Hypothetically…
I’ve been unemployed for a while. I’ve lost my health insurance. My unemployment has run out. I have a few hundred dollars left in my bank account.
Let’s say I have an infection. (It doesn’t matter what. Get your mind out of the gutter.)
I can’t afford to go to the doctor. OK, maybe I can not buy my kid a birthday present and go. Or maybe I can go without one meal a month to pay for it. You get the idea. A doctor bill is something I really can’t afford.
But I went to college. I know how to pour a culture dish full of growth medium, and inoculate it. I can’t positively identify the organism, but I’ve seen it before and I recognize it even if I don’t have what I need to identify which antibiotic will kill it. (Meaning, I don’t have any antibiotics to put in the dish with the germs to see where they DON’T grow.) I did have some moldy bread, though. I’ll be damned. Penecillin kills it! (or at least slows it down.)
So I know I have an infection. I know an antibiotic will kill it.
And if I pay a doctor I’ll be homeless within a month.
Let’s get really ridiculous. Let’s say I’ll die without it. On the streets. Evicted from the home I have equity in.
Why do I have to go through a doctor to get what I *know* I need?
Put another way, why is it illegal to diagnose and treat yourself?
Is it to protect drug company profits?
Or is it so we can throw people in prison for smoking pot?
I think it’s the second one.
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