Being an asthmatic American old enough to remember going to buy an albuterol inhaler sans prescription, thank you for bringing this up. But I think you mischara

Being an asthmatic American old enough to remember going to buy an albuterol inhaler sans prescription, thank you for bringing this up. But I think you mischaracterize it, based on my (possibly wrong) understanding: switching propellants made it a different drug. Which means prescription. Prescriptions aren't just used to limit access to dangerous substances, they're also used to grant monopolies on substances. So yes, the price went up nearly an order of magnitude, but the access was cut off. Because when the propellant formulation changed, even though the active ingredient was the same, a prescription was required in the US to acquire it. Meanwhile, in Australia where I lived for several years, you could still go to a chemist and just buy an inhaler. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.