Thursday, December 30, 2010

New Mask Added to My Collection



A couple of weeks ago an artist came to Lakeside from Tonala to show his work.  I saw this mask and was intrigued.  The face is made of clay and the teeth come from a cow; the hair is from a horse's tail.  It is beautifully painted.  His eyebrows, a lizard perched on his massive nose as well as his lips are in high relief.  The colors are extraordinarily vivid.

This mask is made to be worn in festivals.  The hair is sewn onto a kind of woven rush cap which fits over the head of the wearer.  In fact, it fits my face perfectly; as if made for me so of course I just had to buy it.

Many of the designs of masks made in Mexico come from the dreams (or nightmares) of the maker.  They can represent evil as well as benevolent entities meant to drive away devils by their scary looks. 

Monday, November 8, 2010

Drug Prices in Mexico



I wonder if the drug companies in Mexico aren't in bed with the government who is supposed to have the welfare of it's citizens in mind when it passes legislation. Let me tell you why I think things are strange here.



In Mexico, the government regulates the maximum price a pharmacy may charge for any drug. This price is stamped into the end panel of the drug packaging. When traveling in Mexico, one sees signs at most pharmacies that advertise their discount prices—anywhere from 10-80%. This mostly ends up being around 40% discount on name brand drugs and 60% on generic drugs.


For example, today I bought a pain medication called “Dolac” (I didn't ask for it by it's generic name—really stupid of me). The maximum price was 199 pesos for 10-10mg. tablets. After the discount, I paid 123 pesos-or 38% discount. In US dollars that was about $10, or $1 per 10 mg. tablet.

Now if I had bought 20 mg. tablets, the maximum price for a box of 10 would have been 398 pesos—or twice the price of 10 mg. tablets. You see, in Mexico, the price is determined by the mg. not by the total number of tablets. In the States, if you by a 10 mg tablet for, let's say, $1 but want a 20 mg. tablet, you will probably pay around $1.20 or less per tablet. That's because the cost of the drug that includes manufacturing and R&D costs, packaging, shipping and profit for the retailer doesn't go up very much between a 10 mg tablet and a 20 mg. tablet. Total costs would only increase by a very small percentge for the bigger mg. tablet. So somebody is making a killing in the drug business (read that drug manufacturers and legislators) in Mexico.


One more example: I bought a bottle of pain killers called “Tramadol".   A bottle of 50-50 mg. capsules was 70 pesos but I paid the discounted price of 42 pesos or $3.40US.  I bought a blister pack box of 10-50 mg. tablets priced at 298 pesos but only paid 119 pesos or $9.60US. So somebody is making a killing in the drug business (read that drug manufacturers and legislators) in Mexico.

The other thing that greatly increases the cost of drugs in Mexico is packaging. Almost every drug is only available in blister packs and in small quantities. I believe the major reason is that typically a poor Mexican will only buy enough of say, an antibiotic, to treat himself until he feels better (I won't even go into how this practice promotes the breeding of super-bugs). So he will buy one or two doses of a drug at a time. Blister packs facilitate the ability of the pharmacy to accommodate the purchase of less than a full box of a drug. Packaging is certainly making a difference in price but I find it hard to believe that the difference between $.06US a capsule and $1US a tablet as in my “Tramadol “ example above, is all because of packaging costs. And I have found this practice to be true in all eight of the Latin American countries I have visited.

I have been lucky to find the drug I take every day for high blood pressure packaged in a bottle of 100 tablets. So far I've found that this packaging for this drug is only available from one manufacturer. I pay around $3US for 100 tablets; when I was buying this drug in a blister pack, I was paying about $7 per 30 tablet box.

If the legislature has the power to control the maximum retail price of drugs, why have they set the maximum so high? Even the discounted price charged by the pharmacies is much higher, in many cases, than the prices in the U.S. The price of drugs in Canada is much less than in the States. And yet Mexico, with it's minimum wage set at about $6US a day and a great many of citizens living in true poverty, has essentially higher drug prices than the U.S. I think something stinks!

But then, I'm obviously naïve about the ways of government.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Driving At Night in Mexico

Here's another darn good reason to never drive at night in Mexico








Monday, September 13, 2010

Expert Analyzes Mexican Security Issues

Taken from "The Guadalajara Reporter" Sept. 11-17, 2010

International media reports on Mexico's war against the drug cartels tend to paint extreme pictures that are out of sync with the nationwide reality, according to Latin America law and security expert Ana Maria Salazar. "Some versions indicate that the country is falling apart at the seams while others proclaim that Mexico is safer than Canada."

The country's current security situation cannot be defined in generalized terms. Salazar insists it must be viewed in distinct local contexts she describes as "different Mexicos," with the understanding that the crime status in any particular place is subject to radical changes that may occur unexpectedly. She pointed to recent surprise spikes in violence that have rocked northern Mexico, particularly in Monterrey and the state of Tamaulipas.

Salazar addressed the topic of security in Mexico as the guest speaker of the lakeside branch of Grupo Financiero Multiva. The conference, held at the Hotel Real de Chapala, drew a large audience of expatriates on Sept. 8.

Salazar's impeccable credentials of law and security issues in Latin America include stints as judicial attache at the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, a White House policy advisor under Bill Clinton, and deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Drug Enforcement Policy and Support at the Pentagon. Now based in Mexico City, she is a respected media pundit who moderates the current events blog "Mexico Today" and hosts "Imagen News".

Her talk began just hours after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went on record drawing a troubling parallel between the current level of violence linked to Mexican drug cartels and the narco-insurgency that plagued Colombia 20 years ago. Based on her experiences in Colombia during that critical time, Salazar downplayed Clinton's assessment. She doesn't see signs that traffickers here are employing systematic strategies to gain political clout in the way that Colombian drug lords did by infiltrating the country's legislative branch and targeting innocent civilians in acts of violence.

Many of Salazar's listeners chuckled or nodded knowingly when she wondered whether salacious stories breaking north of the border had prompted frantic calls of messages from concerned friends and relatives back home, often punctuated by the worried question "What the hell are you doing down there?"

Discussion of Jalisco crime statistics--indicating a comparatively moderate crime rate--gave some backup to a seemingly prevalent "why worry?" attitude among local expats. For example, data compiled by the independent security think tank ICESI show an incidence of 8.2 homicides per 100,000 Jalisco residents during 2009, a figure comparable to most US cities. In addition, the state's homicide rate is currently about five times less than it was just over a decade ago.

While acknowledging that the overall lack of consistent and reliable data makes it hard to accurately gauge the country's crime and security status, she pointed out that news reports have created a misleading perception that the current murder rate is stratospheric. In fact, available figures point to an average homicide rate similar to that of 2001.

In Salazar's view, Mexico's crime scene is not likely to improve much over the next several years. However, on a note of optimism, she suggests that reforms of the country's judicial and law enforcement systems promise substantive improvements over the long term.

Her security advice for local expats is to find a proper balance between an outright disregard for personal safety and excessive paranoia. Noting that persons who take reasonable precautions have little reason to live in fear, she stressed. "Mexico is safe if you act safe."