Advertising is a form of product information that is provided at a charge and directed to customers. By means of OTC drugs advertising, pharmaceutical companies aim to convince patients of effectiveness of these medicines, and thus to encourage them to buy it. Advertising is a very expensive, but simultaneously the most effective promotion tool. It allows to prompt a lot of purchasers to buy a certain product. However, drug advertising activities subject to wide law regulations because of its characteristic features, and first of all, necessity of patient’s health care. This article presents law regulations relate to drugs available without prescription, and are in force in Poland, the European Union and the United States. The thesis discusses both legislative regulations, and regulations contained in codes applied by pharmaceutical companies, which have special matter in case of ambiguous rules of law. Ethic codes increase standards of marketing activities performed by pharmaceutical companies, and constitute an additional protection against unfair drug producers activities.