Most prescription drugs will not kill most people in normal use. However, when combined with other heath issues or other drugs they can kill you or damage your body. Which is why you hear "don't take this if you are taking nitrates as it could cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure."
It takes a fucking lot of training to have any clue what's safe to take in what dosage once you start mixing a few drugs. Put all that stuff out on the shelf and tens of thousands of people will die every year. But hey, if you still think that's a good idea feel free to convince other people.
Tens of thousands of people die every year from car crashes, should we outlaw driving? I could rattle off dozens of things that are stupid, dangerous, and totally legal, but it'd be rather pointless. Something being dangerous is not reason to not allow people to do it in free country.
You're ignoring my central point, I didn't say it wouldn't be dangerous, I said it's not the governments job to protect a person from himself. People would learn fairly quickly that it's stupid to just buy a bunch of stuff and mix it, and as I said, doctors and pharmacists can still inform people of what they should take and what not to mix stuff with.
Our current system artificially makes doctors into an extremely overly paid government sanctioned artificially limited monopoly. This keeps the price of health care artificially high, it's a protection racket using people's own health against them to forcefully take their money. Being a doctor should be a way to help people, not a way to become a millionaire. People should be enabled to treat themselves, doctors should be a choice we have, not a requirement forced upon us by the law.
The fact is people already self medicate, that's how it's always been and that's how it'll always be, but they shouldn't have to go to Mexico, Canada, or their local drug dealer to get what they want, they should be able to just go to their local pharmacy.
Driving is regulated just like prescription drugs.
It is the government’s job to protect people.
Mixing the drugs people take for fun, with drugs people take for their heath is a straw man argument.
Total heath care costs in this country have little to do with how doctors prescribe drugs. Changing how that works on a fundimental level is a high risk change for little payoff.
> Driving is regulated just like prescription drugs.
No it isn't, I don't have to go renew my license every third time I fill my tank. If long term prescription came with unlimited refills that didn't require more trips to the doc, I wouldn't be complaining.
> It is the government’s job to protect people.
From other people, and from outside invaders. Situations where there is a victim. It is not the governments job to protect me from myself, I cannot be my own victim. Well, this is how it should be in a free country, something we clearly aren't anymore.
> Mixing the drugs people take for fun, with drugs people take for their heath is a straw man argument.
Drugs are drugs, and what you call recreational drugs many of its users would absolutely say they take for their health, both mental and physical. It's not a strawman, you just don't like it. The fact is how the drug is classified is irrelevant to the issue of who owns my body and gets to say what does or doesn't go into it?
> Total heath care costs in this country have little to do with how doctors prescribe drugs.
It's one of many factors, I didn't say it was the biggest.
> Changing how that works on a fundamental level is a high risk change for little payoff.
Gaining the freedom to control your own body and not have a government decide for you is not a little payoff, freedom is worth any price.
It takes a fucking lot of training to have any clue what's safe to take in what dosage once you start mixing a few drugs. Put all that stuff out on the shelf and tens of thousands of people will die every year. But hey, if you still think that's a good idea feel free to convince other people.