We weren't talking Adam Smith and political economy. Lastly, someone was kind enough to post the actual Pure Food and Drugs Act. Drugs, even Mothers Little Baby Sleeper Dr. Opium wasn't made illegal. The act was just a labeling of ingredients act. It was a consumer information act. Also it was at the time of socialist, anarchists and progressives and pre-Communist. Nice, but unsurprising, that you look to them for arguments.
You talk, walk and act like a socialist, and one is what one does, protestations not withstanding.
By " open market ", I meant over the counter; no perscription needed, no anything needed, but the demand for same, paid with hard, cold cash. All you're doing is splitting hairs, Oh blind, deaf, and dumb ( as in S-T-U-P-I-D ! ) ONE.
It was the time of Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists ? That age had been well and truely started 40 + years earlier, dear, in the streets of major cities around the world. Are you talking in the halls of the Fed Gov, perchance ? If so, who were the " Anarchists / Socialists/ Communists " in 1906 , in Washington, D.C. ? Name names and you'd best back up your position with facts !
You want to know who REALLY slings around the slogans of the anarchists and Marxists of old ? The Libertarians do; that's WHO ! So do Dems and GREENIES.
You are implying, if not outright saying that I am a Socialist/ Commie. That's libel and spurious. Those who resort to that tactic, do so out of frustration and pique, because they're losing ; which you are. :-)