The rant that has been building, it is here now.

This is really bugging me.  Seriously.

I’ve seen a lot of people who are talking about the whole pharmacists-not-filling-prescriptions kerfuffle in terms of the freedom of the pharmacist to do what he wants to with his own business, and that’s all good and fine...until you claim that allowing him to refuse to fill prescriptions is the libertarian position and that as a libertarian you are appalled, simply appalled that someone might think that the state has the right to tell you what to sell and that the free market will solve the problem anyway.

Hate to break it to you, but the market in prescription drugs isn’t even close to free, the government already regulates what can and can’t be sold and by whom, and unless I am very, very confused, the libertarian solution would be to dissolve the FDA and all of the state pharmacy boards and actually let the market be about it, instead of playing at it except when it bothers your religious sensibilities and then using the term libertarian to try to make your argument sound cooler than the other guy’s.

If you think that the pharmacist’s right not to sell something that he considers morally wrong trumps a person’s right to get the medication their doctor prescribed for them, fine.  I disagree strenuously, but fine.  But please, please, for love of the English language if nothing else--quit calling yourselves libertarians while you’re doing it.

Thanks.

1. there was a newspaper article on the morning after drug in the Fresno Bee.  Out of the many chain and local pharmacies one out 100 stocked it.  the reason was there was no demand.  The hospital pharmacies had it, but think about it; unless you were raped where you would go to the hospital, the consumer of this drug is too dumb to use contraception, but smart enough
   to know there’s a morning after pill.  I hope
   that’s a small market.
   it is a libertarian issue because the governor
   is telling the pharmacist what to sell.
   But the real point here is if you can’t find it at one pharmacy , call another.
   I couldn’t find 18” dumbbell handles in Fresno, I had to order them over the internet.
   There are also a lot of drugs my HMO dosen’t carry.
   Just call pharmacies until you find it.

   Posted by  on  04/21  at  09:19 PM

2. Honey, the regulations are the reason he’s got a fancy title.  Seems a bit disingeuous to insist that the government can’t regulate what he chooses not to sell when they’ve set it up so you have to be a pharmacist-as-defined-by-the-state to have the option.  There may be other pharmacies that sell it, sure, but why the hell should you have to hunt one up when it’s the damned government that won’t let you buy it without the approval of one of these people in the first place?  The guy only has the power because of regulation.  There’s nothing free here in the first place.

   You want to call that libertarian, then I guess the libertarians will have to find a new name for themselves, since you’ve co-opted and perverted it.  Freedom-for-me-inside-this-bizarre-set-of-regs just doesn’t really cut it.

   I’m not even going near the whole trying to characterize people who would use it thing.  Not even going there.  Not to mention that this is also happening with regular birth control pills.  Because they can work the same way if they fail to prevent ovulation.  Did you know that?  So trying to be responsible by taking the pill is, in some of these pharmacists’ eyes, just as bad.

   But that’s beside the point.  Point is, not libertarian without a definition change.

   Posted by Deb  on  04/21  at  11:03 PM

3. I agree with your point about the real libertarian solution.  Why are so few libertarians, well, libertarians?  I think the issue (in the absence of an existing law)is contracts.  And I’d be satisfied with whichever way the outcome went.

   Posted by Dave Schuler  on  04/22  at  08:09 AM

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