Here in the UK, a lot of things that are available without prescription in the US or are easily prescribed are very hard to get.

I buy melatonin and buproprion from dodgy websites. In the US I could just go the pharmacy or my doctor respectively.

Here we see that there is some level of harm from any drug restriction which must be balanced against the benefit.

In the US you can buy lidocaine cream over the counter. My wife is experiencing some post pregnancy problems involving really extreme pain that could be mitigated effectively with lidocaine. Because we need an authorisation issued to a specific pharmacy and we can't get another doctors appointment after the first pharmacy was out of stock, I watch her curled up crying again, I wonder how huge this benefit has to be to be worth it.