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From: speaker@ttidcb.UUCP (Kenneth Speaker)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.med
Subject: Re: Where are drugs (opiates) legal?
Message-ID: <700@ttidcb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 12:01:37 EST
Article-I.D.: ttidcb.700
Posted: Wed Mar  5 12:01:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 08:17:56 EST
References: <156@proper.UUCP> <12057@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <915@felix.UUCP> <783@ucsfcgl.UUCP>
Reply-To: speaker@ttidcb.UUCP (Kenneth Speaker)
Organization: Transaction Technology, Inc. (CitiCorp), Santa Monica
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath net.legal:3050 net.med:3541

In article <783@ucsfcgl.UUCP> arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold) writes:
>In article <915@felix.UUCP> daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) writes:
>>This is getting off the track of the original posting, but one of my pet
>>peeves is the fact that penicillin is not available over the counter (or
>>any effective antibiotic, that I know of).  Is this due to pressure from
>>the A.M.A., to force people to see their doctors, or what?  It seems rid-
>>iculous to have to go to the doctor and pay a small fortune, when you
>>already know what's wrong with you and what you need to fix it.
>
>The argument I've heard advanced for this is that one can develop
>resistence to antibiotics if used regularly, and doctors claim that, if
>people who didn't know what they were doing used it on relatively
>harmless problems (or ones with other solutions), the penicillin will
>be ineffective if something serious comes up.
>
>As a fer-instance, penicillin is actually useful in treating acne.  I
>can just imagine teenagers buying lots of penicillin to treat their
>facial problems, and then, if they get VD or something else, be forced
>to use less effective treatments.  Considering the (in)ability of many
>people in this country to rationally weigh personal appearance against
>personal harm, not to mention the bucks to be made in selling effective
>acne medicine, I would suspect that this would prove to be a large
>problem.
>
>The question really is whether the gov't ought to protect you from this
>sort of self-stupidity.
>
>		Ken Arnold

Actually the question is not if the government should protect you from
yourself, but whether they should protect ME from you.  If you (the generic)
take an antibiotic routinely, you create numerous PCN resistant strains
of bacteria which you then proceed to spread around through your effluvia,
such as urine, feces, respiratory aerosols, even sweat.  If I get infected
with your resistant bacteria, PCN is no longer useful to ME.  

I really don't give a hoot's ass if you wish to cause yourself harm, but
when you threaten me, I do.

--Kne