Access to Care and Treatment: Legal and Illegal Paths

Self‐medication with prescription drugs is a common and risky practice nationwide, but it takes on a unique flavor in California's immigrant communities, where entrepreneurs find a ready clientele seeking remedies for their ills. In this field trip, Fellows had a chance to absorb the sights and sounds of this parallel economy, which is fueled by traditional practices as well as unmet health care needs. In Los Angeles County, illegal sales of black market prescription medications and the unlicensed practice of dentistry and medicine are policed by a joint public health‐law enforcement task force, whose members served as our guides on part of this tour. We had a chance to learn why local business owners had engaged in this underground activity. Rounding out the experience, we visited a legal source of medications in East Los Angeles. Farmacias Remedios sells its own commercially‐packaged line of herbal remedies to a largely Latino clientele.