It is illegal to advertise prescription medications in Hedland except directly to physicians, either by mail or in medical journals  A proposed law would allow general advertising of prescription medications  Opponents object that the general population lacks the specialized knowledge to evaluate such advertisements and might ask their physicians for inappropriate medications
But since physicians have the final say as to whether to prescribe a medication for a patient, inappropriate prescriptions would not become more common
Whether advertising for prescription medications might alert patients to the existence of effective treatments for minor ailments that they had previously thought to be untreatable