Authorities raid pill store in Las Vegas

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Sept. 30, 2004 | 11:15 a.m.

Authorities raided a store in West Las Vegas on Tuesday and seized thousands of prescription narcotic pills -- such as Xanax, Lortab and Soma -- that employees were allegedly selling to anyone who asked for them.

A makeshift doctor's office was also discovered in the back of the San Pedro Store at 1038 N. Rancho Drive near Washington Avenue.

The back room was apparently a revolving door for Mexicans practicing medicine with or without a license -- and in one case, a medical student from Guadalajara vacationing in Las Vegas -- who saw patients and handed out drugs smuggled into the country from Mexico and El Salvador.

"The people there knew what they were doing," Lt. Paul Martino of the Nevada Department of Public Safety said. "They recommended specific medications to get you high. They knew which ones people preferred. They said, 'If you want to be high all day, I'll sell you this next time.' "

No arrests have been made, but authorities said they are in the process of revoking the store's business license.

The raid was conducted after a two-week investigation by a drug task force comprised of Nevada Department of Public Safety investigators, Metro Police narcotics detectives and Drug Enforcement Agency officers.

Authorities are still in the process of going through the drugs they seized, but Martino said it appears they have at least 3,000 pills and other medications, from prescription diaper rash ointment to nasal spray.

Operations such as these are legal in Mexico, Martino said.

"It's very common in the Hispanic community to go to back-room doctor's offices," he said. "Maybe they can't afford doctors here and they can't afford the prescription and don't have insurance, or their immigration status might be doubt."

The San Pedro Store has held a business license with the city of Las Vegas since 1999 to operate as a vitamin store, or botanica, but it is not permitted to function as a pharmacy, according to business license records.

The owner is listed as Maria Memjivar of Van Nuys, Calif.

Keith Macdonald, executive director of the Nevada Board of Pharmacy, said these so-called "cultural stores" aren't unusual, and he complained about them several years ago to the attorney general's office.

Only one person, a Winnemucca resident, has been convicted in connection with an illegal pharmacy in the past 15 years, Macdonald said.

Medical professionals have also complained about the problem after treating people who become ill from taking the wrong medications sold to them by people who may or may not be doctors.

In one case, Macdonald said, a baby became "desperately sick" after being on antibiotics for three months.

Many of the medications that were seized had expired, Martino said, and their potency is in question. This could pose a problem to people who come to these illegally-operating pharmacies seeking help for legitimate health problems.

"I think it's very dangerous," Macdonald said. "They could be expired drugs that may not be any good. They may be counterfeit drugs ... I think the consumer has to know they are at risk."

According to Macdonald, expired prescription drugs from the United States are commonly sold to other countries, such as Mexico, for their use.

"Not only are they illegally administered here, bringing them into the country is illegal," Martino said. "It's no different than smuggling cocaine or methamphetamine."

At the San Pedro Store, the narcotics were sold within the range of what they would cost on the street -- $5 to $7 a pill, he said.

Martino said authorities suspect that drug dealers were purchasing supplies of pills at the store and then were re-selling them.