Give counseling at the pharmacy counter, limit to reasonable doses, check ID.
Is that because of lack of money (to see doctor, get prescription, buy drugs) or because of mandatory prescription alone?
Because in civilized countries nobody dies "due to lack of medication" just because a prescription is required.
Except if you mean people can't self-expirement with their own arbitrary self-prescriptions, and die from that because their doctors wouldn't prescribe them the same stuff.
Which is an argument I don't really understand -- is the premise that people informed by the self-study/internet/drug ads/friends/fake news/whatever, know better than a qualified doctor what to prescribe themselves? And that these competent self-prescribers abound so much, that are more in number than the people who would just fuck themselves with BS self-prescriptions?
I've had it with terrible doctors, long waiting times and needing to get a prescription every damn month or so.
And God forbid you move countries, that's months of going through the whole process again. All for some non addictive medication.
Some countries have them OTC and it works fine. It just doesn't put money into the system's budget and the doctors' pockets.
What about the thousands of idiots who would mis-use it and die, or self-prescribe whatever BS and have harmful effects?
Even if you're some hardened Ayn-Rand style "each to themselves" person, their bad decisions would then also negatively impact others who had nothing to do with their decision, not to mention wasting societal resources.