That a medication is OTC doesn't make it safe - my grandfather died from an overdose of an OTC medication - and I'm pretty sure more than just one psych med can kill if not properly taken / monitored. I don't pretend to know where American culture is these days, but I'd wager America's as litigious now as it was when I lived there: the pharmaceutical companies would need to first drop some of their prices to make the medications affordable OTC, then brace themselves for one law suit after another. Personally, I don't see big pharma companies taking that kind of risk.

I have a real problem with anti depressants being OTC because of the side effects (which if sold OTC people generally think it's "safe")and considering withdrawals, birth defects, so many factors that could really cause a lot of people a lot of problems, in my opinion it is a dangerous idea.

I'm not quite sure why you're so surprised. Zantac and Claritin made it to OTC because they were so widely prescribed. Considering that antidepressants are the most prescribed class of drugs in America, I'm surprised fluoxetine (at the very least) hasn't been approved for OTC yet. Not that I want it to be but the FDA basically gives a rubber stamp of approval on almost anything these days.

As a bipolar person, I think it's a terrible idea. Unsupervised use of anti-depressants, especially without an accompanying mood stabilizer, can lead to terrifying episodes of mania in manic-depressives. There are times in my own past when, almost physically loathe to speak to anyone, I would have certainly self-medicated with anti-depressants had they been available OTC and would have probably done myself more manic mischief than good.

The Libertarian might say I ought to be free to treat symptoms of my own illness and I applaud the impulse behind that thinking. But the thinking itself is flawed because my thinking might well be flawed, my decision-making poor, and easy access to drugs at that point could send me into spiky-haired mania.

With medication I have narrowed my range of mood swings from severe depression-to-mania down to depression-to-hypomania. There are aspects of this disease I hate with all my liver. Submitting to a drug regime is one of them with the submission being the most offensive part. The hard truth is though, that in order to live a manageable life I must submit, I must give up some measure of the freedoms that, ideally, the Libertarian would like me to keep.

Idealism versus practicality. Practicality will forever be the less sexy option but for people like me it is the only option.

Don't worry about OTC. It's already in the water.

The only good thing about over the counter ssri's would be that then people taking them would face no stigma and soon we'd have groups like Mothers Against SSRI's after all of the ssri related deaths.

Obviously prozac is much more dangerous than marijuana, heroin, or cocaine. I think we'd do better by making pot OTC, decriminalizing cocaine, having a heroin policy similar to the UK's and treating prozac as a poison like thalidomide.

I made an extensive comment at World of Psychology. One of my several points was this:

As the Josephine Johnston mentioned in her interview, “to provide them over the counter, you’re decoupling them from [an important part of the treatment].” A pill alone without even education about one’s condition, let alone counseling, is not good treatment, in my opinion.

prozac has ruined my life.