What a drag it is getting old. – The Rolling Stones

On Nov 15th, 1963, Valium was approved by the FDA.

It was initially marketed to “reduce psychic tension” and it went on to become one of the world’s most widely prescribed drugs. Also, the first drug to reach $1 billion in sales.

It was so pervasive, it made its way into pop culture through song like Mother’s Little Helper.

“Even though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill. She goes running for the shelter of her mother’s little helper.”

– The Rolling Stones

Mother’s little helper (aka Valium) was a blockbuster success in part due to the new world of pharmaceutical advertising. The pharmaceutical companies took out ads targeted at doctors, who then prescribed the drug to their patients.

After a few years of Valium’s explosive growth, it slowly became clear to the public that the drug was not as described. For one, it had negative side effects (which the ads stated it did not), including a range of withdrawal symptoms.

This resulted in a high chance of abuse and addiction, which the companies blamed on the users and their “addictive personalities”. Valium was not even an illicit drug, it was one prescribed by medical professionals, which made it all that much more alluring.

When investigations were launched against the drug, the defense always came down to one core rebuttal “Doctor are smart enough to not be fooled by advertisements”.

This argument used the widespread public assumption that medical professionals, specifically those who graduated from medical school, had superior judgement to the rest of the population because of their education. They could not be fooled, as the rest of us could, by deceptive and misleading advertising.

Now though, the negative societal effects of these blockbuster drugs like Valium and OxyCotin are abundantly clear: addiction and sometimes, death.

Clearly, the doctors were not smart enough to know the fallout that prescribing these small yellow pills would have.

In reality, few people could have known, because it was something that nobody had seen before. Mass addiction to a pharmaceutical drug was a new concept, especially one that was was created for, sold to, and supported by doctors.

While there are many lessons to take away from Valium, OxyCotin, and their other counterparts, the biggest one is to be careful of blindly trusting other. Regardless of their background, education, or anything else that gives them authority.

Everybody is fallible. Everybody makes mistakes.

And nobody cares as much about yourself as you do.