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New Study Shows Why Big Pharma Hates Medical Marijuana (washingtonpost.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post that a new study shows that painkiller abuse and overdose are significantly lower in states with medical marijuana laws and that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. The researchers "found that, in the 17 states with a medical-marijuana law in place by 2013, prescriptions for painkillers and other classes of drugs fell sharply compared with states that did not have a medical-marijuana law... In medical-marijuana states, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of antidepressants each year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer anti-nausea doses and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication. But most strikingly, the typical physician in a medical-marijuana state prescribed 1,826 fewer doses of painkillers in a given year."
[P]ainkiller drug companies "have long been at the forefront of opposition to marijuana reform, funding research by anti-pot academics and funneling dollars to groups, such as the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, that oppose marijuana legalization..."
[P]ainkiller drug companies "have long been at the forefront of opposition to marijuana reform, funding research by anti-pot academics and funneling dollars to groups, such as the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, that oppose marijuana legalization..."
Yes, their voices need to be heard, but companies ought not to become politically powerful entities. They are there to make money, produce goods, and make our lives better, not to tell us how to live.
Can't wait for the those same drug companies to get their hands on MJ so they can start filling it with additives and making it as addictive/poisonous as cigarettes. By the time they're through with it, it'll be more dangerous than the synthetic stuff they're currently trying to outlaw.
Whatever the drug companies think is bad for their business, must be good for the consumers.
-SR
The numbers here are doses, not prescriptions. Keep that in mind, folks. Not nearly as big a reduction as the blurb is trying to make it sound like.
Wow, I am appalled that this made it past the editors. What's the news here? Drugs may render other drugs unnecessary? Pharmaceutical companies have money and sometimes spend it? WTF?
Yes it is.
So because J&J donates to drug prevention efforts for children you logically assume they only do it because they are afraid of lost revenue due to legal marijuana? That's a pretty far stretch. that is like saying Britain donates to food pantries so they can by food from farmers who harm our water supply more......
Big Pharma is only one of five industries spending big money to keep it illegal. The rest are aggravating, too. Private prisons, prison guard unions, and actual law enforcement are also involved. Law enforcement should just enforce the laws, in my opinion. They should not be involved in lobbying for or against them, though.
http://www.republicreport.org/...
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
My wife had damaged the occipital nerve on the left side of her head in an accident. She had excruciating pain from this and went repeatedly to various doctors trying to get some help. They handed out hydrocodone and oxycodone like it was candy. After exhausting all options locally she was sent to a pain center. Their answer? More pills. I remember sitting there with a humongous bottle of hydrocodone and told her if you take all this shit it's going to kill you. I got her in to the pain clinic at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the doctor there did a nerve ablation that gave her relief from the pain. It came back and she had to have further treatment but the last 3 years have been pain free. It seems that if doctors can't figure what to do they just throw pills at it.
Linked article is from vice.com. You don't think they have an agenda do you?
What ever happened to my body, my choice? Is it only true when you are killing the unborn?
Maybe we don't need to get rid of the FDA but just change it so it can't prohibit drugs. It can give the FDA "Seal of Approval" for drugs that meet it's standards. You should be allowed to sell any compound. As long as it's labeled properly and accurately the drug maker shouldn't be liable for any side effects. After all Peanuts are a great, cheap source of protein. But they also kill some people. It's should be up to the patient and doctor to figure out what effects particular drugs will have.
Intellectual monopolies need to end. Without the FDA there is no justification for them anyway as you can bring a drug to market quickly and the competition to manufacture them cheaply will drastically lower prices.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Learn about the secret all natural plant that might get you off anti-depressants and painkillers that the big pharmas don't want you to know!
Where are big pharma's recreational drugs? The ones they engineer from the ground up to provide a pleasant, short-term euphoria with designed-in features to prevent overdose, mitigate overconsumption and abuse, and cheap enough that they could be priced lower than mass-produced marijuana?
I would kind of expect that somebody, somewhere would figure out that this would not only be big business but good public policy. Punitive measures to inhibit use of the existing classes of recreational drugs hasn't worked, so why not engineer alternatives that mimic those highs but minus as much of the negative side effects as possible?
The current class of recreational drugs have all kinds of nasty side effects, addictions, overdose deaths, corrosive physical effects, hangovers, and all the social problems they produce. Marijuana isn't bad in comparison to most, but even it still has the lingering stupor and the smoking aspect.
You would think that the bright guys in the lab would be able to come up with something new that minimized the negatives while still giving people something that would dissuade most people from bothering with the legacy highs.
Having tried both, I feel that pot is less addictive than Atavian.
When my mother had cancer, they gave her Benzodiazepines for stress. The withdraw she went thought was like nothing I have ever seen anyone go through from pot.
