Do you have feelings of inadequacy? Do you suffer from shyness?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about the benefits of... tequila.

At MySpace.com, you can see this cheeky tequila parody of ubiquitous drug ads, complete with a rapid-fire recitation of side effects that range from dizziness, nausea, incarceration and table dancing to the desire to play naked Twister and sing all-night karaoke.

The satirical video posted by Jonathan in Colorado points directly to a cultural and commercial phenomenon at work in our living rooms and on Capitol Hill. The big drug companies have been increasing their promotional spending: $11.4 billion in 1996 to $29.9 billion in 2005. Those ads we all recognize ("ask your doctor about...") are known as "direct-to-consumer" or DTC advertising. The pharmaceutical companies' spending on them rose 330 percent in that 1996-2005 period. (DTC drug ad spending was $5.61 billion in 2006.)

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article this month detailing the numbers and documenting the trends. Evidence suggests that the direct-to-consumer advertising increases sales, averts underuse of medicines and leads to potential overuse, the article said.

After the journal article appeared, the federal Food and Drug Administration said it would study what sounds like the obvious: whether the upbeat ads leave people with a positive impression that distracts them from audio warnings about side effects. But if the research gives the FDA more oomph in its enforcement power over problematic advertising, the study will be worth it. (The journal said the FDA sent only 21 citations regarding drug-advertising regulations in 2006, compared with 142 in 1997.)

On Capitol Hill, there is hope that in the next few weeks the House and Senate will agree on language to give the FDA more tools for enforcement. But a major hammer — a moratorium under which companies introducing a new drug couldn't advertise it for two years — got stripped from FDA legislation. That would have allowed time to see if safety issues arose. But that's gone.

For now, advocates at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports and one of the main groups pushing for more oversight, rightly want to see Congress help the FDA speed its process of enforcing advertising regulations. If regulators find a problem with a drug, they shouldn't have to pick their way through a lengthy legal process to cancel a misleading drug ad.

The way it works now, by the time the FDA gets its message across, the drug company has often moved on with a new ad, singing the benefits of yet another drug we should ask our doctors about.