4 ms·

There's loads of precedent pointing to commercial speech such as marketing as having some specific carve outs on the right to free speech. After all we have lim

There's loads of precedent pointing to commercial speech such as marketing as having some specific carve outs on the right to free speech. After all we have limits on tobacco marketing and food labeling requirements.

HenryBemis 1y ago
The politicians are getting funded/paid (lobbying/donations) by the very same people/companies that pay the ad revenue to those media. Why on earth would politicians legislate against their actual bosses? (As a real life reminder - a dog that bites the hand that feed him is put down). Courts btw don't make up shit.. they 'judge' (verb) with the criteria of 'what does the law define'. So if politicians legislate wisely, courts will enforce any 'parliamentary' and/or executive order to ban the advertisements of medicine. But they won't. Not until push-comes-to-shove, and the true bosses will reposition to 'the next thing' (smoking, sugary-foods, medicine) and then they will allow the politicians to finally block meds ads. In which case the 'next wave' will begin. Story as old as time...
- alistairSH 1y ago
  They used to be paid of RJ Reynolds, etc as well. The problem here is the drugs that are advertised as generally considered "good things". Anybody attempting to regulate the display of these ads would likely need to prove the ads are more harmful than any positive from the ads.
  - HenryBemis 1y ago
    The ads (and it's been debated) is (imho as well) a way to 'buy out those who can keep then in check'. Media/journalists are supposed to be doing that. But when your chief editor tells you "hey, 70% of our network's revenue comes from XYZ" even if you don't want to, you self-censor. Anyway I have commented many times on the 'legalized bribing' called 'lobbying'. The dishonest ones always week because those with $$$ know very well who can they buy and who can they threaten.
kongolongo 1y ago
Consumers can directly buy alcohol and tobacco, they cannot buy prescription drugs directly. If there is a problem isn't the primary culprit the prescriber?
- vel0city 1y ago
  If consumers can't even buy these drugs, why do the direct marketing at all? Are you trying to suggest the consumer doesn't have much weight in the prescribing decisions of their doctors? Clearly the pharmaceutical companies think there's a strong reason to directly market these drugs to consumers even if they can't directly purchase these drugs. The ads almost always say "ask your doctor about..." not "think about prescribing x to your patients..." If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them.
  - kongolongo 1y ago
    >If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them. Thats speculative. Companies spend exorbitant amounts of money on things they lose money on all the time. What's not speculative is consumers cant buy the drugs themselves. They might ask doctors about it, but if the doctors are misprescribing that's on them or their training and not the consumer.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      You're acting as if people shopping around for doctors to get whatever pills they want isn't a thing. That consumers will ask their first GP about a drug, get told no, and then drop it to never ask again. What's not speculative is consumers will find a way to buy the things they want to buy, and advertising has some amount of influence on purchasing decisions of most consumers. Either way, can you draw this back to allowing or disallowing direct to consumer prescription drug advertising? Are you honestly suggesting the billions spent on drug advertising has no impact on drug sales?
      - kongolongo 1y ago

HenryBemis 1y ago

The politicians are getting funded/paid (lobbying/donations) by the very same people/companies that pay the ad revenue to those media. Why on earth would politicians legislate against their actual bosses? (As a real life reminder - a dog that bites the hand that feed him is put down). Courts btw don't make up shit.. they 'judge' (verb) with the criteria of 'what does the law define'. So if politicians legislate wisely, courts will enforce any 'parliamentary' and/or executive order to ban the advertisements of medicine. But they won't. Not until push-comes-to-shove, and the true bosses will reposition to 'the next thing' (smoking, sugary-foods, medicine) and then they will allow the politicians to finally block meds ads. In which case the 'next wave' will begin. Story as old as time...

alistairSH 1y ago
They used to be paid of RJ Reynolds, etc as well. The problem here is the drugs that are advertised as generally considered "good things". Anybody attempting to regulate the display of these ads would likely need to prove the ads are more harmful than any positive from the ads.
- HenryBemis 1y ago
  The ads (and it's been debated) is (imho as well) a way to 'buy out those who can keep then in check'. Media/journalists are supposed to be doing that. But when your chief editor tells you "hey, 70% of our network's revenue comes from XYZ" even if you don't want to, you self-censor. Anyway I have commented many times on the 'legalized bribing' called 'lobbying'. The dishonest ones always week because those with $$$ know very well who can they buy and who can they threaten.

kongolongo 1y ago

Consumers can directly buy alcohol and tobacco, they cannot buy prescription drugs directly. If there is a problem isn't the primary culprit the prescriber?

vel0city 1y ago
If consumers can't even buy these drugs, why do the direct marketing at all? Are you trying to suggest the consumer doesn't have much weight in the prescribing decisions of their doctors? Clearly the pharmaceutical companies think there's a strong reason to directly market these drugs to consumers even if they can't directly purchase these drugs. The ads almost always say "ask your doctor about..." not "think about prescribing x to your patients..." If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them.
- kongolongo 1y ago
  >If these ads didn't do much the industry wouldn't be spending billions of dollars on them. Thats speculative. Companies spend exorbitant amounts of money on things they lose money on all the time. What's not speculative is consumers cant buy the drugs themselves. They might ask doctors about it, but if the doctors are misprescribing that's on them or their training and not the consumer.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    You're acting as if people shopping around for doctors to get whatever pills they want isn't a thing. That consumers will ask their first GP about a drug, get told no, and then drop it to never ask again. What's not speculative is consumers will find a way to buy the things they want to buy, and advertising has some amount of influence on purchasing decisions of most consumers. Either way, can you draw this back to allowing or disallowing direct to consumer prescription drug advertising? Are you honestly suggesting the billions spent on drug advertising has no impact on drug sales?
    - kongolongo 1y ago