SMUGGLED MEDICINE PLAGUES LATINOS

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 Latino 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. The girl 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 Latino 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.

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.