouble of trying to imitate what they think prescription pills bottles are supposed to look like to a U.S consumer, and although they missed the mark by a lot these bottles have half an air of legitimacy and certainly a lot more than handing someone a baggie of pills.”

Poking around in cartel country takes incredible courage. At one point one of the “pharmacists” caught wind of what Bonello and company were doing.

“Do you have Xanax?” we asked the shop assistant in Cabo. But he had been tipped off that we’d been asking for pills all around town.

“They’ll chop your head off,” the salesman blurted out as we left the shop.

“What did you say?” we asked.

“Nothing,” he shrugged, looking off into the distance. “I didn’t say nothing.”

Definitely check out the whole thing. Suffice it to say I enjoy reading about others’ journalistic missions into harm’s way more than I do undertaking them myself!

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In other drug-checking news, a thought leader in the realm of harm reduction named Emanuel Sferios has a new product out called QTests. Billed as the first “quantitative” drug-checking kits, these tests specialize in telling you not just what drug you have, but how potent it is.

Sferios is the founder of DanceSafe, whom I also profile in Fentanyl, Inc. He’s incredibly knowledgeable about the science surrounding recreational drugs. The right amount of LSD vs. too much LSD can mean the difference between an enlightening experience and a half-week-long hellscape. His new kits let you measure with precision.

Right now there are kits for MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and cannabis. “We have a fentanyl potency test in the works,” Sferios tells me, which he hopes will be ready later this year.

You’re heard me say this is a terrible time to be a young person, or anyone interested in experimenting with drugs. But on the bright side, for those willing to do a little advanced planning — to nerd out just a tiny bit — the technology to make sure your drugs are safe has never been better.