The first time I visited there, I wanted to live there. Like this book I read in school when I was in third grade, where the kids hide out in the museum overnight.
You must mean this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Mixed-Up_Files_of_Mrs._Basil_E._Frankweiler
From what I can tell from the article, it’s not clear what the guy was selling. Maybe it was the claimed drugs, maybe it was water, but he had no idea and he was not only unaware, but also was making claims (“highest quality” and "made in the US’) that were patently false.
So he wasn’t so much “providing a path to medicines” as he was fraudulently making the claim he was doing so while putting all his customers at risk of harm.