Comparing one city, say New York, to the rest of the US, and one city in Argentina, say Buenos Aires, to the rest, is not apples and oranges. Considering that a much greater percentage of the population of Argentina lives in Buenos Aires than lives in New York. Or any other city in the US.
I know that here in Argentina they are extremely strict with pain medication. I've never seen so many people having problems that really hurt and are given strong headache medication with a little bit of codeine for their pain. One person in particular, someone I know real well, who had 11 teeth implants done in two separate operations, and this poor person was in incredible pain for a week after both surgeries and the prescription was strong "headache medicine". (I know, Tylenol with codeine isn't exactly for headaches, but having taken it before, it's not like Percodan, which I took once for kidney stones). I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing (pain really, really sucks! But so does addicition...), but it is pretty certain here, for the most part.
I know someone else here who was seeing a psychiatrist for stress-related issues and was prescribed something (I don't know what it was). She gained a massive amount of weight in just a couple of months and was dopey all the time. She went home to her folks in Peru and they didn't hardly recognize their daughter. She returned a couple of weeks later, off the medication, stopped seeing the psychiatrist, lost weight, regained her personality and is still doing good (about a year later).
Sure, this patient is anecdotal and I'm not saying that Argentines are more likely to be drugged than in the US - but they are a lot more likely to see a psychiatrist here...
