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How Big Pharma uses Government Agencies and Citizens' Groups to Inhibit Medical Marijuana
by Paul Fassa
See more articles by Paul Fassa
(The Best Years in Life) A lot of ordinary citizens and government bureaucrats like to pose the state by state medical marijuana movements as hoaxes to only benefit what they perceive as an excuse to get high on pot. They often complain about this as they guzzle their beers or sip their wine or over cocktails.
But the biggest menace for legalized medical marijuana may come from Big Pharma's funding of front groups opposing medical marijuana. They want to make sure it remains as the DEA's Schedule 1 controlled substance rating: Schedule 1 substances are considered medically worthless, dangerous, and addictive.
This classification has been debunked by independent scientific analysis and piles of documented anecdotal recoveries from deadly diseases using cannabis as explained in this article.
Studies Demonstrate Medical Cannabis Results in Less Big Pharma Harmful Drugs
Here's an excerpt from one published in mid-2015 by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Using both standard differences-in-differences models as well as synthetic control models, we find that states permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not. (…) Our findings suggest that providing broader access to medical marijuana may have the potential benefit of reducing abuse of highly addictive painkillers.
But a more recent study was statistically more conclusive, as reported by Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post article, “One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana.” Here's that striking chart.
A study by a daughter-father research team, Ashley and David Bradford at the University of Georgia performed an analysis comparison of opioid painkillers versus cannabis for chronic pain. That chart above is their result.
They started by tabulating the amount of pharmaceutical drugs purchased through Medicare Part D records from 2010 to 2013 in 17 states that have legalized marijuana since 2013. The comparison was made strictly among the spectrum of Medicare Part D, government insurance covering prescription drug purchases.
The Bradfords counter-checked their pain killer and anxiety relief pharmaceuticals using a similar statistical analysis on drug categories that cannabis is not considered an appropriate substitute such as blood thinners, anti-viral drugs and antibiotics. With those drugs, they found no changes in prescribing patterns after the passage of marijuana laws.
"This provides strong evidence that the observed shifts in prescribing patterns were in fact due to the passage of the medical marijuana laws,"the Bradfords wrote, with Ashley adding "The results suggest people are really using marijuana as medicine and not just using it for recreational purposes."
But then again, what's wrong with using cannabis for both?
The Cannabis Naysayers That Hide from View
The biggest players behind the curtain in the anti-marijuana legalization movement are pharmaceutical, alcohol and beer companies, private prison corporations and police unions. They all help fund lobby groups that challenge marijuana law reform.
From IBT (International Business Times):
Corrections Corporations of America (CCA), one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the U.S., has spent nearly $1 million a year on lobbying efforts. The company even stated in a report that “changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances … could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
CCA couldn't be more obvious could they? And the Beer and Alcohol people contribute to campaigns against legalizing recreational marijuana. They're not concerned with safeguarding allopathic medicine or having more prisoners for pay.
But according to that same report, these guys are the worst:
Purdue Pharma, maker of the major opioid painkiller OxyContin; Abbott Laboratories, producer of the opioid Vicodin; Janssen Pharmaceutical, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that manufactures the painkiller Nucynta all contribute heavily non-profits that are ostensibly set up to prevent drug abuse by kids.
Those non-profits include CADCA (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America) and Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. The fact that they're donors are motivated by sales of opioids that do get into kids' hands from parents medicine cabinets or street sales doesn't seem to phase them.
According to the CDC, over 22,000 people die from prescription drug overdoses annually and three out of four of those are from pharmaceutical painkillers. Three out of every four pharmaceutical overdose deaths involve painkillers. That's more than the combined heroin and cocaine overdose deaths. There is not one death recorded from cannabis overdosing.
The combined forces resisting medical or recreational cannabis is what's mostly responsible for keeping cannabis classified as a Schedule 1 Drug. Not only does this restrict medical use from those who need it to replace harmful ineffective pharmaceuticals, it hampers medical research by non-pharmaceutical groups.
As opioid painkiller patients continue using those drugs, the effectiveness of pain relief declines with the prospects of debilitating addictions rises. Abstinence protocols are almost all failing to help these folks get off opioid painkillers.
Former FDA head from 1990 to 1997 Dr. David Kessler conceded during a CBS News interview that there is an opioid epidemic: “This has been one of the great mistakes of modern medicine.” Dr. Kessler called it “… an American condition. This [opioid painkiller use] is an American disease.”
