the general reality is that dieting pills, and even diets, are always short term. you get these people hooked on this stuff, and what are the outcomes? strokes? cancer? kidney and liver failure?
it's very american to try to cure obesity with drugs, but you have to change. you have to eat better. you have to exercise more.
the only valid use for these drugs is probably for the morbidly obese, and it's just to give them a chance to change. obesity in america is not just widespread, it's profound; americans are not chubby or a little overweight, they're dangerously and grotesquely fat. how do you tell them to exercise when they almost can't? if a drug can give them a chance to get better, that could save their lives, but only as a form of shock therapy and only for a short period of time.
if these drugs just become a way to avoid changing, they're going to lead to their own epidemic of liver failure.