DUNLOP (1969) suggested that "Modern drugs are such potent weapons that the responsibility for their safe production and use can no longer be left entirely to the manufacturer and prescriber", and Owen (1976) has suggested economies in general-practitioner prescribing. The increasing potency and expense of modern drugs threatens to erode the established princ¬ iple of clinical autonomy to prescribers (Lancet, 1976 (DHSS, 1975 In addition, the important subject of awareness of unwanted effects of drugs will be discussed.