If you walk down the right side street, the offers are plentiful, even in broad daylight. Young men in plain T-shirts draw near and call out their wares: Pills. Cocaine. Guns.
But if you wave them away and go just a few feet farther, you can walk into a pharmacy where you might get something just as dangerous.
You just won’t know it.
A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that pharmacies in several northwestern Mexican cities are selling counterfeit prescription pills laced with stronger and deadlier drugs and passing them off as legitimate pharmaceuticals.