&gt; <i>The first rule of sales is to pitch the decision maker. You can&#x27;t buy prescription drugs without a doctor&#x27;s authorization, so basically the ads are asking people to go beg their doctors for medicine they may, or may not, need. The doctor, in turn, may give in to the patient&#x27;s emotional pleas, since they are, in effect, in a customer service business. This would be an ethical violation.</i><p>I think most of these ads are targeted to people who are already taking a drug for a condition. They want people to ask their doctor to switch to their drug - something a doctor would have far less ethical issues with.<p>The problem of course is people switch away from a drug that has worked for 40 years to something new because of advertising and their insurance (and in turn, all of us) ends up picking up the cost for something that may have no benefit whatsoever to the patient.