Vendors at Hmongtown market complete diversion program on OTC meds

Rows of beauty products from blemish powder to face cream to liquid soap are neatly stacked at Song Vang's stand at the bustling Hmongtown Marketplace in St. Paul.

But what visitors won't find there these days are medicinal drugs.

If customers ask, Vang said, she simply points to a nearby sign, written in Hmong, that tells them that sales of prescription drugs are illegal there.

Vang and other Hmongtown Marketplace vendors have learned that the hard way. Last summer, she and 13 other vendors were cited with misdemeanors after local and federal authorities seized hundreds of pounds of unmarked or misbranded pills, drugs and syringes, including suspected sodium cyanide, steroids, penicillin and opiates.

All faced fines. But all had the chance to have charges dismissed by participating in a yearlong educational program that spelled out the do's and don'ts of over-the-counter drug sales. Through a series of meetings and discussions, they learned that all drugs must be properly labeled. They also learned that IVs, shots and prescription drugs can't be given without medical approval.

"Everything has been for a reason. … I learned a lot," Vang said in a recent interview.

Kia Lee Xiong, a nearby vendor who also was cited, said that when customers now ask her for medicine, she refuses them.

Authorities seized more than 70 bins of illegal drugs in the June 11, 2013, raid, after residents had complained of people getting sick from medications purchased at the market, where merchants peddle items ranging from clothes to produce. Undercover officers also bought drugs through illegal sales, including an instance last May when an officer was told by a vendor that he could be administered an IV at home "with whatever medicine [the officer] chose."

The raid frightened both Vang and Xiong.

"I was shaking," Vang said.

Last fall, a community ambassador for St. Paul nonprofit Emergency, Community, Health and Outreach (ECHO), which works with immigrants and refugees in Minnesota, suggested that the agency get involved with the vendors, said ECHO executive director Lillian McDonald.

The ambassador, who is Hmong, felt that there were misunderstandings among the vendors and that there needed to be more education about the law, McDonald said. After meeting with the vendors and the marketplace owner, McDonald agreed.

After contacting agency and government partners, ECHO created both English and Hmong educational posters that identified medications that can't be sold, she said. The organization also developed an instructional video in Hmong that was distributed to vendors at the Hmongtown Marketplace and also at Hmong Village, another market on the city's East Side.

Vendors participating in the program had a voice in the making of all the materials, McDonald said.

With the help of several other agencies, ECHO also hosted a training session and had pro bono attorneys escort vendors to court to help them navigate the legal system.

Stakeholders have described the diversion program — which holds the vendors, who mostly have clean criminal records, accountable — as a win-win solution.

Late last month, McDonald and market owner Toua Xiong distributed letters from the city attorney's office verifying that charges against most of the vendors had been dismissed.

"We think there's a lot more power in educating the community rather than arresting a few," said St. Paul Police Cmdr. Rob Thomasser, of the department's narcotics unit.

Understanding the law when it comes to medications can be confusing, he said.

"We know that when people come here they don't always come from a place where rules are the same," Thomasser said.

The issue of selling illegal medications isn't just a problem in the Hmong community, he said.

In the wake of the raid, the Minnesota Department of Health hosted meetings to increase awareness of the problem of unlabeled medications and to gather feedback on how best to communicate with Hmong community members and other ethnic communities.

Toua Xiong, the owner of Hmongtown Marketplace, said many vendors can't read English and didn't know what products they were allowed to sell. The medications were products that they once got in Laos, he said. And they were popular with some Hmong immigrants who have been reluctant to visit Western doctors.

Xiong said efforts to educate vendors will be ongoing. Annual training on illegal medication will be provided, and he will encourage vendors to attend every three years, he said. Soon, a full-time pharmacist also will be stationed at the market, he said.

"We are learning quickly," Xiong said. "We are learning hard."

Leitheiser, meanwhile, said the diversion program has been successful largely because Xiong, as the market owner, is engaged, and because vendors have participated regularly over a series of months.

"We didn't see this as so much as a criminal issue," Leitheiser said. "I think the focus had always been let's help people do the right thing and become educated."

Nicole Norfleet • 612-673-4495

Twitter: @stribnorfleet