By Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Want some penicillin? How’s about a shot of insulin for the likes of you? Can you go to the store and buy some? Well, yes – but first you have to get permission from one of your betters, a physician.
In this era of COVID-19, it is even more important than otherwise that economic freedom reign in the realm of medicine. People, now more than ever, should be able to make their own decisions regarding pharmaceuticals, and not rely upon Big Brother for permissions.
Is the prescription system compatible with freedom, with individual initiative, liberty? Of course not. This arrangement is an aspect of the nanny state and should be ended. Salt should be sown where once it stood.
There is nothing wrong with paternalism … for children, that is. But adults, actual people of mature years, are treated in this infantile manner.
Perhaps the most famous paternalist nowadays is former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He was adamant that no resident of his domain, the Big Apple, be able to enjoy any large sugary drinks. We can all laugh at this unwarranted treatment of adults in need of such supervision.
But this is the precise system under which we all labor every day, insofar as prescription drugs are concerned. It is time, it is past time, to throw off this yoke of nanny statism.
But would it not be dangerous to use these drugs in the absence of expert advice? Of course it would be. But no such proposal emanates from the free-enterprise side of the political economic spectrum on this matter. Rather, the suggestion is that people would be free to seek all the advice they wanted, from doctors, pharmacists, whomever, before they made any such purchase. But it is demeaning to be treated like a child, told one must seek permission before deciding upon a course of action.
It is also undemocratic. That might not mean all too much to many people at present, but there are at least some who still revere this political system. Consider, then, the following. If people are so stupid as to avail themselves of drugs in complete ignorance about their effects, they do not deserve to be allowed into the voting booth. But if they are allowed a ballot, this implies that they are not so intellectually feeble as to poison themselves with drugs that will harm them. It also bespeaks virtually a logical contradiction to posit that the average person is too befuddled to make good choices in the pharmacy and, yet, wise enough to elect officials who will compel him to make rational choices via the prescription system.
Pharmaceuticals are not the only dangerous item for sale legally. Automobiles fit this bill as well. Some 40,000 people die on the nation’s roadways every year. Yet, no one needs permission from anyone else to purchase a car or truck. Imagine if we were to apply the prescription system to these purchases. The howls of outrage would be heard far and wide. That should hold in the present case too.
Why, then, do we tolerate these arrangements? Inertia might be part of the answer. Things are the way they are; best to let us leave them alone. But prescriptions do not date from the caveman days. The first prescription drug monitoring program was introduced in New York State in 1918. (This was not Bloomberg’s fault, although one can imagine he would have been an ardent supporter of this initiative.) Before that time, people had the freedom to purchase medicinal drugs without a by-your-leave from anyone. Yes, health has improved since then, thanks to technology; this was in spite of compelling adults to seek permission for their purchases, not because of it. Free enterprise, not nanny statism, enriches us, and wealthier is healthier, other things equal.
It is particularly important to end this system while we are still under the threat of the coronavirus. The fates willing, we will soon have cures and vaccines for COVID-19. If there is one person who is turned away from a drug store due to the absence of a prescription, that will be one person too many. And, given that this system eats up a significant amount of pharmacists’ time, they will be enveloped in red tape.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans.