In the UK we now have at least three alternatives (other than "grey market" import; most prescription drugs outside of narcotics can be legally imported to the UK for personal use):
For OTC drugs with restrictions, online pharmacies can sell subject to asking you sufficient questions (and potentially doing a followup call if you answers raises questions). This covers drugs like steroid creams and the like which may have risks, but are usually ok.
For prescription drugs, online pharmacies can likewise sell to you if they have you fill in a questionnaire and a qualified GP agrees to write a prescription for you. This is increasingly done for low risk but prescription only drugs like Viagra.
The mechanisms above are simple enough that even though buying from e.g. companies shipping from Indian manufacturers is trivial in the UK, I'll prefer UK online pharmacies when possible as the extra hassle is minimal and they're better regulated.
Alternatively there's a service called Push Doctor (I've got no connection to them other than being a satisfied user) that lets you have an actual conversation with a doctor over a video chat (+ text chat and ability to upload images) after which they can issue you a prescription that gets sent electronically to the nearest pharmacy. I've tried it twice - once I got seen within an hour, the other time in less than 10 minutes, and the prescriptions were ready within half an hour in both cases, so I could just wait for a text message and go pick it up when it was ready.
It's a fantastic service - the only downside is it's private only, and while the consultations aren't expensive (28 pounds or 20/month), for more expensive prescriptions it's not great as you'd be paying full price for the drugs (but you do have the option of e.g. use them for diagnosis and go see your GP to get an NHS prescription if they think you need anything expensive, so you at least avoid having to visit your GP for minor things); I'd love to see this service get a deal with the NHS...
With the above setup there's very little reason to take risks as the barriers are low enough for most people to have very little reason to circumvent them.
I do agree with you though that for most drugs delegating it to a pharmacist would probably provide a good enough barrier - at least in the UK, and I suspect most other places too, they're well educated. When it isn't we should ask why. E.g. are doctors looking for signs of any issues? If those issues are simple enough and there's low enough abuse potential, then either let pharmacists do it or standardize a questionnaire.