During a recent trip to Goddard Health Center to procure a prescription for AD/HD medication, I reflected on the utter uselessness of my trip. The very notion of my being required to make this trip seemed absurd to me, and I concluded that the legal requirement of a doctor’s prescription is unnecessary and wasteful.

As mentioned, I was attempting to acquire a prescription for AD/HD medication. I was on medication for a few years as a child and have struggled with attention problems throughout my time here at OU.

Thanks to the wealth of information available on the Internet, I was able to read up on the disorder and conclude that I was probably suffering a reoccurrence and should seek medication.

In a truly free society, I would be free to act on this suspicion and simply order the medication of my choice online or from a local pharmacy. Because of health laws, however, I was required to schedule the first of multiple screening/testing meetings at Goddard Health Center, and will not be able to purchase the medication until the process is done, which I was told will take more than a month.

To their credit, the entire staff at Goddard has been both remarkably accommodating and exceptionally friendly to me. It is no fault of the OU health staff that this time-consuming transaction has been forced upon me, and the staff has made it much less painful than I anticipated.

The entire transaction of pursuing a prescription is largely useless. With resources like WebMD.com, which has hundreds of patient reviews for thousands of prescription drugs, at one’s fingertips, a trip to the doctor and then to a legally licensed pharmacist is often simply a legal formality.

These unnecessary trips to a doctor force up the demand for doctors’ services, which both drives up prices and leads to long waiting times to meet with physicians.

To force someone who can learn the purpose, effectiveness, and possible risks of a drug on his or her own time is not only ridiculous, it is wasteful. The prescription requirement associated with drugs should be abolished to eliminate this waste and to further patients’ freedom.

One objection to this proposal is that many people do not fully understand the dynamics of drug treatment, especially the interaction between different medications, and abolishing the prescription requirement will endanger these patients.

This is an argument based on fear rather than reason. Those people who find themselves confused about their symptoms would still have the option to visit a doctor or talk to a pharmacist if they felt it was worth their time.

Indeed, it is rational to expect many still would, especially those with serious afflictions. In many cases, individuals don’t even know what is causing their health deficiency, so of course people would freely choose to continue visiting doctors for advice and prescriptions.

Another objection to this proposal is that some would abuse and become addicted to powerful painkillers and other drugs that are now available only to those with prescriptions. This argument is plainly true, but prescription abolition is still desirable for two main reasons.

First, people should be free to use and abuse drugs if they so choose. People who aren’t free to do whatever they want to their bodies, including ingesting dangerous drugs, are not self-owners in any sense. Therefore, the abolition of prescription requirements is an essential requirement of personal freedom.

Second, one must remember that many people already become addicted to pharmaceuticals despite the legal prescription requirement. When these addicts are unable to acquire prescription renewals, they either have to search for their desired drugs through the black market or begin abusing other drugs.

Either way, refusing to allow addicts to legitimately acquire their drugs fuels the black market for drugs. This forces otherwise harmless addicts to do business with criminals. Therefore, abolishing the prescription requirement will decrease the demand for black market drugs.

In conclusion, the abolition of the prescription requirements would remove the burden of useless visits from the health delivery system, shortening waiting times and allowing quicker diagnosis and treatment of more serious injuries. Americans would remain free to consult with doctors, and many would do so, but all citizens would be free to make their own health decisions.