Perhaps in a perfect world there would be no pot, but there wouldn't big drug and beer companies telling you and your government what to do.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Moderators need to be given points which allow the ENTIRE ARTICLE to be modded down. Like for click bait like this.
This article is full of holes and misleading data. Did use of these drugs also go down in non-marijuana states? Did the doctors prescribe marijuana instead of these other medicines? The numbers look huge because it refers to DOSES, not prescriptions, which is often referred to in the article. Many of the medicines listed would be taken 2X for 30 days = 60 doses x 12 months = 720 doses. The chart looks less impressive when you read the title. -- The problem with data is that you can make it say anything you want. -- This article is more about pulling at our dislike for big pharma and fascination with marijuana which doesn't work for everyone, and does have its own side effects. If you believe that we overprescribe medicine in this country, why is the answer to prescribe a different medicine?
Pathetic drug addicts are butthurt because the government won't enable their addiction by legalizing their drug of choice. Get a life. In one breath you extol the virtues of "medical" marijuana and the next you're guffawing with your friends about how you're going to make up some ailment so you can "smoke some weed, bro". No one is fooled by your fraudulent claims about the effectiveness of "medical" marijuana, since you only seem willing to accept it in recreational form, not a sanitized, clinical version which doesn't get you high.
Those people are still on drugs.
The state of Maine has legalized medical marijuana. Prescription opiode abuse abuse is ramptant, as is heroin.
Mind you, I would be okay with rifle companies lobbying for gun control and Lockheed Martin funding anti-war protests, while that's still an excessive use of private money power for political power that'd be a change.
... with sales of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. They'll just find and market drugs as effective for dealing with cannabis psychosis and long-term-cannabis-use depression, and make them expensive enough to compensate.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly anti-marijuana, and people should smoke what they like and enjoy it, and if it helps deal with pain, that is _awesome_.
But it's a potent drug and all drugs have side-effects. I once shared a house with someone living with textbook after-effects of long term use -- borderline schizophrenia, acute depression, psychotic beliefs -- and I would not want to go there myself.
Drug companies will find a way to make money from this.
That's the core of it. Congressmen frequently exchange 'favours for jobs' or engage in protectionist policies to 'protect jobs'. In this case pharma jobs. There is nothing you or I can do about that - it's just a fact of life.
It's easy to reach that conclusion. However there are some important facts to consider that the conclusion conveniently passes on.
One, opiod prescription rates are down significantly in nearly all states, largely due to new regulations that are meant to discourage their use.
Two, opiods are often amongst the smallest and easiest to synthesize molecules in pharma today. A lot of companies can easily make them, which makes them cheap and low-profit. The big pharma companies don't even want to bother making them.
Three, big pharma could make lots of money selling pot if they wanted to. There are plenty of people who would prefer to be able to buy it in a way that does not require smoking it. Imagine how much money Bayer and others could make selling cannabinoid chewable tablets at the pharmacy; it is not in their own best interest to kill off development of such products. Even if small time shops sell the same, the scale at which the big companies could produce it would be a huge win for them.
In other words, big pharma doesn't want to kill medical marijuana. They are just waiting for the greenlight to start selling retail products based on it. It is worth more to them to be able to do it in all 50 states than to do it 20 different ways in 20 different states while waiting for the other 30 to decide what they want to do.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Companies in the US already have strong restrictions on "political donations".
They may have "restrictions"-- but they find ways to donate anyway. Nice thing about corporations; they have lawyers to find the loopholes.
Here's the top contributors list from OpenSecrets.org: https://www.opensecrets.org/or...
What they can do is communicate on issues.
Yes, that's the biggest loophole: the Political Action Committee ("PAC"). It's "supposed" to be to "communicate issues". Every candidate has one.
"Political contributions, which used to go directly to candidates, now often flow to Super PACs, independent organizations that can raise money to either help or defeat a political candidate. Historically, traditional political action committees have been prohibited from accepting donations from unions and companies. However, following rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, Super PACs are now allowed to accept unlimited donations from unions and companies, provided the money does not go directly to the campaign.
The rise of the Super PAC has opened the door to a new generation of fundraising, changing how money is used to elect candidates and increasing the amount candidates need to raise to be competitive as they seek office.
(source: http://247wallst.com/special-r... )
So, are you going to start massively censoring speech by companies? How exactly is that going to work? Does "company" include the New York Times, or only companies you don't like?
A start would be a law mandating that money donated to political action committees has to be disclosed: if you're funding political campaigns, you have to do it openly, not secretly. This wouldn't even require overturning the Citizen's United decision: the Supreme court already said that this would be legal.
As a stage IV cancer sufferer I can tell you that marijuana has been a godsend.
