> The point is the forced choice is flawed. There wouldn’t be a market for the adulterated stuff if the medicine were OTC.

You haven’t convinced me that there’s anything wrong with the regulation. There might be, but again, the existence of a black market is not a valid reason to relax the regulation. The black market exists for guns and heroine and antibiotics and certain types of illegal porn too, not to mention crazier things like bazookas. You wouldn’t argue any of those should be less regulated just because you can buy them on the black market right? What actual reasons justify deregulating Sildenafil?

> wouldn’t argue any of those should be less regulated just because you can buy them on the black market

I’d use that as evidence there is demand. Then I’d consider the harm of looser controls. The harm balance for Viagra seems minimal, particularly given so many people take it without bothering with a prescription. If you think Viagra is in the same harm bucket as guns and heroin, then yes, it makes sense to regulate it.

Demand is not a valid reason to deregulate, that’s exactly the same argument as the existence of a black market argument. And it doesn’t have to be in a severe harm bucket as heroine to deserve deregulation, it has to be relatively safe, and not have big contraindications with others commonly used medications.

Better reasons to deregulate would be that it’s shown as safe or safer than existing OTC products, that many other countries offer it OTC, or that Viagra provides a compelling health benefit when used safely. The benefit is there for some specific cases, but quite questionable broadly speaking, given that it often gets used casually and to help men who don’t truly need it, to party when they’re drunk or whatever. The safety has been reviewed and deemed worthy of a prescription gate, and it’s not a hard gate to get through at all, the top comment exaggerated it. Maybe it’ll change and get deregulated, but I guess I don’t really even see why deregulating Viagra would be a net positive for anything other than Pfizer’s pocketbook.