It should be legal to claim homeopathy works, but only if you don't sell it.
I believe that the right to be wrong is the cornerstone of freedom of speech.
As such, I think that laws criminalising either providing homeopathy to people, or claiming that it has medicinal value, would be grossly illiberal; I also think it should be legal to sell homeopathy to people to money, if it's done honestly.
However, commercial speech is subject to certain restrictions that normal speech isn't; in particular, I think that false advertising should be a crime.
So if you make all or part of your income from selling homeopathy, it should be illegal to claim it has any medicinal value beyond that of a placebo, or to donate money to organisations or associations whose purpose is to do so. Arguably, you should have an additional legal duty to explain to your customers that all you're selling them is a placebo, but I'm not convinced that restriction is so justifiable - provided you don't do anything to lead them to think that it isn't, I think it should probably be legal to take advantage of their gullibility.
Supporters of homeopathy should be forced to make a decision - either go on claiming it works, join associations of homeopathy, promote it as you see fit, use it, give it to your friends and so on, but don't charge anyone for providing it, or go on trying to make a living from it, but stop pretending it has any value other than a placebo, or paying others to do so.
Anyone who sells homeopathy while claiming it works should be prosecuted for false advertising.
(The "beyond as a placebo" is a serious qualifier, by the way - I think there's a serious case to be made for legitimate physicians supplying homeopathy or other such things to patients who might benefit from placebos, *provided* that they make sure that the patient understands what they're getting is just a placebo).
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Physicians generally do not lie to their patients. That would be counter to the standard of care as well.
But that is precisely what the SCAM (supplementary, complementary and alternative medicine) adherents do. Meanwhile they rail about BigPharma, who are precisely the companies who are cashing in on the unregulated supplement market. Why market regulated drugs when you can market nostrums that have no regulations requiring efficacy or safety?
If one doesn't like BigPharma, one should look closely at who markets the SCAM treatments.
R&K