Not just for treating the severe symptoms of chemo (FOLFOX and FOLFIRI for those who know ... very unpleasant under the best of circumstances, and each ultimately sent me into anaphylactic shock and nearly killed me). When I found out ALL the anti-nausea meds I'd been prescribed were synthetic derivatives of marijuana I simply got my state medical card and used edibles to treat the nausea ... and it worked far better than the prescribed meds, with the only side effect that I felt a lot less shitty.
What I didn't know then was that marijuana isn't just good at treating nausea and pain, it has CURATIVE properties for cancer itself (see below). I speak from personal experience for both myself (I'm not done, but alive and getting better when I'm supposed to be dead) and others I've seen get better (including a man with neck cancer who refused all traditional treatments when he was told he would lose his tongue and much of his jaw, was prepared to die, then tried Rick Simpson Oil when I suggested it. His tumor has literally melted away. He is now in remission, having ONLY done medical marijuana in the form of high-concentrate cannabis extracts.
(Apologies in advance for the CAPS, but if you have cancer or know anyone who does, this is IMPORTANT):
FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, my oncologist revealed the following: ONCOLOGISTS ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO DISCUSS THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS WITH THEIR PATIENTS (1) surgery, (2) chemo, (3) radiation, (4) FDA approved experimental studies. MY DOCTOR SIGNED OVER A DOZEN DIFFERENT FORMS REQUIRING THAT NO OTHER TREATMENT OPTIONS EVER BE MENTIONED TO PATIENTS, even ones they know work. Our doctors' hands are tied by big pharma, the hospitals, insurers, etc. so badly they can't even tell us about life saving treatments they know work! My oncologist is fed up and more interested in saving her patients' lives, but my doctor is the exception, not the rule. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, your doctor will most likely NOT BE ALLOWED to tell you what all your options are.
My oncologist then admitted this was bullshit and strongly recommended I check out Rick Simpson Oil (55-70% THC, although stronger cannabis extracts in the 80-85% THC work even better). Several patients have quietly CURED themselves (my oncologist won't use the word "cure," but they've been in remission for years and all should be dead) using Rick Simpson Oil (along with herbal detox solutions to flush out the dead cells). I was skeptical, but have been using it for about 3 months, and my inoperable tumors are shrinking, to the astonishment of all my doctors (except the oncologist, who expected it). Statistics are a bit dicey, even when collecting thousands of anectdotal cases (these are NOT double-blind studies--the FDA actively blocks nearly all studies for cannabis due to its schedule I status). Estimates are cannabis extract oils are about 70% effective in curing late stage cancers (which if true is amazing, and my scans are shocking my doctors and seem to indicate its true, though I've got a ways to go before I'm out of the woods).
For anyone with cancer, you should investigate phoenixtears.ca and try RSO before doing chemo ... I wouldn't have needed the extra 60g to fix the chemo damage if I'd done the RSO first. It has saved my life, and I've literally watched it save others lives with my own two eyes. Start out slowly...30% fail, mostly due to people who get too high too fast, get scared, and stop.
NOTE that Rick Simpson does NOT sell oil, he simply tells you now to make your own. You can get RSO at dispensaries in Illinois through the state's medical marijuana laws. I also know people who have been getting oil in Colorado, California, and through care providers in Michigan legally under Michigan law. Beware of fraudsters...your best bet is to (re)locate to a state where it is legal and get it through known channels, or buy flower through dispensari
Companies don't have "political power"; they can't vote, they can't serve in Congress.
To the contrary, companies have plenty of political power. What we've discovered in the 20th century is that the money to run political campaigns is power.
Companies simply inherit the right to free speech from their owners;
Yes, that's the basis for the Supreme Court "Citizens United" decision. It is on questionable logical grounds however: corporations are not citizens, and while the people composing a corporation have first-amendment rights, it is not at all clear that the corporations themselves do. The belief that an object inherits the properties of the pieces composing it is one of the logical fallacies: this is the fallacy of composition.
(Or see: Logically Fallacious: Fallacy of composition.)
The alternative would be to say that the people themselves have the right to donate to political campaigns, but if they want to do so, they must do so personally, and not from the corporations. This is also perfectly reasonable: corporations are legal entities, not persons, and can be subject to different laws then people.
Note your OpenSecrets list is for 2016 only, and is only what has been reported through Q1 2016. Many organizations hold their spending/influence until after the conventions. Looking at how the spending ends up is much more illustrative of where the money comes from.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Where are big pharma's recreational drugs? The ones they engineer from the ground up to provide a pleasant, short-term euphoria with designed-in features to prevent overdose, mitigate overconsumption and abuse, and cheap enough that they could be priced lower than mass-produced marijuana?
Drug manufacturers have a poor track record on that.
In the 1800s, they noticed that opium worked as an analgesic, but had people using it simply for pleasure. So they engineered a new drug to just have the analgesic properties, and named it "morphine."
