Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Really! I have the feeling it's the opposite in France.
For one thing all OTC drugs are kept behind the counter (even some cough drops!) and you have to ask the pharmacist for them. I think one of the reasons is that the pharmacist can answer questions and give advice. For example when selling plan B, my pharmacist systematically explains until when it's efficient and recommends thinking about switching to more permanent contraception and getting an STD test.
Also, a lot of the drugs that are OTC in the US are prescription only in France. They're trying to keep auto-medication as low as possible, and to replace stronger drug use (like antibiotics) by prevention work, because both are cost saving over the long run. I guess the fact that drugs are covered by social security only if you have a prescription encourages people to see their doctor! I think the only thing I've ever bought without a prescription is paracetamol.

This is true, they put your name into the database, and if you try to go to another pharmacy (CVS for example) when they enter your information again, it will flag that you have just bought that drug.

here in Brazil ALL antibiotics were over-the-counter (you have to ask, but you didn't really need a script) until 2011- now you must have a script. The government's explanation is that people were self-medicating with antibiotics for things that didn't respond to antibiotics (saying they had strep when it was a cold, for example, or the flu, especially with the flu scare in recent years, there were some deaths after people took antibiotics for their flu symptoms and their conditions became severe but they still didn't seek treatment), and there continue to be strains of drug resistant bacteria developing- we're having a wave of MRSA type hospital borne infections right now that resist most treatments.