NYC's Hidden Drug Market: The Shocking Reality Unfolding on City Streets
A half-mile section of Washington Heights has been transformed into an open-air prescription drug bazaar, with brazen vendors illegally peddling painkillers, erectile dysfunction pills, and an array of other meds, The Post has learned.The sprawling street pharmacy stretches across 10 square blocks, in and around West 179th to West 183rd streets and St. Nicholas Avenue with at least 20 vendors showcasing their wares in loose blister packs, boxes, and bottles strewn across dingy folding tables.“Is it for an adult? You can take up to three a day until they’re all gone,” barked a vendor selling blister packs of the antibiotic amoxicillin for $5 a sheet.A vendor on St. Nicholas Avenue near West 180th Street in Washington Heights sells loose blister packs of pills which are smuggled into New York from the Dominican Republic. J.C. Rice for NY Post“It’s for phlegm, for the throat. Or one in the morning and one at night,” she advised, standing next to a busy bus stop on West 181st Street and St. Nicholas.A shopper who saw the pills chimed in with approval. “Those are really good! They’re powerful stuff. When there’s an infection, it cures it. When I give it to my grandson, I give him three a day!”Amoxicillin was among the alarming cornucopia of pills available this week, including: erectile dysfunction meds Viagra and Cialis; Cataclofen Plus, for pain and inflammation; and antibiotic Ampicillin. “Someone is going to die from this, I have no doubt,” warned Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens).“Who knows what’s actually in the things being peddled here? This is a prescription for disaster. Where is the NYPD with this, and why is the Mamdani administration allowing this to go on?”The Spanish-speaking sellers arrive at about 9 a.m. every morning with product in wheeled carts, set up their tables and umbrellas, and sit outside until about 6 p.m.A roughly 10-block area has nearly two dozen tables where hawkers sell identical set-ups of the smuggled meds. J.C. Rice for NY PostThe vendors buy the drugs in the Dominican Republic, where many can be purchased over the counter, and smuggle them in to Gotham to sell for profit.Occasionally there are hiccups. “I once brought two boxes of Ampicillin, but they seized and confiscated them at the airport. Some people manage to get them through, others don’t,” said one of the several vendors who spoke to The Post and declined to give his name.On a good day, the Washington Heights vendors can bring home $300 — or more, they said. How much profit they make is up to the individual sellers.One of the tables offered powerful prescription erection pill Viagra.Pain med Cataclofen Plus, for example, sells for just $0.09 per pill at popular Dominican Republic chain Farmacias Los Hidalgos, but costs $10 for four pills on St. Nicholas.“There are medicines that cost $10. Let’s take 1000 mg Ampicillin, for example. You might pay $7 or $8 dollars [in the Dominican Republic] for it, depending. You ask for $10 [in New York], and they offer $8—it varies. But if they offer $8, you might make a dollar or 50 cents in profit,” said another hawker.The feds targeted prescription drug pushers in the nabe over a decade ago. In 2012, the Justice Department prosecuted 16 prescription pill peddlers in Washington Heights when gangs were operating as “street-corner pharmacists” between West 156th and West 158th streets.Cialis, an erectile dysfunction pill, was among the various medications offered at the tables in Washington Heights.Today’s sellers have no fear of being uprooted from the drug market, which has existed in varying forms over the years but exploded under the Mamdani administration, under fire for its hands-off approach to the blocks-long homeless encampment between the Intrepid Museum and the Jacob Javits Center.Occasional enforcement action occurs, but another vendor shrugged it off as just the cost of doing business.“Just leave [the products] all behind and walk away,” the vendor said with a laugh.One table along St. Nicholas Avenue offers a vial of pills in an unmarked container. J.C. Rice for NY PostThis week, a Post reporter observed NYPD officers walking past at least nine tables crowded with illegal prescription drugs without taking any action.Residents said they were disgusted by the increasing sense of lawlessness in the neighborhood, whose 34th Precinct has seen an overall drop in major crimes, but where robbery is up 13%, assaults are up 14% and burglaries up 9% in the past year, police data show.“I really find it surprising because regardless of what, it’s a drug,” said one woman about the lack of enforcement. “I find a lot of things strange — there’s a whole bunch of cops around and people are selling medicine. People are smoking weed up and down the street. It’s like, ‘Wow, OK. Times have really changed.'”Vendors say they can take home as much as $300 a day and make their profit of markups of cheap prescriptions from the Dominican Republic. J.C. Rice for NY PostThe woman, who gave her first name as Dawn, continued: “I would never buy it. I would never buy any medications unless it’s from a pharmacy.”The Department of Sanitation is the lead agency for street vendor enforcement. Unlicensed street vendors can be hit with $250 for their first violation, with subsequent violations costing $1,000 each plus another $250 for each day out of compliance.The cornucopia of pills offered at tables ranges from Tylenol and fish oil supplements to prescription pain medication like Cataclofen Plus. J.C. Rice for NY PostSelling prescription drugs without a valid license is a Class D felony in the state of New York which can result in up to seven years in prison.Illegally importing and peddling prescription drugs from abroad is a federal and state crime, and the penalties can range from $1,000 to $250,000 in fines and one to 20 years in prison.A manager of a West 181st pharmacy warned against taking any of the al fresco meds.“I have seen some diabetes medicines, prescription items. They are not keeping the medicines at a particular temperature. It is definitely bad for the people,” the licensed worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.“I have seen Jardiance 25 milligrams on St. Nicholas. This is hazardous,” he said of the powerful diabetes drug.One local pharmacist warned that the meds, which are not properly stored, could be hurting the people attempting to get healthy. J.C. Rice for NY Post“Regulators come here and ask for a thousand things because we are a pharmacy. We have to comply with this rule, this rule, that rule. The same people then go on the street, they see bad things and they don’t do anything,” he said.The neighborhood’s lefty Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa (D-Manhattan) has pushed to allow street vendors to occupy even more space on the curbs of her neighborhood.One of the loose blister sheets of amoxicillin which sell for $5 each. J.C. Rice for NY PostIn 2024, she introduced a bill to radically change how city sidewalks are regulated — including allowing vendors to set up in the middle of sidewalks — but it failed to gain enough support and died in a committee. She did not return a request for comment.Her colleague, Councilman Frank Morano (R-Staten Island), ripped the prescription pill flea market as a striking public health disaster. “When New Yorkers are buying prescription drugs from folding tables on the sidewalk instead of licensed pharmacies, we’ve crossed the line from street vending into a public health and public safety failure,” said Councilman Frank Morano (R-Staten Island). He added: “This isn’t just an illegal street market; its a public health risk, because there is no way for consumers to know whether what they’re buying is safe, authentic, or appropriate for them.”Reps for Mayor Mamdani did not return messages.
