I have not yet seen the new movie, The Dallas Buyers Club, but it looks pretty darn interesting. Matthew McConaughey plays the true-life lead character, Ron Woodroof, a homophobic party boy who is diagnosed with HIV and is given just 30 days to live. 

When the government-approved drugs don’t help him, Woodroof does not go gently into the night (and to his grave). Instead, he travels abroad to buy medicine in other countries and on the black market and then he returns to sell them to others similarly situated here in the United States. The film evidently doesn’t gloss over the fact that he seeks a profit as he engages in these acts. (That’s a trait Woodroof shares with other human beings in the drug business, though the film does not dwell on that.) 

Agents with the Food and Drug Administration and others patiently explain to Woodruff that “unauthorized” drugs might be detrimental to his health—that’s why drug regulations were put on the law books! When Woodruff decides (all by himself—without any advanced degrees in medicine!) that he will keep operating outside the law in order to find life-saving drugs, federal officials lose patience and seek to have him arrested. That’ll be for his own good and for the betterment of all Americans.

The Woodroof story took place in 1986, but it is a cautionary tale about what happens when the government steps in and assumes the power to make health decisions for us—whether we like it or not.

For related Cato scholarship, go here, here, and here.

Film trailer below the jump: