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Comment by jmye | Hacker News Reader

> Drugs risks do not enter into the picture given the fact I can buy ammonia and bleach along with a myriad of other dangerous compounds.

This is a deeply weird take. You think anyone ought to be able to buy, for instance, warfarin and freely take it without a doctor’s involvement? We should let parents self-diagnose diabetes and administer insulin without a prescription or discussion? We should just hope that patients heard their doctor say hydralazine and not hydroxyzine?

> As a side note more dangerous than any drug is stopping a prescription drug cold turkey.

Abject nonsense. It was very easy to stop my prescribed amoxicillin. It’s clear you don’t have any actual idea what “prescription drugs” are, in aggregate, and that should maybe inform your decision to have Big Opinions about them.

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You think anyone ought to be able to buy, for instance, warfarin and freely take it without a doctor’s involvement?

Yes.

Triple yes! Most of the people buying it have been buying it and using it for years.

Why do you think only the people taking it would be buying it?

> Why do you think only the people taking it would be buying it?

I don't. But the cost of access is significant. And with pharmacies in India, China and Mexico willing to ship basically anything into America, it's a purely-cosmetic tax now.

Why? Why, specifically, do you think an adult without HF should be able to buy a random drug, likely by accident, and start taking it?

I guess I don’t hate everyone else enough to agree with that.

Why?

No reason required. People can already buy incredibly dangerous things with a doctors permission, as if a doctor actually knows what other compounds a person is consuming to begin with. Doctors are not omniscient and patients lie. Most of them barely even know the compounds that are FDA approved to begin with. Be honest, most of them barely remember 10% of what they were taught in medical school and the schools even state that half of what they will be taught will not be relevant or will be entirely wrong by the time they graduate.

Again, I can buy apples and apricots without permission. There is nothing capable of more risk or harm that has ever been approved by the FDA than apples and apricots.

> This is a deeply weird take. You think anyone ought to be able to buy, for instance, warfarin and freely take it without a doctor’s involvement? We should let parents self-diagnose diabetes and administer insulin without a prescription or discussion? We should just hope that patients heard their doctor say hydralazine and not hydroxyzine?

Weird examples. You can buy insulin without a prescription today in the USA.

In much of the world -- including almost all of Asia, Africa, and much of Eastern Europe -- you can buy almost any drug without a prescription. The only exceptions are potent CNS stimulants or narcotics, and in some rare cases antibiotics.

This is legitimately a better system. Takes out the middleman.

In the US you can get any drug if you pay $120 and recite the magic words to a telemedicine "doctor."

Funny you mention this... I bumped into a VP of Merck at a conference and that's the exact example he gave: in the US, you can't adjust your own coumadin dosage without a M.D. consult, but here, have 200 doses of insulin to take home with you.

In much of the world -- including almost all of Asia, Africa, and much of Eastern Europe

Doctors in the US get a nice $200 to $500 per doctors visit, required to extend the prescription drug. I only notice because I pay cash. This is why they will argue against anything I am saying until they are code-blue in the face. I will leave them with my code brown.

In the US you can get any drug if you pay $120 and recite the magic words to a telemedicine "doctor."

That's how a number of us in a particular circle stock up on anti-biotics. That said anti-biotics are a last resort for me whereas I find doctors are quick to prescribe them.

Your argument is even worse lol. Obviously he's proposing that you can take your doctors note to the pharmacy and get what the doctor prescribed in addition to being allowed to self purchase behind the counter drugs.

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