Ironically, cannabis has a very high success rate for weaning chronic pain sufferers without terrible withdrawal symptoms. That's for real. Greedy corporate interests are behind more opioid addiction and pharmaceutical anti-anxiety drugs while restricting access to the most healing safe whole plant in the world – cannabis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQEpWSH9ic
by Paul Fassa
See more articles by Paul Fassa
(The Best Years in Life) A lot of ordinary citizens and government bureaucrats like to pose the state by state medical marijuana movements as hoaxes to only benefit what they perceive as an excuse to get high on pot. They often complain about this as they guzzle their beers or sip their wine or over cocktails.
But the biggest menace for legalized medical marijuana may come from Big Pharma's funding of front groups opposing medical marijuana. They want to make sure it remains as the DEA's Schedule 1 controlled substance rating: Schedule 1 substances are considered medically worthless, dangerous, and addictive.
This classification has been debunked by independent scientific analysis and piles of documented anecdotal recoveries from deadly diseases using cannabis as explained in this article.
Studies Demonstrate Medical Cannabis Results in Less Big Pharma Harmful Drugs
Here's an excerpt from one published in mid-2015 by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Using both standard differences-in-differences models as well as synthetic control models, we find that states permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not. (…) Our findings suggest that providing broader access to medical marijuana may have the potential benefit of reducing abuse of highly addictive painkillers.
But a more recent study was statistically more conclusive, as reported by Christopher Ingraham in the Washington Post article, “One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana.” Here's that striking chart.
A study by a daughter-father research team, Ashley and David Bradford at the University of Georgia performed an analysis comparison of opioid painkillers versus cannabis for chronic pain. That chart above is their result.
They started by tabulating the amount of pharmaceutical drugs purchased through Medicare Part D records from 2010 to 2013 in 17 states that have legalized marijuana since 2013. The comparison was made strictly among the spectrum of Medicare Part D, government insurance covering prescription drug purchases.
The Bradfords counter-checked their pain killer and anxiety relief pharmaceuticals using a similar statistical analysis on drug categories that cannabis is not considered an appropriate substitute such as blood thinners, anti-viral drugs and antibiotics. With those drugs, they found no changes in prescribing patterns after the passage of marijuana laws.
"This provides strong evidence that the observed shifts in prescribing patterns were in fact due to the passage of the medical marijuana laws,"the Bradfords wrote, with Ashley adding "The results suggest people are really using marijuana as medicine and not just using it for recreational purposes."
But then again, what's wrong with using cannabis for both?
The Cannabis Naysayers That Hide from View
The biggest players behind the curtain in the anti-marijuana legalization movement are pharmaceutical, alcohol and beer companies, private prison corporations and police unions. They all help fund lobby groups that challenge marijuana law reform.
From IBT (International Business Times):
Corrections Corporations of America (CCA), one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the U.S., has spent nearly $1 million a year on lobbying efforts. The company even stated in a report that “changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances … could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
CCA couldn't be more obvious could they? And the Beer and Alcohol people contribute to campaigns against legalizing recreational marijuana. They're not concerned with safeguarding allopathic medicine or having more prisoners for pay.
But according to that same report, these guys are the worst:
Purdue Pharma, maker of the major opioid painkiller OxyContin; Abbott Laboratories, producer of the opioid Vicodin; Janssen Pharmaceutical, the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary that manufactures the painkiller Nucynta all contribute heavily non-profits that are ostensibly set up to prevent drug abuse by kids.
Those non-profits include CADCA (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America) and Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. The fact that they're donors are motivated by sales of opioids that do get into kids' hands from parents medicine cabinets or street sales doesn't seem to phase them.
According to the CDC, over 22,000 people die from prescription drug overdoses annually and three out of four of those are from pharmaceutical painkillers. Three out of every four pharmaceutical overdose deaths involve painkillers. That's more than the combined heroin and cocaine overdose deaths. There is not one death recorded from cannabis overdosing.
The combined forces resisting medical or recreational cannabis is what's mostly responsible for keeping cannabis classified as a Schedule 1 Drug. Not only does this restrict medical use from those who need it to replace harmful ineffective pharmaceuticals, it hampers medical research by non-pharmaceutical groups.
As opioid painkiller patients continue using those drugs, the effectiveness of pain relief declines with the prospects of debilitating addictions rises. Abstinence protocols are almost all failing to help these folks get off opioid painkillers.
Former FDA head from 1990 to 1997 Dr. David Kessler conceded during a CBS News interview that there is an opioid epidemic: “This has been one of the great mistakes of modern medicine.” Dr. Kessler called it “… an American condition. This [opioid painkiller use] is an American disease.”
Ironically, cannabis has a very high success rate for weaning chronic pain sufferers without terrible withdrawal symptoms. That's for real. Greedy corporate interests are behind more opioid addiction and pharmaceutical anti-anxiety drugs while restricting access to the most healing safe whole plant in the world – cannabis.