That didn't work. It had a bad side effect: people who took opium or morphine experienced a side effect where they started craving it, called "opium appetite". So, pharmacies thought, well, we need to find a deliver it without the people eating it-- it could be delivered directly to the body, so people wouldn't have the craving (how could you have a craving for something you don't even taste?) So they invented needle injection to solve the opium appetite problem.
That didn't work. Opium and morphine both turned out to be addictive, so they developed a new drug to solve that. This one they name it "heroin".
That turned out to be even worse. So they went completely synthetic to make a new painkiller which didn't trace to the opium flower: Oxycodone.
That turned out to be even more addictive...
"NOTE that Rick Simpson does NOT sell oil, he simply tells you now to make your own."
But he does sell you the book, right?
The scale of this effect is, from the way the post is worded, outstandingly underwhelming. It's not 265 fewer new depressed patients, it's not 265 fewer prescriptions... It's "265 fewer doses." If the dose, the pill or what have you, is only once a day (and not more like some) then that's less that one patient's-worth over the course of the stated year. Talk about a study hiding in the error bars! Maybe they pay walled study has been badly reported here, but as written, this is a ridiculous argument for or against anything--and I'm not even arguing against the unstated pro-THC position. I just demand better scientific data--and better science reporting.
gin n tonic, rum n coke, beam n coke, wine, vodka etc.
You can only donate to campaigns you can vote in and you can only advertise your products and services.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Basically, I think, what the AC you were replying to is calling for is open discussion of the spirit of the law, the letter of the law, and the ways in which the two disagree, coupled with making it illegal to do things that technically follow the letter while violating the spirit. Applied evenly, that's actually a very sound idea; for example, it would mean no more tickets for doing the regular posted speed limit past a school when school is in session and all children are inside the building, because the spirit of the law is to protect children (who aren't in danger when you're going more than 20MPH past a building they happen to be inside of) while the letter allows you to get slammed for it.
Treason is, perhaps, a bit harsh, but I suppose it would depend on the nature of the law being twisted. For example, in the case of a law you're being prosecuted for violating, if it's a minor crime and/or it wasn't publicized at all, simply dropping the charges and paying 3x lost wages and legal costs should suffice; if it was made public or is a major crime that may affect your ability to find housing or work in the future, ongoing yearly payments of 10x the mean salary might be in order. That would serve as a deterrent against bullshit arrests and prosecution and lead to more common-sense enforcement of the law, which is something that needs to be highlighted in order to get votes, especially when the people doing the voting (e.g. politicians) benefit from at least one class of the loopholes being discussed.
As for crimes you commit, which is what the AC was talking about (clearly you understand this, I'm just clarifying that I do as well) that's a much longer discussion. Perhaps too long for a single Slashdot post, but I think it would be interesting nonetheless, if you wish to pursue it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Note that the big-sounding numbers are in DOSES.
Divide by 365 for days in a year. Be generous and then divide again only by two (rather than, say, six or eight as is typical for painkillers). You're already talking 730 doses for ONE drug for ONE chronic pain patient.
So numbers like 265, 541, and 562 fewer doses correspond to less than one patient per doctor. Even the 1,826 for painkillers is less than the 2190 annual doses of a 6-per-day prescription for one chronic pain patient.
Yes, with 854,698 active physicians in the U.S., it does add up. But generic painkillers, antidepressants, and the like are cheap. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the more than $400 billion US market for all prescription drugs - or likely even the amount the drug companies spend on Congress to lobby for the drug war.
For me the big take-aways from this article are:
* The impact of Medical Marijuana on overall drug company revenue is miniscule. Unless a fad catches on among doctors and they start switching some classes of patients en masse to M.J., the drug companies are unlikely to see any substantial drop in revenue, and would be ahead to save the lobbying money.
* They might be much FARTHER ahead to start selling, reasonably cheaply, purified, standard-dose, convenient oral tablets of the several active compounds. Especially if they can get the government to declare them "orphan drugs" or some new category, so they don't have to spend a bunch on research or accept large-scale liability for possible side-effects, and can let the non-drug-company-funded researchers in the medical community continue to identify the conditions (such as intractable seizures) that these compounds improve.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is the internet, you should be able to find a copy online if you really want it...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Federal Drug Administration have classified this plant as a "Schedule 1" drug, the same as PCP, Cocaine, Heroin and other famous substances. While it is classified as such, research opportunities are extremely limited, and not applicable to Federal guidelines.
States with an MMJ program can and do perform studies, but they are at odds with the Federal regulations.
Until this changes (rumored to happen on August 1), cannabis derivatives, whether organic whole plant preparations or synthetics are still subject to Federal jurisdiction; minimum sentencing, etc.
