"just say no"

In China fake drugs can be fairly common, which isn't great if your ill and need the real ones. As for the recreational kind, they are quite common, but that's another story.

Watching T.V in China you will be constantly bombarded with advertisements for some new wonder drug, the fact is, almost all, if not exactly all of these so called drugs are fake, if not fake then they certainly can't do what they say they can. How is this possible? Well there are laws in China about this kind of thing, but if the price is right a fancy certificate legallising your useless drug can be produced for you, which is then ostentatiously shown on the TV advertisement also.

That's not to say all the drugs in China are fake, but to be honest the dosage in most of them is reduced, although you have no way of knowing this.

I'll give an example of what happened to me the other day. In China, for example, you can buy anti-biotics over the counter; and since recently I had contracted a rather nasty gum infection(painful)I went and bought the appropriate ones as I had often taken for the same condition in my country(I don't like dentists as you may have guessed). After taking these for four days there is no improvement whatsoever, in fact I can say it has gotten worse.

Now you might say I should give it more time, but remember I've done this many times before over the years, and it never takes this long. The other tell tale sign is that usually when I take anti-biotics my urine will become bright yellow and will also smell quite foul(more than usual I mean), neither of these have occured, and that's the first time ever since Ive taken anti-biotics since I was a child.

So I've been duped, and what's more I'm still in pain. It's so bad I may even have to go to the dentist, and generally speaking, that's not good in China! Still, that's another post.