Naive Gringo Pill Popped Below Border

A few steps from the metal turnstile gates that spin you from one country to another, the banter begins.

The narrow calle that visitors are funneled into as they make their way into Mexico is lined with farmacias. Men in white coats stand outside and shout over one another to everyone who passes: "Pharmacy?! Pharmacy?! Pharmacy?!"

Store windows and walls are plastered with signs for popular drugs such as Soma, Valium or Premarin.

"Lowest prices in town," they assure the steadily flowing crowd. "Señora, whatever you want. You want Viagra? I give you free samples," they call to an Anglo woman who smiles and walks quickly toward the colored blankets and silver bobbles on the corner.

Traditionally, however, most people don't walk away. They're here to buy drugs. Although numbers are uncertain, enough tourists cross the border looking for "prescription medications" to support an estimated 100 pharmacies in Nogales, Sonora, a town of 200,000 people.

The availability seems a little overwhelming at first, a little like Pinocchio taking his first steps onto Pleasure Island -- before he indulges in the decadence around him and turns into a jackass.

Many gringos come in search of cheaper drugs -- which they need for their medical conditions, and can little afford in Phoenix drugstores. Prescription drugs just south of the border are often 50 to 70 percent cheaper than in Arizona, and with HMOs refusing to cover certain pharmaceuticals and brands, many frugal retirees and lower-income patients find treating what ails them more affordable in Nogales.

But an equal number come to Nogales for the drugs they know they can score either on the street or after a quick trip to a doctor who sells them a prescription for narcotics like Valium or Xanax for about $20.

The river of humanity flows both ways in border towns, and economics drives inhabitants of each side of the international dividing line to look to the other country for what they cannot get at home.

The recent arrests of Americans purchasing controlled substances in Nogales without bothering to jump through the hoops required by Mexican law have been big news in Phoenix and Tucson, yet what the press labeled a crackdown is more aptly business as usual for Mexican authorities.

The bottom line is, the laws haven't changed in Mexico.

Despite the mainstream-media-fed scare, the number of Americans incarcerated in Nogales for purchasing controlled medications and related charges is about 12 (most in their 30s or younger) -- which American consular officials in that city insist is status quo.

So why all the hype?

Much of it is because of Chris Burkhart and his family. Burkhart's 66-year-old stepfather, Ray Lindell, says he didn't know he was breaking the law when he purchased 270 Valium pills without a required Mexican prescription on May 19. Last week, the Phoenix man was released from an eight-week stay in a Mexican federal prison where he could have faced a 10- to 25-year sentence.

As for Burkhart, he launched a very public campaign aimed at pressuring the Mexican government to drop the charges against Lindell. He spoke to news media, senators and congressmen. Members of the Phoenix family spent weekends in Nogales handing out fliers to tourists with information about Lindell's arrest.

Mexican authorities released Lindell without comment, but it's believed in Nogales, Sonora, that because the publicity cut into the town's economy, business officials were finally able to pressure police into dropping the matter.

In an interview before Lindell was let go on July 13, Bob Feinman, a member of the Board of Directors of the Nogales, Sonora's Chamber of Commerce, affirmed that "businesses of all kinds are off because of this issue."

"Some of the information is factual, and other information is quite negative. It doesn't take much to scare people [in the United States] when you talk about Mexico."

Commerce on the border can be simple and safe, Feinman says, and he emphasizes that it remains so for those whose business in Nogales is legitimate. But, he explains, "you have to know what the laws are! Lindell did not know what the laws are."

Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, Burkhart agrees, although it seemed to be the very excuse that he used to pique the mainstream Arizona media's interest in his stepfather's case. The story became:

An elderly Phoenix man intent on nothing more than helping his sick, elderly wife went to corrupt Mexico to buy pills -- because her cheapskate insurance company insisted she get a cheaper generic version that she felt was less effective -- and he was arrested by venal Nogales authorities and thrown into a jail that makes Sheriff Joe Arpaio's hellish Tent City look like the Phoenician. What a travesty!

But the truth is somewhere south of that notion, though nobody's saying Mexico isn't wildly different from the United States. The fact that it's a country Americans tend to love for its bargains and lax regulations didn't play into Burkhart's media campaign. And while Lindell went to Mexico because he could make a Valium purchase that wouldn't be available in the Valley, he apparently didn't bother to find out the Mexican modus operandi used by countless thousands of others who had done it before him without much of a problem. The comfortable American didn't bother to follow the rules in another country.

"It's no excuse for Americans not to know the law when they are in Mexico, just as it's not an excuse for Mexicans not to know the law in the U.S.," Feinman says. "Two different countries, two different sets of laws."

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Ray Lindell's arrest and that of several teenagers last spring -- who were dealing large quantities of Mexican-bought Soma in Valley high schools -- has hurt Nogales' image north of the border.

Pharmacy owners in Nogales are hurting. There are reports that tourists feel safer journeying to Los Algodones, about a three-hour drive from Phoenix, just south of Yuma, where there may be less heat from Mexican police.

It's true that recent events in Nogales have been good for Algodones street rats like Martin, 26. Nogales is full of young men who latch onto American tourists and help them find whatever they are looking for. But in Algodones, Martin is one of a hopeful handful of such "tour guides," and he's banking on the scare in Nogales bringing him more business.

Martin can provide tourists with everything from Soma to marijuana -- 48 kilos of it, he brags, just waiting for a buyer.

On a recent weekday afternoon, he leads a young couple past sidewalk souvenir stands to a back-street pharmacy where no prescription is necessary, no receipt is given and prices are double the amount imprinted on the box of "Neo-Percodan" -- which, it turns out, is not Percodan but a form of Darvon in a deceiving package.

Recreational drug users (like Martin's Percodan-seeking clients) have "burned" Nogales, he explains, meaning they have exploited the system to the point where authorities have been forced to react.

"Too much partying, too many problems. We don't have that here in Algodones," he says, smiling. "Yet!"

Los Algodones (population 5,000) is a swap meet of goods and services, mainly pharmacies, and optical and dental clinics. Most of the nearly two million tourists a year coming to the town to do business are in their 50s or older, most savvy enough to know the law, and have had less use for Martin's services than the young people who are starting to arrive.

Nogales is more of a party town, a cleaner, smaller version of Tijuana, where men like Oscar, 32, are part of the economic engine that drives the bustling place.

Oscar's what is known in Nogales as a "fixer," and, like Martin, he swears he can get "anything you want -- anything!" Most people come to him looking for narcotics and strippers, usually both.

"Pills and titty bars" are Oscar's professed areas of expertise. For each tourist he delivers to a pharmacy, he receives $5. Each strip club customer nets him $2, and certain restaurants pay him 50 cents for each table of gringos he directs their way.

Dressed in an oversize purple jersey, shorts and spotless running shoes, Oscar's face is somewhat pinched, his eyes everywhere at once. He's been up for a few days and looks it, but he's more wired than tired. It appears there's more than just hustle in his bloodstream.

Oscar hails from Ciudad Obregon, an agricultural town in Sonora. He has worn many hats since leaving his home for the north. Today he wears none; his black hair is buzzed, the left side of his head notable for a large patch of pure white about the size of a baby-jar lid. "A birthmark," he explains.

Later in the day, a dazed man carrying a plastic sack full of discarded soda cans will stop him on the street and tenderly touch the white spot while closing his eyes and murmuring something under his breath.