{"id":960055,"date":"2026-07-26T08:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/960055\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T08:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T08:48:23","slug":"illegal-prescription-pill-market-back-operating-on-nyc-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/960055\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal prescription pill market back operating on NYC streets"},"content":{"rendered":"

An illicit open-air prescription drug market in Washington Heights sprang back to life this weekend \u2014 days after the NYPD shut it down following a Post expose.<\/a><\/p>\n

About 10 vendors were spotted Friday setting up tables along St. Nicholas Avenue, near West 180th\u00a0Street and West 181st\u00a0Street, brazenly selling prescription painkillers, erectile dysfunction pills, antibiotics and other meds, along with vitamins and over-the-counter products.<\/p>\n

The sellers returned three days after at least six police cars swarmed the sprawling street pharmacy, sending pill peddlers running with their stashes.<\/a><\/p>\n

An illicit open-air prescription drug market in Washington Heights was back illegally peddling meds this weekend \u2013 days after the NYPD shut it down following a wild Post expose. Leonardo Munoz for NY Post<\/p>\n

Six of the sellers were back again Saturday trying to make some fast bucks \u2014 and many residents and neighborhood businesses weren\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s right, but what can we do?\u201d said a local pharmacist legitimately operating on the same strip. \u201cEverything is not right in this country in the first place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pharmacist also ripped City Hall for not enforcing the laws, adding that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the NYPD are \u201cnot doing anything\u201d about the illegal peddling.<\/p>\n

One woman, who only spoke Spanish, on Saturday was hawking popular prescription medications like Amoxicillin and Viagra, as well as rat poison that local residents claim is from the Dominican Republic and not FDA-approved because it\u2019s too strong.<\/p>\n

About 10 vendors were spotted Friday setting up tables along St. Nicholas Avenue, near West 180th\u00a0Street and West 181st\u00a0Street, brazenly selling prescription painkillers, erectile dysfunction pills, antibiotics and other meds \u2013 as well as vitamins and over-the-counter products. Leonardo Munoz for NY Post<\/p>\n

Juan Castillo, who accompanied his wife to buy an antibiotic from the peddler, conceded he doesn\u2019t feel it\u2019s safe to buy products on the street. <\/p>\n

Juan Castillo, who accompanied his wife to buy antibiotics from one peddler, acknowledged the risks but said the high cost of seeing a doctor and filling a prescription without insurance leaves many people with few alternatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe used it before,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t feel safe, because we don\u2019t know what\u2019s in the medicine, if it\u2019s past the date. But we don\u2019t have many choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six of the sellers were back again Saturday trying to make some tax-free fast bucks \u2013 and many residents and neighborhood businesses weren\u2019t happy. Leonardo Munoz for NY Post<\/p>\n

The pill market was featured in a Post expos\u00e9 last week detailing how nearly two dozen vendors sold an assortment of medications \u2014 from painkillers to erectile dysfunction drugs to antibiotics \u2014 across 10 square blocks between West 179th to West 183rd streets and St. Nicholas Avenue.<\/p>\n

The NYPD did not immediately return a request for comment Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An illicit open-air prescription drug market in Washington Heights sprang back to life this weekend \u2014 days after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":960056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,23378,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5257,386028,11825,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,271203,34565,5301],"class_list":["post-960055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-medical-care","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-peddling","tag-prescription-drugs","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa","tag-viagra","tag-washington-heights","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116985417305335384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}