pills, thrills and foreign pharmacies

i see buying somewhat illegal narcotics abroad as an entitlement. it is a human right violation that i can not purchase tylenol with codeine in the states and by god i am going to exercise this right given to foreigners as much as eating a croissant in montreal or drinking shiraz in australia. in fact, i am going to purchase as much as the pharmacy will allow me. so what if I am carrying 5000 codeine tablets across the border, i earned them.

when entering a foreign pharmacy, i put on my best innocent face and try not to look like the lecherous drug hound that i am. chris always gets embarrassed and tries to pretend he doesn't know me. recently in quito, ecuador i found a very accommodating pharmacist who was willing to let me purchase as much valium as i wanted. i asked for a box, and he came back with a huge green box. when asked how many pills were contained inside, he said 500. out of the opposite corner of the store, i hear chris yell “no.” i understood this very strong “no” to mean chris did not want to travel around with a valium drug mule. i bought a respectable 20.

unfortunately, due to a harrowing bus ride through the andes on mud roads and steep deadly cliffs, 20 pills were not enough. while back in quito, i tried another pharmacy to score some more. this time they were not so accommodating and the pharmacist tells me to speak to a doctor. when i ask where you can see a doctor (calling their bluff and trying not to look like a total crack head), they say they can get one and all of sudden i am being led down a long hallway and end up in an office telling some foreign doctor i need a script cause i am going on a 3 day bus ride to la paz and don't want to freak out. he gives me the script and i have it filled and leave the pharmacy 20 minutes later to a very upset chris wondering where the hell i was.

chris is not the only one who becomes ensnared in my exercise to purchase fun white pills abroad. during a very long road trip with my father through the southwest, i bullied him to about 15 mexican pharmacies in the border community of cuidad juarez, which should be called cuidad shitty, searching for anyone who would sell me vicadin. i eventually scored some, but didn’t have enough money, so i had my father buy them for me.

the lesson of the story is, if you are abroad with me, i will stop in the local pharmacy. traveling is fun, but traveling on an assortment of colored pills is just a little more fun. i can’t wait for southeast asia.