Dude, you sound like a NORML ad.
Don’t underestimate the power of the pharmaceutical lobby in convincing the public that a huge array of medications should be available by prescription only. They make a heck of a lot more money from prescription drugs than non-prescription, and fight hard to prevent any prescription drug from being changed to non-prescription status (e.g. Claritin). If a prescription from a government-licensed doctor is required to get a drug, then the drug is automatically rolled into the massive enterprise of third-party payment for medical care, eliminating most consumers’ price sensitivity (because they’re only paying a small co-pay, often less than the cost of many non-prescription drugs) and pushing the cost off to employers who are required to provide health insurance plans and increasingly to government-run, taxpayer-funded health insurance programs.
Objectively speaking, there is absolutely no reason for Ritalin to require a prescription, while caffeine doesn’t. Not to mention Tylenol/acetaminophen, which is the leading cause of acute liver failure requiring transplant, and yet can be bought off the shelf by any adolescent with a hangover and/or menstrual cramps. The whole “prescription” thing is just another scheme by which big business uses government to boost profits, at the expense of citizens’ money and freedom. There are really very few drugs for which there is a legitimate need for government regulation to protect the poublic. One example is vancomycin — we can’t have the effectiveness of last-ditch antibiotics being destroyed because a bunch of idiots go out and buy “the strongest” stuff when they’ve got a minor sinus infection or something. Extremely addictive drugs, both those that currently require a prescription and totally illegal ones like meth, are legitimate targets for government regulation, because of their huge propensity for literally robbing users of their freedom, and turning them into desperate criminals who steal from and sometimes kill innocent non-users in their quest for money to buy more of the drug. But 99% of drugs that currently require a prescription pose no risk to the general public, and no greater to risk to people who would use them inappropriately, than freely available alcoholic beverages do.