He quickly finished off the packet and easily refilled it at the pharmacy without a prescription. In a dramatic shift from past practice, general practitioners are liberally orientating their patients towards their use. Anti-depressives are for depression, which has a clinical definition. It is so easy to obtain without a prescription that reports of socialites giving Prozac to their pets surfaced in 1997. Brazilians ingest 20 million tons of amphetamines annually, making the country the world's leader in consumption.
China follows at a distant second with eight million tons.
Originally used by German soldiers in World War II to ward off hunger and exhaustion, today amphetamines are gulped down primarily by women to curb appetite for weight loss. In general, the medical profession has contributed to this addiction. Paulo in 1997 visited 107 doctors. Less than a third required a medical exam before prescribing amphetamines. Pharmaceuticals industry tactics are also part of the problem.