"Our hands are tied" remains a valid argument, and they're still able to capitalize on the addictive nature of their existing 'therapies'.
For more: http://www.newsweek.com/big-ph...
The table you point to lists primarily contributions from employees, and they go primarily to causes and issues. The association with corporations is indirect, as is the association with parties. You're being dishonest by misrepresenting this table as "political donations by corporations".
I don't see what "loophole" you see there. Are you saying that millions of people who want abortion rights, or gay rights, or marriage equality, or fight climate change should not be able to pool their money to buy airtime to make their views known?
And that is effectively the law already; that's why we have OpenSecrets.org.
And what are such laws supposed to accomplish anyway? Have a look at the 2016 candidate Super PACs: http://tinyurl.com/j4kvjd9 The ten biggest spenders are Bush, Rubio, Clinton, Christie, anti-Trump, Cruz, Carson, Kasich, and Fiorina. The only one of those who even made it past the primary was Clinton, and her showing was piss-poor compared to what people expected. The idea that Super PAC money can buy elections is laughable in light of simple obvious facts (and political scientists have also found little evidence for this).
Furthermore, what do you expect to happen without PACs / Super PACs? Do you thing George Soros or Bill Gates are going to STFU? Of course not: they are going to buy airtime privately to peddle their (usually self-serving) political ideologies. Or they do what Bezos did and simply buy a newspaper. If you take away the ability of people to share resources in PACs and Super PACs, all you accomplish is that you increase the barrier to entry for public political statements and really limit it to a few plutocrats. Of course, that is why the Democrats are advocating this in the first place: to increase the state's control over political speech.
Yes, there are several books you can purchase, both in dead-tree (which I prefer) and electronic format, from his website. Or, you can just read the how-to for free.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Does everybody require a 'study' at this point to use their own brain? Here, I'll do your critical thinking for you: big pharma hates EVERYTHING that hurts its own bottom line, and it will use its vast fortune to try to squash any and all of it. You are welcome.
It doesn't need the vast very profitable infrastructure other drugs need for processing and distribution. You can just throw the seeds on the ground and wait three months, and it will be "good enough" for most people outside the connoisseurs. And, as Colorado is finding out, this is driving down prices, and the tax revenues that were promised by legalization. The gold rush will be brief and will hit a brick wall when it is legal everywhere. Prices and profits will plummet. And that is what the game is about. The "morality" issue is a distraction played by the prohibitionists to sell their trade
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The AC is ignorant and you may be too. First, regardless of any definition of treason anywhere, in the USA it can only be levying war against the United States , or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort and you can only convict someone for treason if you have two witnesses to the act or a confession in open court. Even if you have bank records and possession indicating guilt, without any of that you cannot constitutionally convict someone for treason.
But it gets worse. If the law doesn't specifically make it illegal, regardless of any intent, it must therefore be legal. We are a free society who's freedom are limited only by laws already in place restricting that freedom. The constitution prohibits making things illegal after the fact which is what enforcement of the spirit of a law when it doesn't specifically outlaw an act would be.
In short, you could not make a law like that unless you made constitutional amendments first.
Treason is, perhaps, a bit harsh, but I suppose it would depend on the nature of the law being twisted.
Further, we are a nation governed by the spirit of law. The Constitution gains its power primarily from the spirit with which it was written, and secondarily from its letter; that's the only reason it still holds any power today.
The constitution prohibits making things illegal after the fact which is what enforcement of the spirit of a law when it doesn't specifically outlaw an act would be.
You're not arguing against me, here. I never claimed things should be made illegal under the spirit of law but, rather, that they should not be made illegal under the letter of the law when the spirit does not also apply. That is, a law written to protect children from speeding motorists should not be applied to a motorist who speeds past a school while no children are present outside. The letter of the law says it is illegal for the motorist to do so, but the spirit of the law indicates that the letter should only apply when children are actually in danger.
Follow?
Probably not, so let me recap. Neither spirit nor letter alone should be sufficient to render anything illegal; only when both are in agreement should the law be applied.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
We now have 25 states and DC that have made marijuana available for medical use. A handful of states, in spite of federal prohibitions, that have legalized it for recreational purposes. Half of the US states, districts, and territories are now violating federal law. What happened to the supremacy of federal law? Makes me wonder how else the states can tell the federal government to fuck off.
The DEA has now drawn up a set of "policies", which also violate federal law, where they do not enforce federal law on the possession of marijuana in jurisdictions where it is "legal". IMHO, this is an admission by the federal government that they cannot enforce federal laws without the cooperation of local law enforcement. This was always true but now they must admit it outright. Things were different when the federal government was unopposed.
