Prescription? How Quaint.

Alicia here. We've been gearing up to enter some low-to-medium risk malaria areas (according to the WHO map, left) and so for weeks now I've been saying to myself that I need to call a doctor and visit a travel clinic and get some antimalarials and perhaps a few other precautionary medicines to take along. But, wouldn't you know, I blinked and it was suddenly the weekend before departure. So, knowing full well that a full evaluation by a doctor was not going to be an option, we headed down to the local pharmacy to see if we could at least stock up on ibuprofen and rehydration salts.  Before I could even say, "don't be ridiculous", Stanley asked the pharmacy man for some antimalarials, Lo and behold, he presented us with 4 fully functional boxes of Lariam for a mere 34 dirhams apiece. Encouraged by this success, we further requested a general antibiotic and were given a box of real-live genuine amoxicillin, marked right on the package with GlaxoSmithKline, at 154 dirhams. Bing! Some more over the counters; salts, DEET, immodium, and, ah yes, the dreaded 600-milligram ibuprofen tablet. Some of you may know that, stateside, the 600-milligram ibuprofen tablet is a controlled substance. You let that out on the shelves, people will kill themselves with it. It's just far too convenient to let the people have access to 600 milligrams at once.  Only the most intelligent of a given population can figure out the workaround: I've been shoveling a six-count of OTC 300-milligram ibuprofens every time I get cramps since last year. But now? The good man at the pharmacy has released this coveted product into my eager hands. I'll only have to take 3 of them at once - nobody tell the FDA.