Throughout history there has always been issues when it comes to prescription drugs, and how easily the population gets hooked upon them. This is one of the reasons why many jurisdictions have made it that pharmacist are regulated separately from physicians, and only pharmacists can supply scheduled pharmaceuticals to the public. It’s also illegal in most areas for a pharmacist to form a business partnership with a physician, or be able to get a “kickback” payment.
This doesn’t mean that physicians aren’t able to hand out medication. The American Medical Association makes sure that physicians can dispense drugs within their offices as long as there are no exploitations, and the patient is able to fill the written prescription anywhere else. It was reported that 7 to 10 percent of American physicians will dispense drugs on their own, and write out prescriptions for their patients.
In some parts of the United Kingdom, mostly the rural parts, they have dispensing doctors. This means that the doctors are allowed to both prescribe and dispense prescription-only medication to their patients within their practices. Of course, the law requires that the GP practices have to be located in designated rural area, and there has to be a minimum distance of 1.6 kilometers between the patient’s house and the nearest retail pharmacy for the doctor to practice this act.
In Canada, it’s very common to find medical clinics and a pharmacy within the same building, and the same person to be owning both places. However, the owner needs to have a license for both places, and they have to be separate to avoid any conflict of interest, or one business having absolute power over the other offices around. The other reason for this is to avoid the physician from becoming financial self-interested in “diagnosing” as many conditions as possible, and causes serious illnesses to their patients. This also means that the physician and pharmacy have to follow guidelines, such as having cost-effective medication, and avoiding the unnecessary use of medication that could have side-effects. 
In Asia, China, Malaysia, and Singapore, doctors are allowed to dispense drugs themselves and the practice of a pharmacy often times follows traditional Chinese medicine, which means they may use medicate and different forms of treatment that in other countries would be considered illegal.
This guideline for selling prescriptions has also been used in many systems such as the U.S, Great Britain, and many other governments. Even a campaign has begun in many counties, and in Korea it’s already been successful. This campaign is to make sure that doctors do not have gain anything from the medication that they prescribe and in so such way would it be possible for them to gain any special benefits by filling out as many prescription slips as they can.
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