Think twice before buying pills south of the border — over half are laced with drugs like fentanyl and meth, investigation warns

• The LA Times tested pills from Mexican pharmacies and found over 50% were counterfeits.
• Cartels flooded Mexico with counterfeit drugs, endangering tourists seeking cheap medication.

A Los Angeles Times investigation found that pharmacies across Mexico sell counterfeit and tainted pills. Reporters purchased and tested 55 pills from 29 pharmacies in eight Mexican cities, from Tijuana to Tulum. Of those, 28 pills — just over 50% — were counterfeit.

The fake pills mimic sought-after medications like Adderall, Percocet, and oxycodone, and many were sold in sealed blister packaging or bottles. But testing revealed them to contain methamphetamine, fentanyl, MDMA, and other substances.

Over a third of the opioid painkillers tested contained fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times powerful than morphine and responsible for a spike in overdose deaths in the US.

Fentanyl is used by manufacturers of illicit drugs to cut their supply. The synthetic drug is much cheaper to produce and lighter to transport, so it is economically beneficial for those producing the drugs, policy experts previously told Insider.

At least six Americans have overdosed or died after taking counterfeit pills from Mexican pharmacies, according to the LA Times. Because Mexico does not routinely do toxicology reports, it's hard to judge how many of its citizens have been affected.

"This is just terrible — it shows an utter lack of control in pharmacies," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on drug cartels at the Brookings Institution, told the LA Times. "It's institutionalized murder."

Though the DEA has been aware of the issue for years, little has been done to address it. With no regulation, cartels have infiltrated Mexico's drugstores with lethal counterfeits. "It's institutionalized murder," an expert told the LA Times.

The US State Department has issued a warning to travelers in March after previous LA Times reporting, telling Americans to "exercise caution" when buying medications in Mexico.

Read the full LA Times story here.