@clacke @sun Here in the US, there's a vast difference between "over the counter" and prescription medications. OTC meds are sold at regular stores, generally at prices that normal people can pay (assuming they don't abuse them). Prescription meds generally cost a whole lot, and with our current healthcare & pharmaceuticals system, depend heavily on a person (a) having insurance and (b) that insurance deciding to cover the medication.

So there are people who don't use medications because they cannot afford it, and there are people who don't use medications because they're opposed to medications except for when they're the difference between life and death.

(I did know someone whose doctor got free samples from a pharma company and gave them out to his patients. That particular person's stash helped me and other friends who lacked insurance to self-treat things that we couldn't otherwise treat.)

I partly blame my old best friend's death decades ago on a medical insurer deciding not to cover things his doctor recommended.