The event that set a countdown timer in my mind for the end of federal prohibitions on marijuana possession was a news article about a Girl Scout selling cookies outside a medical marijuana dispensary in California. That must have been two years ago now and she was about 12 years old as I recall. This tells me that we have four years until this young lady is old enough to vote. When that happens then expect the federal government to fold on marijuana.
I expect to see in 2020, if not sooner, people running for public office talking about how they believe marijuana to be as safe as alcohol and tobacco. What this means in more specific policy terms would be interesting. Would this mean that marijuana regulation moves from the DEA to the BATFE? What would this mean for the future of the DEA? Would they be tasked with keeping marijuana from being smuggled *from* the USA *into* Mexico?
I don't expect the legalization of marijuana to have further effects on other drugs but I do see it as setting into motion other aspects of states rights. If states can legalize marijuana without federal opposition then what about gun laws? Energy is a big concern, what keeps a state from licensing nuclear power reactors on their own? We're already seeing states push back on the DHS running security at airports, what purpose does the DHS serve if all the states kick them out of all their airports?
It's also possible that the federal government learns from this to pick the fights they can win in order to keep federal supremacy from being questioned again. Legalizing marijuana might just do that. If the federal government backs off on this now then the smaller things like gun control might not come up. This assumes the federal government, made up of thousands of alpha personality types and each having their own idea on what roles the federal government should fulfill, can come to any singular conclusion on policy.
I think we are seeing a new revolution on rights, or merely a government sized train wreck, happen in slow motion.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I read what you said, how does that reconcile with the constitutional requirements for treason in the context of the person you were replying to?
The constitution is different from laws. It sets the power the government has and expressly is prohibited from. The spirit applies only to which the names and conventions may be different. For instance a laptop or phone call is papers and effects for the purposes of searching.
As for your speeding example, i don't disagree. The op however was talking about loopholes which is somewhat opposite of your direction which is why I included it. Of course remaining free when the letter of law conflicts with the spirit would pass constitutional muster. But the other way wouldn't.
" how does that reconcile with the constitutional requirements for treason"
If you would break the law and hurt the nation's citizenry, you are deliberately hurting the nation and providing aid to its enemies simultaneously.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It doesn't work that way. The enemy has to be defined already and the act has to be directly connected. Otherwise you would see treason convictions instead of murder or fraud or whatever. We have had very few treason convictions and very few legal accusations of it in our history.
Corporations in the US cannot "run political campaigns"; they can't even contribute to political campaigns.
They can and they do.
That's what the Citizen's United decision was all about: the right of corporations to contribute to political campaigns.
By the way, your post simultaneously says "corporations cannot contribute to political campaigns" and "corporations can contribute to political campaigns because of the first amendment rights of the owners." Which? Can they, or can't they?
The article data says 1,826 fewer painkiller DOSES per year per doctor prescribed, then calls that a 'sharp decline'. Well without knowing how many total doses per year a doctor prescribes, that number is MEANINGLESS. Is that 1,826 fewer doses out of 5,000 doses? 25,000 doses? 100,000 doses? The fact that this all-important context providing number is left out suggests to me that someone is trying to lie to me with statistics.
A loophole in the law is, quite literally, a disagreement between the letter and the spirit of the law. Remaiming free is what The Constitution is all about, I suggest you attend law school before speaking on these matters. Or, at least, obtain a 3rd grade understanding of the topic.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
While commercially available cannabis compounds are FDA-approved to reduce cancer treatmentâ"related side effects such as nausea and vomiting and to improve appetite, no clinical trials have shown that cannabis products can treat cancer.
Claims that cannabis oil cures cancer are anecdotal and largely unsupportable, based on scant research done in mice and in labs. Side effects can include memory and attention loss. Perhaps most important, there is evidence that cannabis compounds may inhibit enzymes that patients need to metabolize other anticancer drugs, thereby increasing their toxicity or reducing their effectiveness.
The Truth behind Three Natural Cancer ''Cures''
Companies should have political power if you're going to tax them. No taxation without representation, right?
Yeah their employees have representation. Their employees also pay the same taxes as non-employees. Since the taxes their company pays are in addition to taxes the employees already pay as individuals, it needs to be counterbalanced by additional representation.
The whole tax charade is pointless anyway. It doesn't matter whether you tax personal income or corporate profits. If you accomplished the Bernie supporters' dream and eliminated all income taxes and converted them to corporate taxes, people would not suddenly become wealthier. Companies would just be forced to decrease wages and increase prices to pay for the taxes, meaning the average individual's purchasing power would be the same before and after the tax change. Wealth is proportional to productivity, not income. So unless your change increases productivity, it cannot increase average wealth. Artificially increasing income without increasing productivity just causes your currency to become worth less (prices will rise to compensate) so that there's no net change in real wealth (purchasing power).
