We definitely could do without the bogus restrictions on many medications. The only reason a lot of formerly Rx meds are not over-the-counter is that insurance companies did not want to pay for them. That includes the acid-reducer pills, and the yeast infection products for women. Those were humongous insurance headaches which have been pushed back onto the consumers.

However, with analgesics, they keep a death grip on them because it benefits enough people in the "health care industry" to do so. "Follow the money. . ."

There is also the ridiculous idea that all of us need to be "guarded" like idiot children when it comes to analgesics. The upshot of the equally ridiculous 'war on drugs' is that it's made a lot of foreign and domestic drug kingpins mighty darn wealthy, and left a vast number of legitimately ill people under-treated or untreated. It also destroys patient-doctor relationships because the doctor is concerned foremost with his license (and this, of course, is tied to his wallet), and when he can't or won't provide patients with the help they need, the patients no longer trust or like the doctor. And why should they?

Guess you can tell this is a touchy subject with me, for a lot of reasons. My father sold his private practice back in '73 and worked with the ultra-indigent in the Philippines and southern Africa for the rest of his life (as did my mother) because they could no longer deal with the ever-increasing intrusiveness of the government. I'd love to be able to kick this country to the curb and live in Canada, England or Australia, but it's not real likely that any of those countries would welcome with open arms a person who is disabled and unable to get decent medical care because of the disability which arose due to medical ineptness in the first place! Grrrrrr!