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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.
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.
The study says the drop is greatest in states with legal MM, but implies there is a drop in other states as well. That information (the drop in other states) is conspicuously missing. What, then, is the reason overall for that drop? Also, since is a drop in prescriptions, maybe they could ask a few doctors why they are prescribing less. In some states like FL, there has been major crackdowns on excessive pain killer prescription writing.
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
One limitation of the study is that it only looks at Medicare Part D spending, which applies only to seniors.
For more on painkiller crackdown;
https://www.google.com/search?...
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.
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?
Or how about, "Dr's prescribe less after major DEA crackdown".
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
Linked article is from vice.com. You don't think they have an agenda do you?
And I have no problem with people having an agenda. But I do find it interesting how easily people accept such flawed studies when it supports their ideals. What will be sad is the tremendous number of follow-on articles that claim these findings, and the extremely small number of those who see the problems with it. Its a sign of how collectively stupid the media is. They can't even question why doctors may be writing smaller prescriptions, or even how one can correlate doctors writing smaller prescriptions to increased marijuana use, and doing so without talking to any doctors or users.
Just watch though, as this catches like wildfire in the media and going forward will be referenced as some type of established conclusion.
The DEA is another problem. Some people actually need pain medication and now whether you get it or not depends on things like how timid your doctor is, how much of an agenda your politically minded law enforcers have this week, and of course what kind of person you appear to be. If you're very young you'll get over the counter crap that doesn't work but if you have a good job, live in a rich part of town, etc it's different. I fall in that latter category. Had minor surgery a couple of years ago. Got strong, almost too strong pain pills temporarily no problem at all. Yet I've seen people younger than me who work service jobs get injured, be in worse pain than I was ever in, and get denied anything but otc garbage. Of course some of that stuff can destroy your liver when you take too much because it doesn't work but the government doesn't care because at least it doesn't make you feel good while you're taking it. That's what this is about. It's puritanism at its finest, and it's absolutely sick and disgusting.
I'm glad for a whole lot of reasons I don't need that stuff for something long term. One of those is the notion of cops or anybody else besides my doctor looking over my medical history makes me sick to my stomach.
The FDA is for more than blocking legitimate treatments. Its origin is based around mislabeled or adulterated drugs, which is a far more serious problem that would come back without some oversight.
Yeah, like I said, we are going to need new laws, not new "free trade" agreements. The criminal corporate overlords need to be taxed into submission, broken up into smaller companies and regulated until they scream Uncle!
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
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.
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...
It's hard to OD on pot.
No! it's IMPOSSIBLE. The National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse researched this in 1972. I know. My Mom worked for the Commission (which recommended Decriminalization of Pot, BTW), and I have seen the underlying research they had done.
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.
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.
Yeah, well, I'll remember that next time a 2-year old wanders away from his home and winds up dead face down in a slag pit because the mother was too stoned to pay attention to the kid. I'll remember that next time another 2-year old dies because the kid's guardian overdosed the kid to get him to shut up and then dumps the body in the middle of the night. I have personally spent more than a week searching for both of these kids. Don't ever give me this crap about it being a victimless crime.
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'll remember that next time another 2-year old dies because the kid's guardian overdosed the kid to get him to shut up and then dumps the body in the middle of the night."
And you've got the toxicology report to show us to PROVE it was *JUST* cannabis and nothing else?
Start fucking dropping docs, and back your fucking words up.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.