So just pick whichever tax is easiest to collect and use that as your sole source of government revenue. Taxing a gazillion different things is just wasteful inefficiency - like using a thousand teaspoons to remove a percentage of a bathtub's water, instead of a single bucket. Also note that if you don't want to violate the "no taxation without representation" principle, and you want a progressive tax structure, the tax has to be on personal income. If you shifted all taxes to corporations, their price increases would be equivalent to a flat tax. And higher-income management controls wages and will be most reluctant to cut their own salaries. So the net result of shifting all taxes to corporations would be regressive compared to the current taxation system of income + corporate taxes. The only way to control a progressive tax system is zero corporate taxes, with all taxes being on income, and ratchet up the income tax rate on the higher income brackets.
It's amazing how people who reject the concept of corporate personhood hypocritically insist on treating a corporation as a person. They're not people. They're just a group of people who've decided to work and act together. If you have a beef with how a corporation is behaving, aim your ire at the people controlling that behavior. If you don't like how much profit a company is making, focus your remedy on the people who are receiving that profit from the corporation as distributions or dividends. Thinking of a corporation as a person just reinforces the notion that corporate personhood carries with it rights (e.g. free speech) and duties (e.g. paying taxes).
Everyone's too busy playing Pokemon to care what makes sense in the real world.
The criminal corporate overlords need to be taxed into submission, broken up into smaller companies and regulated until they scream Uncle!
The taxes corporations pay are collected from their customers.
Perhaps you are a moron and didn't understand what was said. Perhaps you do and want to ignore it to fan flames that shouldn't be.
Anyways, a loophole means specifically that something is not illegal. It doesn't matter what the spirit of the law is (unless congress expressly writes it into the law in which case the leeway is less), if it isn't illegal via a loophole then it is unconstitutional to pretend it is.
Now specifically show me where I am wrong. You cannot which is why your post is vague. But in case you did not understand my comment on the loophole being ok in one instance and unconstitutional in another, I will explain it a bit. The constitution prohibits the government from prosecution of a crime that isn't a crime. You have a right of habeas corpus, due process, to face your accusers, and a right to be free of post fact laws. If the legislature made it illegal to spit on the walkway on Sunday but spelled out a sidewalk, then you being prosecuted for spitting on a dirt path in the middle of the woods would violate your constitutional rights. But if they intended to stop spitting on finished walkways otherwise known as sidewalks but used the term walkway instead, you not being prosecuted is not a violation of your constitutional rights because you face no accusations or due process or penalties.
So one is enforcing a law that isn't actually a law which is unconstitutional and the other is failing to enforce a law that actually is a law which is constitutional (outside the duty for the executive to aee that all laws are faithfully executed).
1. It''s quite likely that people without actual diseases, but who want the effects of pain meds, find it easier and legally safer to use pot where that's been legalized. Most people who need pain meds for actual disease management are better off with monitored doses of prescribed drugs. The average person is just not very good at regulating things that make them feel good, which is part of why we have all become such a fat population.
2. The argument that "big pharma" is "in it for the money" with the implication that you cannot therefore trust them on what they say is pretty funny, given the long history of people making money growing and raising pot.
I come at this from a truly conservative position. I do not like recreational drugs, but I also do not like government mandating and regulating everything. Many of our founders made their own hard alcohol (Geroge Washington, among others, was famous for it) and never would have imagined the federal government they created would tax or regulate such activities (they had, after all, explicitly limited it to very few things right there in the plain text of the Constitution). A century ago, however, all the bad side effects of people being drunk and all the snake-oil salesmen peddling things like heroin and cocaine as "miracle cures" came together with a government thirst for money and, well we got the results we got. I am fine with people using whatever they want to use IN PRIVATE and as long as they do not hurt anybody else or depend on anybody else for support. As soon as they become dependent on other people for money for food/shelter/healthcare or as soon as they go into public intoxicated and try to operate a vehicle, or commit a robbery to get money for their addiction, however, I want a serios hammer dropped on them. The problem I have with the modern Libertarians is that they want all the freedoms but none of the responsibilities, which is more "libertine" than actual "libertarian"
Well good news, Hillary said she would repeal CU within 30 days. We can trust Hillary, she never lets us down!
If you read the full version of this report, the reasons are very similar as to why Tobacco Companies also hate Mary Jane and also the reason why they lobbied to Congress to make it illegal.
Refer to the "Uniform State Narcotic Drug Active of 1934"...
Your example using speeding in school zone while kids are in school is stupid. Plenty of children arrive late, leave early, get sick, have free periods, leave school grounds for PE, etc.
Now if you said at 2am, I wouldn't think you're an asshole.
Our school zones are 8am-5pm. Fucking obey it and don't be a weasley cunt.
may the best drug lord win
Our school zones are 8am-5pm. Fucking obey it and don't be a weasley cunt.
