What you’re missing is the massive legal category of “prescription drugs”. In some countries, you can just go to the pharmacy and buy Lipitor or Viagra or levot

What you’re missing is the massive legal category of “prescription drugs”. In some countries, you can just go to the pharmacy and buy Lipitor or Viagra or levothyroxine or antibiotics without a prescription. The United States is not one of those countries. Requiring a drug to be prescribed in a medical setting is the default legal stance in this country, except it takes years of waiting on the FDA to even get that far.