is there a lot of prescription drug smuggling among American Hispanics?

there is obviously big price difference between prescription drugs costs inside America and outside of it. Kind of like with narcotic drugs. But, with narcotics we know there are large, highly organized smuggling operations, many of which reputedly run by people of Mexican ethnic background. So, it would be natural to expect some of these smuggling groups to try expand operations to serve additional markets, like the prescription drugs for poor people market. Further, certain segments of Hispanics reputedly have strong social networks within their communities (unlike the generally atomized Anglos) and might be able to use these networks to get in touch with the smugglers relatively easily, if they so wished.

Well, so the above is all hypotheses and inferences. How do things actually work in this area? How come we don’t hear about the country being awash with low cost prescription drugs imported through these channels with DEA asking Congress for tactical nukes to better wage the war on (prescription) drugs?

I know a lot of Latino (I’m in Chicago) that are able to get things like Albuterol (asthma), Valium, antibiotics, and prescription blood pressure meds without a prescription. I have known Indians that can do this too.

Evidently you have to have scripts to get prescriptions in India and Mexico but it also isn’t too hard to find a pharmacist who will give it to you without one.

I haven’t heard that this is a very big problem, maybe because it’s so easy for people to order meds from Mexico (and China and Canada and New Zeland and…) on the internet. Certainly there’s a long tradition of Americans who live near Mexico crossing the border to get their own meds - which is legal, as long as they’re for “personal use”, but I don’t know that there’s a huge black market run by Mexican Americans.