The downvotes are just silly and show a bit of a lack of medical education.
Hints: any medicine expires, any medicine has side effects. I understand that there are some contexts where selling literal kilos of medicine are valid but MASS selling is just stupid. Nobody, not even somewhat large families, should be popping even Advil such that they need to consume kilos of it within the 1-2 years until it expires. And Advil was just an example, I saw those buckets for stronger stuff with more side effects. Medicine should be used like a laser, only where it's needed and sparingly.
And if many people really need to be popping even Advil like candy, it's a symptom of healthcare system failures.
See, sometimes silly things hide much deeper problems, and just because you're immersed in the culture you can't see it.
Old enough to realize that mass selling buckets of medicine isn't sane (no matter what they are, hint, Advil expires too), especially since I have doctors in my family. Also it kind of confirmed what statistics say about America being over medicated. It's just a small whiff of the disease that ends up with mass fentanyl addictions.
And not old enough to have the constant, chronic pain of old age, when your bones are grinding against each other at your worn out joints, particularly if you've had a life of physical labor. I think without the privilege of being relatively pain-free you'd change your tune.
Doctor recommended ibuprofen can be at considerably higher dose rates than what's listed on the bottle at your pharmacy.
This whole "too many painkillers are prescribed" thing really annoys me. It leads to cancer patients suffering because of the risk they could become addicted. So f-ing what?
I can't find the study anymore but the US already consumes more medicine per capita than other developed countries.
Anyway, it's a cultural thing, other countries seem to be able to manage this at comparable levels with a fraction of the spending and without chucking these into every store:
I'm trying to figure out consumption rates for the first one. I think Ibuprofen should expire in max 2-3 years after it's opened, so that would be... 700-1000 days. That's at least 1 pill per day for the entire period.
I'm not against them being available per se, but last time I was in a CSV they were all over the place (and other similar ones with huge quantities numbering in the hundreds, at least), which means that there is demand and widespread usage like that.
I highly doubt most people buying them are using them correctly (either overdosing, taking them when they're not actually needed, or taking them past their expiry date).
Walgreens/CSV literal buckets of medicine like Advil and whatnot were some of the scariest things I've seen, and worst of all, people DEFENDING them.