People who don't need to be chronically medicated should not be. There are always side effects, and we don't even know for sure what the long term risks of these medications are yet.

And crowing about saving $200/mo not buying food at Starbucks, well now Novo Nordisk is getting that.

Toast a bagel at home for $0.50/day instead.

I am not an expert but my impression is semaglutide has been in development since the 90s and in use as a drug for about a decade for people with diabetes. The drug and mechanism are old, the use is new.

I do not agree that people who don't "need" to be chronically medicated should not be. I think you can decide to take whatever you want for your own reasons. I am not going to tell you what you can and and can't take - unless you're like...taking something that makes you destructive or generate externalities or whatever. But this seems like the opposite?

Lots of questions here around profit and the awful medical system in the US, but on a basic level I think people should be able to do what they prefer and is safe.

I was giving advice, not proposing a prohibition against doing what you want to do. It's your body, and your health.

> People who don't need to be chronically medicated should not be.

If they're like typical westerners, they already self-medicate with coffee every day, with alcohol occasionally, and a big fraction of them (though much less than couple decades ago) also treat themselves with tobacco smoke - and ironically, weight loss is one of the few benefits some people actually use to defend their smoking.

Do they need all that medication? Well, it's socially unfavorable to say so wrt. alcohol, but ask any of the daily coffee drinkers whether they need their morning coffee...

That "medication" has been used for millenia and its side effects are well understood by now. Not so much with these relatively new drugs.

The consequences of tobacco are so well known and so negative that they are legally mandated to be graphically depicted on every cigarette packet around here, and the main reason they are not banned is the observed impossibility that undid Prohibition in the USA.

So, sure, we don't know the long term risks of semaglutide ("just" 30 years or so) — but I say let people try it if they want, we let them use things we explicitly know to be dangerous, so why should we stand in the way of something that only might be eventually?

Caffeine withdrawal takes two weeks.

This really just seems like a shit take to me. Everything has side effects, that doesnt mean everything is a net negative. People should be able to weigh the pros and cons of chronic medication and decide if it improves their life.

what kind of crap bagels are you buying for 50 cents?

What do you think Starbucks pays for theirs?

I buy Thomas Everything bagels at the supermarket, FWIW.

Because anorexia exists it would do harm to completely unregulate access to appetite suppressants. Someone should be looking out for people who would willingly wither away.

Putting Ozempic over the counter at a local pharmacy would be more than enough to keep people from wasting away, the same thing they do with asthma medication. In 2025, if you really want something, a dark web tutorial is 30 seconds away. And from what I've heard from a client, Ozempic on the dark web is roughly 5x cheaper.

sure thing, but can you trust it ? There are so many horror stories abroad (like LATAM), that despite the 4x price point, people still buy US-manufactured GLPs instead of going to a foreign market to get the same prescription.

This is being injected directly into your flesh, there cannot be any mistake, or shortcut.

What horror stories?

I don't think anyone is suggesting it should be over the counter? Of course a doctor should monitor you while you are on it. We shouldn't give it to people who would use it to deepen a mental health diagnosis.

Those concerns have nothing to do with the fact that it's ok for people to choose to start or stop medications if they would prefer (supplies allowing).