PRESCRIPTION-DRUG SMUGGLING INCREASES

Hispanic Girl Dies After Receiving An Injection In A Toy Store Last Week

Major shipments of Mexican prescription drugs are being smuggled into
Southern California from Tijuana, fueling greater sales through
illegal back-room clinics and storefronts, state and federal
officials say.

The pervasive black-market sales, mainly by Hispanic merchants, has
emboldened shop owners not only to sell pharmaceuticals to immigrant
customers but to take a more dangerous new step: Some merchants are
giving injections and practicing medicine on customers.

Tustin police are investigating whether the illegal practice
contributed to the death Monday of 18-month-old Selene Segura Rios.
She died two hours after receiving what her parents were told was a
penicillin injection in the back room of a toy store.

She was the second Hispanic child in the last 10 months to die after
receiving injections from unlicensed practitioners in Orange County.

"Stores selling illegal prescription drugs of all kinds are a
pervasive problem in the Hispanic community," said Howard Ratzky,
supervising drug investigator for the state Department of Food and
Drug. "It's very hard to stop, and nobody knows how many stores out
there are engaging in this."

Ratzky said the issue has gone beyond "the trend of an unlicensed
store selling prescription drugs." Some stores, he said, "have begun
offering medical treatment by people identifying themselves as
physicians."

A U.S. Customs agent in San Diego also noted a growing number of cases
where people who sell the drugs also inject them into patients.

"Unfortunately, immigrants know where these places are. They'll go to
the back of the store and someone will say, 'You look OK,' and an
untrained person will give a kid an injection," the agent said.

The problem with Mexican drugs is that many are counterfeit medicines
and the quality control is lax, said U.S. Customs Agent Lisa Fairchild.

"A scarier danger is that sometimes the packets don't contain the
medication that the label says is inside," Fairchild said.

On Wednesday, the same day that Tustin police announced Selene's
death, state agents and local police raided the Trolley Minimart in El
Monte. Investigators seized syringes and numerous pharmaceuticals
manufactured in Mexico and hidden in false bottoms of cleanser
containers and disguised in vitamin bottles, Ratzky said.

Los Angeles and Orange counties "are a big market for pharmaceuticals
smuggled from Tijuana," said a U.S. Customs agent who specializes in
cases involving illegal prescription drugs. "The problem has grown
dramatically in the last three or four years, but nobody has a handle
on how much is being brought across."

Buyers of illegal prescription drugs are typically low-income and
uninsured persons, mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
But they can also be unwitting customers of pharmacies that bring in
medications from Mexico.

Despite the rising number of prescription-drug seizures at the border,
Customs officials have not maintained statistics on the problem. The
emphasis is still on tracking the number and quantities of narcotics
seizures, one agent said.

Pharmaceutical smugglers range from the nondescript to people like
Cliff Holt, a Park City, Utah, pharmacist, the agent said. Holt was
arrested after Customs inspectors seized 19,000 prescription
pharmaceuticals at the San Ysidro, Calif., port of entry Jan. 17, 1998.

Federal prosecutors said Holt purchased the drugs cheaply in Tijuana
and sold them as U.S.-made pharmaceuticals, making an exorbitant
profit in the process. Holt was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison.

The back room of Los Hermanos Gift Shop, where Selene received the
injection Monday, was stocked with hundreds of illegal pharmaceuticals
and syringes, police said. But Lt. Michael Shanahan said that unless
investigators can prove the injection contributed to the child's
death, the store owner and person who administered the shot can only
be charged with misdemeanors.