>. Consumers are not qualified to decide what prescription drugs they need and can easily be tricked. >It's not many steps removed from selling radium water.

>. Consumers are not qualified to decide what prescription drugs they need and can easily be tricked. >It's not many steps removed from selling radium water. Except you've glossed over the critical extra step: you still need a prescription from your doctor, who presumably considers whether the drug a patient is requesting is appropriate. Also consider your doctor is not aware of all of your problems and all available drugs, nor is the average patient aware of what conditions are treatable. For example, medications like chantix for smoking cessation may be brought up by patients without doctors necessarily aware of smoking habits. I don't like ads, but I'm not convinced that ads for drugs are too much more evil than others.