Effects of Direct Marketing Pharmaceuticals to Consumers Direct-to-consumer advertisements of pharmaceuticals first gained popularity in 1997, after FDA created a “draft guidance” outlining the rules for the advertisement of pharmaceuticals. The company had to provide a summary of the side effects of the product in published advertisements, and only the major risks of the drug in broadcast commercials (Fain and Caleb Alexander para. 2). Direct-to-consumers advertisements became very popular with pharmaceutical companies and peaked at 3.3 billion dollars in spending in 2006 (Fain and Caleb Alexander para. 4). These advertisements quickly became a controversial issue. The main criticism against such ads lies in the lack of medical knowledge of the consumers. Therefore, these consumers can insist on prescriptions inappropriate for their conditions (Fain and Caleb Alexander para. 5). Direct-to-consumer advertisements can be responsible for a wide range of poor judgments from customers. Consumers are driven to the advertised products in search of efficacy but due to their lack of medical knowledge tend to rely on anecdotes, lay theories combined with various biases and heuristics. A rational decision-making model would assume that consumers would weigh the risks and advantages of these products. On the contrary, people have to make so many decisions in their everyday life that they tend to rely on less accurate decision-making methods (Ilyuk et al. p. 319). Some of these biases are very disconcerting to me, especially the tendency to choose a “no pain, no gain” approach when assessing side effects and negative reactions to the drug. A consumer might continue to take a drug that is harmful to them because they perceive it as efficacy (Ilyuk et al. p. 315). Debate around Marijuana Marijuana has been a controversial drug for decades. The main argument against marijuana centers on its perceived status as a “gateway drug.” Since the start of medical marijuana legalization in the 1990s, this concern persisted amongst politicians while public opinion became more favorable towards the drug. During a discussion, marijuana is often presented as a stepping stone for heroin use (DeAngelo and Redford p. 3). The rise of heroin use in recent years has coincided with the rise of prescription opioid abuse (DeAngelo and Redford p. 4). Could the more accepting view of marijuana lead to it being a gateway drug for the increasing heroin use? Analysis of the accumulated research found that while the legalization of marijuana leads to its higher use, it could not find any evidence that there is any connection to the increased use of heroin, disproving the notion of marijuana as a gateway drug (DeAngelo and Redford p. 19). Another point of controversy concerns the use of marijuana among teens, especially in the states where medical marijuana has been legalized. Research indicates that while there was an increase in marijuana use among teens during the mid-2000s – 2011 period, legalization of marijuana did not have a statistically significant effect on it (Anderson, Mark et al. p. 23). Personally, these findings leave me leaning in support of marijuana legalization. Recall and Recognition Different people can have different preferences for t