One advantage that I can see is that documentation of medication is necessary when you separate the duties. I visited a doctor in a private clinic in KL yesterday, and you could say it's my first visit to a doctor here as an adult, as I studied abroad before this. The dialogue between the doc and I went:

Doc: "Ok, I'll be giving you some ointment and some antibiotics."
WK: "What's in the ointment and antibiotics?"
Doc: *thinks for awhile and mumbles some mumbo-jumbo*

At this point I didn't write down what he mumbled, thinking that when I get the medication it will be labeled. My fault there, I know. Instead, all I got was a tub labeled "For face" and a loose bag labeled "Antibiotics". I appreciate that it can be cheaper dispensing medicine this way, but it leaves me an uninformed consumer. I don't know who manufactured the drug, when it expires, what it contains (from which I can wikipedia or webmd it up or something), and most importantly - whether I'm getting the right thing.

http://www.pharmacy.gov.my/html/annual_report2004_main.htm

Look at: Table 4: Distribution of Pharmacists according to States

Although it's old-ish (2004) data, it's surely better than making guesses out of our ass

Umm I think you're the only one here who's jumping at "ARE OUR LIFE CHEAPER THAN UK'S OR WHAT?!?!11?!?!one" in this discussion. No one's stopping anyone from getting their meds from the pharmacist instead of their doctor. As it stands now it's a personal choice.

Now why don't you go to Watsons and get yourself a chill pill?

Exactly my point. The choice is there - pharmacists can dispense meds, and patients can choose to use their services.

Yes, I know that. I am just laying the facts out to Optiplex330, as he insists that we cannot have "the best". The fact is that as individuals, we already can get "the best", if we're aware of it and have the will to. In the same manner that we can wear our rear safety belts even if we aren't required by law.

I do see and appreciate the perspective he's coming from, in that regulation can improve society as a whole, which in turn benefits us many times over. It's what I haven't seen - the perspectives of other stakeholders in play, notably those in areas with limited access to pharmacies and those who are less affluent - that refrain me from joining his faith.

Oh, there's no need to put me in the limelight. I've already admitted that I don't understand enough of the status quo to form an opinion against or for this.

That said, I didn't give you a valid or alternative reason, because your question was self-contradicting in itself! You asked, "Why can't we have the best for ourselves?" (where "best" means "duties of dispensing be separated"). I replied, "we have it already, just ask for it and you'll get it".

Again, I'm just laying down the facts

In Australia, there's a checkbox in the Rx that reads "no brand substitution". I imagine a situation where mom-and-pop private clinic doctors start partnering with pharmacists to have a pharmacy within the same premise. The good of it is that you no longer have SPM-leavers dispensing, but you still have the problem of brand preference, with profit motive as the pharmacist and doctor are in the same cahoots.

Even if it was regulated such that such arrangements cannot formed, the profit motive still exists - it shifts from one party (dispensing doctors) to another (dispensing pharmacists). I quote you an anecdote from here:

True that.

Hey, what do you think about mandatory prescription writing as an interim step. I read about it in this page.