There's basically two side effect profiles:

1. It makes you fat, sleepy, confused, constipated / diarrhea / both, and your genitals stop working, but possibly in a different way than your usual everyday hell so maybe it'll be a little better?

2. It only has one side effect that only happens 0.00001% of the time: instant horrifyingly painful death.

It's fucking wild that seeing a car commercial is refreshing in that it's just an actual product.

You just rock up and say, "I need something for this" and they give it to you. Otherwise a doctor prescribes it. And it's cheap.

Companies will advertise approved drugs to medical boards to be distributed down to doctors. So medical professionals decide what the best options are. There's no taking drugs just because it was on TV.

Considering Americans lag behind the developed world in life expectancy and general health, I think it's safe to say the drug industry is only there to make money and it certainly causes harm, ironically.

Prescription yes. OTC is more lax but (from what I have seen though of course could be wrong) still more tightly controlled than in the USA.