And require a signed waiver and prescription from a doctor? Presumably (most) doctors are smart enough not to prescribe cyanide as a cure for insomnia.

OK, so now the doctor has to come up with the millions of non-FDA approved drugs that are about to come onto the market, because there will be lots of these drugs.

Personally, if you are stupid enough to go for the non-FDA approved drugs, you are too stupid to help anyway. Unless you are going by some other approval system, for example whatever they use in Canada, UK or Australia. But if you are just going by what you read on the website, you are a fool.

If I write a blog post saying I like X non-approved drug, do I get arrested? What if I was paid to do it?

Prohibiting advertising strays dangerously close to the 1st Amendment.

Drugs companies were prohibited from advertising on television until not so long ago. There's even a special law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescription_Drug_Marketing_Act...

Arguably, that is the crux of the 1st Amendment issue -- government regulation of speech - including that of "evil" or "unpopular" drug companies -- is a slippery slope.

The past few years seem to indicate that we're slipping up the slope, then, as what was once prohibited is now allowed, both in the case of prescription drug advertisements and corporate political speech.

Compare with the following phrases: Prohibiting forgery strays dangerously close... Prohibiting defamation strays dangerously close... Prohibiting Ponzi schemes strays dangerously close...

I can accept that regulation of speech is inherently suspect, but not that it's inherently bad. The reasons for regulating this kind of advertising are pretty clear to me.

Prohibiting slander, libel, and inciting imminent lawless action are also technical violations of the first amendment. Society tolerates these rules because they provide even greater value than the freedom of speech alone.

In this case, I agree that prohibiting advertising is a first amendment violation. Instead, we should simply disallow all outdoor advertising and advertising that is broadcast on the publicly-owned radio spectrum.

Even so, the advertising aspect seems relatively minor to the whole picture. Hospitals are the ones who need to worry most about FDA and non-FDA. Would a hospital be able to acquire the funding it needs if it ever allowed the prescription of any non-FDA approved drugs? What would insurance companies think? It opens up too many liabilities to try any experimental drugs--that is, drugs not approved by a mandating organization--for any large organizations to consider doing it. Then we're back where we started--we need something like the FDA, though definitely in a more efficient form.