In Flanigan’s article, she discusses how the idea of informed consent does not agree with the current pharmaceutical regulations because if a patient can refuse care based on their decision about their own well being, they also should be able to make their own decision about the drugs they use for their own well being. Her argument is that if the medical community widely accepts that patients know what’s best for themselves and can refuse certain treatments, it should also be widely accepted that patients know what’s best for themselves and don’t need the gatekeepers of pharmacists to keep them from the medicine they want or need. Personal cost benefit analyses are just happening on the black market for drugs anyway, such as Adderall, so why shouldn’t that happen legally? She also brings up the point about cosmetic surgery, where patients choose to take some medical risk for their desired outcome, and she questions if that risk is so different from prescription drugs. 

I thought this had a really interesting connection to the podcast about the racist history of drug enforcement in the US and other failed programs like “Just Say No” and D.A.R.E. that aimed to teach and enforce limits on people’s drug use. Restrictive policies can be useful tools for public safety, and I don’t entirely agree with Flanigan’s argument that we shouldn’t have any gatekeeper for prescription medications. However, I think it’s fair to say that systemic racism has been a part of the drug enforcement process since it’s beginning, and it’s important to look closer for the purposeful or unintended consequences of that legacy in policies we make today.