[21]

Obviously it was not. You could get prescriptions from corrupt doctors without actually seeing them or fulfilling the requirements for those drugs.

Basically you filled a form and they issued a prescription which then affiliated pharmacies filled.

[acqq]

Why are doctors corrupt if they just fulfill the need of the clients? The clients know what they need, but having a "big visit" to the doctor would cost more. This is a compromise. The doctor spends less time, charges less but wins on the volume.

If the clients use the medicines legally (e.g. for themselves) and know what they need I don't see a problem.

[MaulingMonkey]

> The clients know what they need, but having a "big visit" to the doctor would cost more. This is a compromise.

That compromise exists! It's known as "over the counter" medications. They require no prescription or doctor in the first place.

Doctors should fulfill the needs of their clients. The legislature has realized that, for some drugs, people may need help to avoid addiction, or to avoid killing themselves with overdoses, or to fully understand the risks and possible complications, etcetera. To try and ensure these needs are met, they passed laws to require doctors to meet these needs, compelling them to act as a check against abuse, to perform due diligence in checking for possible conflicts with other medication, and to ensure the risks of the medication have been properly communicated (because let's face it - who reads the fine print?)

A doctor acting as a rubber stamp is not performing any of these tasks, and is not helping fulfill the full needs of their clients.

[nathannecro]

What if the clients are wrong? What if they think they need something, but it turns out that they have a bad interaction with the drug?

There is a reason doctors undergo training and are held legally liable for mis-prescription.

The service may not have been illegal when only looking at the patients being served (I have no idea) but it was certainly illegal from the doctor's side. Not to mention...highly unethical from the medical side. All the doctors involved should have had their licences revoked.

[21]

So if I declare that I need a powerful anesthetic like Propofol, the doctor should just give me a prescription like that? What's the point of requiring a prescription then?

The previous article said that those forms were rubber-stamped. No matter what you declared, you got your prescription.

And regarding clients using the medicines legally, that's like saying that sellers of explosives shouldn't check their clients, because it's the clients responsibility to use them legally.