What makes you think I don't? I do. But if there are no children outside (and I have eyes, I can see them if they're there), there are no children in danger if I don't.
Now, if I had actually said I don't obey the law despite disagreeing with it, I wouldn't think you're an asshole.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
you agree to ban ALL corporations. So far, everybody I have ever encountered who wanted to ban corporations from politics and who is outraged by the Citizens United ruling has been a total fraud. They all rant about corporations but never have been upset by the corporations that help their side in political fights: labor unions.
The big labor unions are all artificial persons just like IBM and Boeing are. In fact, Democrats have created entire special sections of the tax codes to allow that one form of corporation to play in politics. Labor unions heve never been obstructed by the 501c-3 and 501c-4 rules, because they are not under them, they have their own special section. All the Citizens United case did was level the playing field, which of course is a major outrage to the left who have long benefitted from the taxpayers being unaware of how badly the scheme was rigged pro-union/pro-Democrat.
The argument that the labor unions deserve a special set of rules because they are made of people is a joke: Most union member in the US never get to vote on union membership - once a group of employees votes-in a union, it never needs to be re-affirmed. As a result, years after the shop is unionized, you end up with a bunch of young workers who must join the union in order to get a job and often must pay high dues to provide benefits to retired members even though subsequent union contracts have reduced the benefits to younger workers and are using some of their cash to back political candidates they might not like. That's no different from Mitt Romney's sytatment that "corporations are people", where he asserted that corporations have employees and shareholders and executives ho deserve representation.
In truth, since all citizens have their own personal political rights, NO corporate entity (union or not union) needs to represent them in politics and either sort of entity being in politics is a doubling of the influence of the people it pretends to represent.
so:
Are you in? Do you agree that ALL corporations should be banned from politics?
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It's telling when an industry that promotes the public perception that they are concerned for your health, would try to block legalizing a plant that helps people solely because it threatens their profits. Devious cunts.
A couple of years ago a Police Chief in Canada notably argued the number one reason to legalize it was that it was a huge waste of time for police officers to enforce. If I remember it was weirdly from out in Alberta (which is usually staunchly Conservative if you're not from Canada). It isn't like the police have a lack of things to do. The time could be spent doing real police work. They don't get to choose what laws to enforce however.
Personally I think it would also wipe out a ton of low level crime as a result almost instantly, and they would be basically out of business.
To put this differently, the fact that our politicians are corrupted by money is something we should address by punishing the politicians
You can't punish the politicians, because contributions to PACS are legal.
Yes, you are repeating yourself, and your statement is as wrong as it was at the beginning: PACs aren't a "loophole"; what they can and cannot do is part of campaign finance law.
Correct. They are the loophole in campaign finance law.
You seen to think "Campaign finance has never been shown to corrupt the political process in the US.". I think you're an idiot, but you're allowed your opinion.
is the synthetic take on cannabis and is not that effective. In fact the only way for the big pharmas to get on board with this is to create a synthetic substance that they can patent. Cannot patent the cannabis plant, which is the thing that scares them the most.
Maybe it's just me, but the biggest point of interest here isn't the weed. It's that the average doctor is apparently prescribing 2000 people pain killers every year.
Holy crap.
That's 5 people a day, every day, 365 days per year. Nearly 7 a day if you account for weekends and holidays. How are there so many people on prescription pain meds?
When you add up all the prescriptions listed in TFS, you get up to 15 per working day. And that's just the delta from pot. Assuming medical marijuana didn't completely supplant the entire drug industry, how many drugs is the average doctor issuing?
This signature is false.
You're welcome to present data to the contrary. Until then, you are the idiot who presents his misinformed opinions as fact.
You and others are proposing to make PACs illegal and restrict corporate speech; that is, you are proposing to "punish" a large number of people by taking away their free speech rights, even though most corporations behave responsibly, and even though it is politicians that let themselves be corrupted.
I'm saying that is the wrong approach. What we should do is change the laws so that politicians are restricted in what they can do: politicians shouldn't be allowed to earn millions of dollars on the side, or get cushy jobs in private industry, or sit on boards, or create billion dollar foundations. There is no need to restrict the free speech rights of others, when it is politicians that are at fault.
And likewise.
Doing both sounds like a good plan to me.
Are you incapable of using Google?
http://freakonomics.com/2012/0...
http://journals.cambridge.org/...
http://www.jstor.org/stable/21...
That is kind of implied by calling corporate donations to campaigns a "loophole".
Well, what can I say, you're a fool, and one that gives corrupt politicians a pass.
Are you incapable of using Google?
So, out of 19,700,000 search hits on Campaign spending effectiveness, you selected... three.
Great. You have 19,699,997 left to read. When you've read those, get back to me.