Not exclusively American, but very 'modern'. I recently watched commercial TV in the UK (I usually stick to BBC) and it was appalling to see adverts for codeine

Not exclusively American, but very 'modern'. I recently watched commercial TV in the UK (I usually stick to BBC) and it was appalling to see adverts for codeine advertised for day-to-day back pain. Like it's a trivial thing. The cause of back pain is, in day-to-day circumstances, because of bad posture. It can be fixed by stopping the bad posture, with some good habits and perhaps yoga. You can make money from yoga, but not enough for national TV advertising budgets. Luckily in the UK we don't have the completely insane position of having prescription drugs being advertised in mainstream media. I think that is peculiarly North American. (Yes of course there are serious chronic conditions, for those you see a doctor not watch a TV advert)