6 replies to this topic

[_steppingstone]

I've lived in Tijuana close to 5 years now and I use the farmacia at gigante almost exclusively.

Why?

1. they have very competitive prices

2. I always check the date of experation. Th medicine I buy comes in a 4 moth supply. Everywhere else I have ever checked had a date with 6 months to go on it. Gigante always is in the 18 moth area. Much fresher.

3. I trust them. You don't become the 3rd biggest grocery chain in mexico by ripping off your customers.

4. just look at their customers. I go where the mexicans go, all the americans are at the farmacias that are right on the sidewalk so tourists can find it. the mexicans (who know better) are using the little less visible farmacia at Gigante.

[bluejeans]

Good to know. Thanks!

[libertythor]

Just about any grocery store is a safe bet. The Comercial Mexicana has a very cheap pack of generic Pepto Bismol tablets. (Sulfato de Bismuto)

[_steppingstone]

yeah but I checked the price there for what i get and it was double gigante's. but yes you would be safe buying there.

Maybe the reason I really like Gigante is when i first got to this area, I went looking for medicine that I had a american subscription for. I found it at one of the first places as you cross the border for $17.50. so i kept going to other places and heard $35 to $50.

When I got to Gigante, I finally laughed and told them the other price. Pharmisist said "thats impossible. The wholesale price is $25". Then I noticed it was in a box, and the $17.50 one had been in a bottle.

He told me I had seen 2 packages so far, go to 8 more pharmacys and check the price and packaging. He said he didn't care where I bought it but he didn't want me dead from taking something fake. He was right, the others all had it in a box.

I went back and bought it at Gigante, who had the best price anyway.

Later I thought about it and the bottled was how it comes in US. In other words it was black market down there and who knows who's hands it had passed through.

[libertythor]

Farmacias Similares are very cheap too. A doctor's consult there is just three dollars!

[boozr619]

You also got to watch out for cops that hang out or are spying on gringos who buy meds on street level farmacias, they intercept you or wait for you to be near atm or bank so it can be easier for them to shake you down, especially if you have no prescription. I also buy meds in supermarkets or club stores (sams, costco) for freshness and value. There's a couple of cool farmacias that are really huge, I don't know the names but there's one next to a restaurant called Casa del Mole in Zona Rio and another one next to Palacio (city hall) also in Zona Rio.

[xolotl]

I have been buying from pharmacies in Tijuana since the 1970s and I've never run into what Boozer 619 describes. People who only know La Coahuila, however, have described similar problems, so I'm tempted to believe that some people might be having problems buying medications.

There is an SSA number on each medication. It ends in a roman numeral.

I, II, and III are controlled substances that the pharmacist can't sell you without a local prescription. If you receive such an item, you would be best not to accept it as a few gringos wound up in jail for receiving them. Personally, I suspect that very few pharmacists would even bother to sell them to you because they're supposed to wind up in deeper shit that you do.

IV is for common prescription items (antibiotics, viagra, etc.) which the pharmacist cannot sell you without a prescription but which you can buy on the fiction that the pharmacist has already placed your prescription on file. These tend to be the medications you see advertised on the street in Tijuana. You can receive these medications without violating any regulation or committing any crime. The pharmacist who sells it to you will be violating a regulation, however, if you don't show him a local prescription. These are the meds that have been causing the guys in La Coahuila so much grief but that's only because they believe the shake-down cop and not me. If a cop insists that your Class IV meds are illegal, ask to go to the comandancia because eventually that BS has to come to an end.

V and VI are for standard over-the-counter medications, like aspirin or less. These are not worth worrying about.

As a tourist, most medications that interest you are in group IV and they are not unlawful for you to possess without a local prescription. A local regulation requires the pharmacy to confirm that you possess such a prescription, however ... and yet none of them bother to do so.

Group III tends to include the light psychoactives like Xanax. You and your pharmacist will get in trouble if you purchase these without a Mexican prescription. The horror stories in the press tend to be from this group, from gringos buying them with gringo but not Mexican prescriptions in their possession. Mexican prescriptions for this group are, however, easy to obtain by consulting a Mexican doctor close to the border.

Groups I and II are not even worth asking about. Heroine, morphine, LSD, forget about it. The doctors need to issue triplicate prescriptions. The border guards will assume the worst of you. And Calderón's people hate these meds so they'll be on you like white on rice.

By the way, last I knew you could still buy small-bore syringes without a prescription. Good for diabetics because syringes are cheap down here. You'd probably need a prescription to get them across the border, though.

Above all, bear in mind that 2009 is not 2006. Jorge Hank's cops ripped everyone off, even your average Little Brown Buddy locals. Cops ripped people off in 2006 but they don't in 2009, Jorge Hank is bad news. Do not stay at Hotel Pueblo Amigo, do not bet at Caliente. Beyond all reason this guy is responsible for people believing they can't buy medications in Tijuana. You can do so, you just need to buy sensibly.

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