Medicines that anyone can buy easily and without a prescription are only sold in pharmacies. Why, some people ask, can't you just buy them in drugstores and supermarkets?


This is the case in many countries. There you buy a tube of aspirin tablets in the supermarket. This also seems to make sense for everyday medicines such as painkillers. The disadvantage, however, is that the medical effect is overestimated due to the liberal availability of the medication.

In the USA, for example, around 20,000 people are hospitalised every year for liver damage because they have accidentally taken too much paracetamol. The fact that paracetamol, aspirin and similar painkillers are available in supermarkets alongside ordinary household products means that consumers do not classify them as potentially dangerous. The subconscious perception of the product changes its meaning depending on where and how easily it can be bought.

If painkillers are only available in pharmacies, as is the case in Germany, they are intuitively categorised by the consumer as a medicine and therefore as potentially harmful in the event of an overdose or interaction with other medicines. This makes them unconsciously more cautious about taking the medication.