If all goes well, very soon you’ll be able to buy over the counter and prescription medications at your local ICA supermarket! Yay! I’d say it’s about time! You see, until July 1st of this year, Sweden was one of the very few countries left in the world with a state-controlled pharmacy monopoly. That has (finally) come to an end, and now other firms (both Swedish and foreign) can also apply to open and run drugstores.

Personally, I’ve always thought that the Apoteket monopoly was a very dumb thing, especially for simple over the counter meds, like paracetamol or spray for runny nose.

There were times when I found myself with no Otrivin (nose spray) on a freezing wintry Sunday morning and was forced to trek to the local hospital where the only pharmacy open for longer than 4 hours was. It was inconvenient and wasted both time and gasoline. Those trips frequently made my cold even worse, and by the time I actually got to the hospital, I also needed headache medicine and sore throat treatment.

After a while, I learned to be prepared. I kept a stock of Alvedon (paracetamol) and some assorted prescription-free allergy pills, cold meds, contact lens solution, yeast infection treatment, and who knows what else at home. Just in case. Because you just never knew when you might need something, right? And our local pharmacy was open strictly during weekdays strictly during business hours.

But now, it just may come to pass that our friendly ICA will carry an assortment of pharmaceutical essentials! It will be such a relief to be able to buy a bottle of contact lens cleaner at the same when shopping for milk and bananas.

So how will it work exactly? It seems that ICA will open their own in-store pharmacies. The plan is to begin doing it during the first quarter of 2010. But even sooner than that, in November of this year, some grocery stores (and not just ICA, but other retailers as well) will be able to sell certain over the counter drugs (and I do hope that contact lens solution, as well!). But only to customers over the age of 18. So how is it going to work, really? Are they going to ask for IDs, just like when buying beer, if someone wants a pack of Mucoangin for their sore throat? Isn’t that a bit of overkill? Well, maybe it is, but still, I am very happy that these pharmaceutically deregulated days are finally almost here.

So Sweden, what is next? I’d say let’s get rid of Systembolaget!