Our Nation's Addiction

The United States is a nation addicted to happiness.

We constantly seek instantaneous happiness, and over the years, have come to believe that the quickest and easiest way to solve our "problems" and make us happy is to simply take a pill. Or two. Or three. Take one pill to solve each problem and go back to being happy. Our addiction to happiness has lead to an addiction to pharmaceutical drugs, thanks in large part to the pharmaceutical companies' use of direct-to-consumer advertising.

Pharmaceutical companies are notorious for their method of advertising their products: Direct-to-consumer advertising. Direct-to-consumer ads give information of a product directly to the consumer, which, in theory, can help the consumer make a more informed purchase. However, the advertisements themselves have been designed by the pharmaceutical companies to promote certain information about the product while hiding others.

While watching direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads, I've noticed that the actor portraying a patient talks directly to the consumer about his or her problem and how the drug has made his or her life a lot easier and happier as it effectively solved the problem. When listing possible side-effects, however, a majority of the ads cut to scenes of the patient enjoying being symptom-free with the drug, and the ads even play pleasant music over the message. It seems that pharmaceutical companies have manipulated direct-to-consumer advertising in order to coax consumers into taking their drugs to find a fast fix to their problems, and so return to being happy.

The pharmaceutical industry has become too dependent on direct-to-consumer advertising. And as we account for over 42% of the world's spending on prescription drugs, we as a nation have become too dependent on their products to solve our problems (DukeSchoolOfNursing).


Anti-Depression Add-On Treatment Ad


SOURCE: DukeSchoolOfNursing Direct to Consumer Advertising by Pharmaceutical Industry video