Birth Control Pills in Thailand...a reflection on the messed up way N. America deals with healthcare.

Today I went to the Tesco to buy some toothpaste. Tesco is a British supermarket chain that is quite popular in Thailand. Groceries, home goods, clothes...very Walmart-esque. Anyway, they also have a drug store section where they sell the aforementioned toothpaste along with all the other necessities we come to expect from a London Drugs type place.

As many of you may know, Thailand does not live by the same stringent rules we do in the West. Traffic signs and lane markings are "cautionary" at best, lines are made for budging, the hands on a clock are simply a "general" dictator time and punctuality, construction workers scale 10 story bamboo scaffolding in flipflops without harnesses or hardhats and silly things such as prescriptions are simply a Western annoyance that has no place here.

Case and point, Birth Control Pills in Thailand. In the condom aisle at Tesco you can also buy birth control pills. They are just lined up on the shelf the same as a bottle of tylenol. All in generic packaging with the common name written on the little price sticker on the shelf. I found the pills that I pay over 30$ a month for at home (only after I've been poked, proded and inspected by my doctor, approved and prescribed) on the shelf here, the price...59 baht. That's about 1.90$ .

So my question is this...why?

It's not like Birth Control Pills can make you addicted, you can't really overdose on them I don't think and they don't really cause much harm (unless you're a smoker but really, if you're smoking you already have a whole pantry full of deadly ailments at your fingertips) so why can't Canada be a little more accessible with their contraception? Ok, throwing it up on the shelf next to the Durex might be a little over the top but why does it cost 20 times as much at home? And don't blame it on the difference in the value of the currency because a bag of rice and a bag of curry here costs 60-70 baht. Meaning your dinner from a street stall cost more than a month's supply of birth control. You can't say the same thing about the Pill in Canada.

Canadians and Americans are constantly complaining about the cost of medication and so they should, it's ridiculous. 30$ a month for birth control is completely outrageous especially if you are poor and attempting not to have any unwanted children to create a financial burden. Clearly pills are being sold at a ridiculously inflated price in N.America.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this price difference is the same for all drugs over here.

Makes you scratch your head and wonder.

So..if you need some birth control, I'll make you a package for your birthday. Lord knows when I leave here I'll be taking as much as a can before it expires.

Cheers from the land where your contraception costs less than your curry

J