It’s Time To Ban Inane Drug Ads

Don't you just love Canadian drug ads. I know they have me hooked, I'm heading down to the drugstore right now to get bottles of "dancing in the street like a fool", "floating through the meadow" and maybe I'll pick up a couple of bottles of "talk like an alien baby".

One of the most interesting is the Viagara retirement speech ad where the retiree is bleeped, apparently for saying, so we are supposed to think, that he is going to have more sex, or some euphemism therefor. Of course, we're supposed to think he's being bleeped because he mentions sex, but actually it is because to do so would come too close to telling the people what the drug is for and in Canada drug ads cannot mention the name of the drug and the disease or ailment it treats. That is why you see all these drug ads that give you no clue what the drug treats, or you see "education" ads about an ailment telling you to ask your doctor about new treatments (in the hopes he will prescribe the drug that is being "advertised").

If the government wants to ban drug advertising why do they not do it directly, instead of taking this approach that forces us to watch these inane drug ads. There is no reason for drug advertising in Canada. Prescription drugs should not be self-prescribed in a country where anyone can see a doctor without personal cost. It is the doctor's role to diagnose conditions and prescribe drugs. If patients want to do research on the Internet or in books and ask their doctors about specific treatments or drugs they can do that. Drug companies so-called "education' ads are only veiled attempts to sell products.

It is time to spare us the suffering and take those inane drug ads off our television screens.