How many drugs has your doctor prescribed for you to take?  According to experts in drug policy and pharmaceutical sciences, Canadians are over-medicated because their doctors underestimate the risks of pharmaceutical drugs or prescribe dosages that are too high.  Alan Cassels is a pharmaceutical policy researcher at the University of Victoria.  He says, ” a wide range of drugs, including cholesterol-lowering statins, proton-pump inhibitors for heartburn and testosterone gels are routinely overused.”  Cassels goes on to say, “that too often, medical guidelines for physicians are written by researchers who receive some form of compensation from pharmaceutical companies.”  He says, “most physicians will not prescribe a drug unless they are convinced it will help a patient, but the information on whether its of benefit versus harm is often weighted in the direction of the benefit.”