Well, I'm from Mississippi and I'm ambivalent about it because for the most part, Jim Hood has been an excellent AG and the only state-level politician (besides Mike Chaney) worth a damn and has consistently pursued cases and policies that definitely helped us.
Obviously this is not at all clear-cut - I do have a problem with people selling unregulated prescription drugs online and that's part of the reason he's doing this (it's not only about movie piracy), but I'm doubtful that going after Google is the best way to go about it.
> Obviously this is not at all clear-cut - I do have a problem with people selling unregulated prescription drugs online
Why?
Disclaimer: I'm biased. My doctor would not prescribe me an extremely safe anti-parasitic that is in no way DEA controlled, and I had to do the research myself and had buy it from an "online pharmacy" to have my issue resolved (which was cheaper, might I add, than what my local pharmacy was charging).
>My doctor would not prescribe me an extremely safe anti-parasitic that is in no way DEA controlled, and I had to do the research myself and had buy it from an "online pharmacy" to have my issue resolved
Sounds like you have a terrible doctor, and should find a new one.
For better or worse, the system isn't really set up for that. Under the current system you might want to look for a doctor that believes in "informed consent" and "harm reduction".
Separate issue. The oppressiveness of requiring a doctor to sign off on your personal decisions is not the same as making sure pharma companies are actually producing the right drugs.
So you agree with me that prescription drugs should be permitted to be sold online as long as there are quality controls in place?
EDIT: Because the problem isn't QC (although that's what its disguised as). The problem is that every other first world country has price controls, so pharma rapes the one economy that allows them to, the USA. Region locking DVDs? Hilarious. Region locking life critical drugs? I don't have words for that level of evil and greed.
Yes, people should be able to make their own medication decisions. There may need to be a set of waivers or mandatory education classes, perhaps an interview to make sure the person isn't buying it in a misguided fashion (to help prevent quacks from getting people to harm themselves), but ultimately anyone should be able to buy and use what they want. It's embarrassing that drug control laws exist, even moreso for non-scheduled but rx-only stuff (like Allegra used to be).
But QC is a major problem[1]. Even the FDA is not doing a great job, as that article exposes. I used to be very pro-generics, now I double check what I'm buying and where it's manufactured. Now that might not be the driving force, as you point out, but QC is still a problem and ideally there should be some sort of end-to-end guarantees so users can determine that a specific box of product is safe. And punishments need to be extreme to avoid companies like Ranbaxy (now Sun Pharma) from simply skipping the whole QC-and-actually-making-medicine step.
I do have a problem with people selling unregulated prescription drugs online
I don't get this mindset. If you don't like unregulated prescription drugs, don't buy them. OTOH, if I'm willing to gamble with my health by taking drugs I buy online...well, its my body, I can put whatever I want into it.
Now, somebody bring up antibiotic resistant bacteria as the BigGov argument. Sorry, but that doesn't hold water with me. I don't find it moral to prevent somebody from doing something today, because $HYPOTHETICAL_BAD_THING might happen tomorrow.
"I don't find it moral to prevent somebody from doing something today, because $HYPOTHETICAL_BAD_THING might happen tomorrow."
That argument might have had some validity in prior times. Now, way too many people are dying from multi-drug resistant strains of TB, staph, etc. Just spending a few minutes with Wikipedia on those two bugs, I'd guess we're close to pushing 100K people dying a year due to them.
And from prior reading it's a lot worse in places where they can be obtained without a prescription.
I agree with this: "well, its my body"
but not with this: "I don't find it moral to prevent somebody from doing something today, because $HYPOTHETICAL_BAD_THING might happen tomorrow"
Let me start with an extreme example: You can't go around setting up landmines. We prevent people from doing something today because hypothetical bad things might happen. I think that the implication of your argument is that for antibiotics, the $HYPOTHETICAL_BAD_THING is less bad and less likely than the extreme example of landmines, but I think you need to make that point. How much danger can you put other people in in the future before it becomes unacceptable?
I agree with this: "well, its my body" but not with this: "I don't find it moral to prevent somebody from doing something today, because $HYPOTHETICAL_BAD_THING might happen tomorrow"
You do realize that in many, many countries, you can buy antibiotics over the counter, right? Nearby countries like Mexico, and far away countries like India (with a huge population)? And that people are buying them and using them constantly?
Sure, there's the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria developing, but the U.S. isn't going to stop that from happening no matter how difficult they make it for people to buy and use the drugs they need.
I'm starting to lose patience with people trying to take away the right of other people to control their own body.
And it's not just antibiotics. Things like prescription drugs being essentially purposefully laced with poison (acetaminophen) to prevent people from "abusing" them and other drugs like cannabis being illegal is utterly ridiculous.
If we don't own our own bodies, what do we get to own?
> Sure, there's the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria developing, but the U.S. isn't going to stop that from happening no matter how difficult they make it for people to buy and use the drugs they need.
"But they're doing it!" is not an argument as to why we should contribute to the problem.
> I'm starting to lose patience with people trying to take away the right of other people to control their own body.
Except this "right" for people to control their body is also being taken away by the people making the tools we have to control our bodies useless.
The idea that you have in general the right to do whatever you want to yourself also comes with the present reality is that the rest of us have to pay up when you do something stupid.
An aside: I reject your premises entirely in the first place. There is no such thing as a "right." There are no rights given by God, nature did not instill you with any such rights, they are not inscribed on your soul. They are convenient legal fictions invented for contemporary norms that probably, in general and in the long-term, lead to happier societies. And if people putting whatever they want into their bodies causes or will cause immense suffering and unhappiness for other people in the future (the reduced effectiveness of antibiotics), then it is ridiculous and perhaps even selfishly evil to maintain even the pretense of your legal fiction.
Obviously this is not at all clear-cut - I do have a problem with people selling unregulated prescription drugs online and that's part of the reason he's doing this (it's not only about movie piracy), but I'm doubtful that going after Google is the best way to go about it.