It is a known fact that thousands of Americans cross the border every year to buy drugs from Mexico. This helps the Americans to save a great deal of money. This in fact has emerged as a major industry, and total sales to foreigners are more than two hundred million dollars annually. Mexican Pharmacies in this way has become quite famous.

   There are two 'types' of Mexican pharmacies. The most common is sequnda clase (or second class), which is allowed to sell all kinds of regulated medicines. The other type is the Pharmacies are known as primera clase. They in fact sell controlled or well-regulated drugs like Tarpon®, Valium® and anabolic steroids. The drugs that have a high potential for abuse are known as Controlled medicines. In fact if the word 'controlado'' is used, it means that the drug is controlled and one cannot purchase the same over the counter without producing a prescription from a recognized and registered Mexican doctor. The selling of such drugs is also monitored by a federal agency called Sector Salud.

   If druggists by any chance are caught selling "controlado" without a prescription then he or she can be fined by Sector Salud.There are possibilities that Sector Salud can cancel their license. Even the possibility of imprisonment can't be ruled out as per law. The same conditions also holds good for doctors who without adequate reason over-prescribes controlled medicines or prescribe inappropriate "controlado" medicines. The doctor if caught with the aforesaid act may lose his federal registration number.

   If an American wishes to buy prescription drugs from Mexican pharmacies then it is advisable that he or she should ask his U.S. pharmacist to provide him or her with a small brochure called 'package insert' that which is normally attached to all bottles of U.S. wholesale medicines. This package insert has exactly all the data that's available in a huge reference book, which is known as Physician's Desk Reference (or PDR). The package insert contains voluminous information about the medicine, including its generic name, dosage formulations etc. This step should be adopted so that one purchases the correct kind of drugs.