Prescriptions.. Too easy to acquire? (abuse, making profit from them)

Yup. I think so.

When I went to the doctor about my depression, he didn't ask any questions really. Just the "How do you feel?" bulls#it. He put me on Medication without questions. Paxil I believe.. He also didn't tell me about any of the side effects or withdrawals. I wasn't too happy about taking drugs to alter my mind. I don't feel confortable at all taking them. As time went on I took them, swiched from many anti-depressants like, Effexor, Prozac, Zoloft and Celexa. In the end I thought it was useless and hurting my pockets so I decided to stop taking them.
Three weeks later I went back because I was having anxiety problems.. He instantly "threw" me on some kind of relaxant that was highly addictive..And me with my urges to get "messed up" didn't go well with an addictive substance, so I was worried.
Shouldn't drugs be the last resort? Counsling, social workers etc...etc.. should that not come first?
I live in Nova Scotia, Canada.. It's sad the amount of drugs that are floating around, prescriptions everywhere.. ("Come on man, buy a hit... $2 bucks a pill.)

I was just wonder what you guys think.. And is it like this where you people live?? Maybe I don't get out enough to realize.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt...and got the withdrawal symptoms to boot (coming off Effexor was probably as bad as coming off heroin...thought I was going to lose my mind!). Perhaps more importantly, I didn't get any positive results (after 6 years and about 12 different drugs).

I recently posted a news story on this issue which can be seen here. It's about some new guidelines being issued here in the UK, the basic idea being that these powerful anti-depressants should only be used when lives are at risk.

Anyway, my plan for the future is to Just Say No. There are far better ways of dealing with depression...