The pharmacutical industry's hijacking of medical marijuana

One more time-

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reply to post by airspoon

have always though that a big reason for the prohibition of marijuana, is the fact that the pharmaceutical industry can't really profit from it, seeing how anyone can grow it or buy it from someone else who could grow it.

Well anyone can make alcohol and that is legal and people make a proffit, same with tobacco.

There really isn't room for "big pharma" in the marijuana trade... That is, unless they can somehow corner the market.
How on earth can you do that, if you or anyone can grow it? Easily, you just make into a pill form after screwing with the molecular structure or adding some chemicals to it. Think about it... If they can market a marijuana pill that has all of the *medical benefits of the actual plant, then the states could move to outlaw the actual plant, while allowing "big pharma" to continue slinging their dope, at a price 1000x the cost of what it could be otherwise.

They just have to mass produce it thus driving the price of it down and would end up putting smaller opperations out of business. They do not have to put it in pill form but they could just crush the plant into a powder and put it in a pill and it would still be the natural plant. The medical marijuana will end up with a big pharmaceutical company. First there has to be extensive research done on it to find out exactly what it can and can't do, then all the side effects have to be documented. After a few years people will end up taking people that sell them medical marijuana to court. Smaller businesses could not stand up to multiple lawsuits but big pharma could, just like the tobacco industry can pay it's settlemets.

Originally posted by zaiger
Well anyone can make alcohol and that is legal and people make a proffit, same with tobacco.

Even if it were legal for everyone to make their own unregulated alcohol, there'd be people dying/poisoning themselves left and right... something which doesn't happen with cannabis

reply to post by zaiger


I don't think that alcohol and tobacco posed the same threat to an established industry. Not only does tobacco actually take farming operations but it also has little medicinal benefit. This is not even mentioning the process of rolling it and doing everything else for preparations. Marijuana on the other hand, can be grown anywhere and with little effort, since it is an evasive weed. Anyone with soil or nutrients and water can grow marijuana for consumption purposes or to market. You really don't even need to have land. Also, the seemingly bountiful medicinal applications of the plant directly threaten the pharmaceutical industry and the harsh chemicals that they not only bring to market, but push on the market.

Then we move on to alcohol. Alcohol takes some effort to create and then most home-brewed alcohol is nasty (though not so for beer and wine). Creating alcohol and growing marijuana is like the same difference between writing a novel and drawing a picture. Obviously, one is harder than the other and subjectivity is much greater when judging the book.

So in effect, you can't really compare marijuana with alcohol or tobacco when discussing motives to legislate these substances. To grow tobacco, you pretty much need a farm with a lot of resources. To create alcohol, you also need heavy equipment and then it becomes an art, so to speak. Growing marijuana on the other hand only take any person with a pot, window and soil. Then, marijuana has greater medicinal potential than both alcohol and tobacco.

--airspoon


Edited to add: I'm certainly not trying to suggest any benefits of one substance over another, rather I'm trying to just point out why it is that "big pharma" would want to corner the marjuana market while other indirect industries wouldn't need or want to do the same with alcohol or tobacco.


[edit on 6-7-2010 by airspoon]

reply to post by alaskan

Even if it were legal for everyone to make their own unregulated alcohol
there'd be people dying/poisoning themselves left and right... something which doesn't happen with cannabis

You can make your own alcohol you just can't be selling it. And yes some do die of alcohol poisoning but it has nothing to do with people brewing it at home.

You're joking, right? You're really saying there are no dangers in distilling your own alcohol, you just can't mess it up in any way that could end with a deadly dangerous poison? If you think I'm talking about over-consumption, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

Don't reply to this, it has nothing to do with the thread, but anyone reading this should do at least a little bit of research on the dangers of home stills...

reply to post by airspoon

Marijuana on the other hand, can be grown anywhere and with little effort, since it is an evasive weed.

Depends who you ask advocates either say it is a "weed" and grows it's self with little effort or they will say that it takes hard work to create "good" plants. So if it is easy to grow or not really depends on if it suits your argument. But it is just more activist propaganda, the term "weed" only means a plant that is unwanted in that area so a rose would be a weed in a pumpkin patch. But im not sure how a plant could be evasive.

[edit on 6-7-2010 by zaiger]

thanks for the warning, i didn't know..
back to topic....it wouldn't be a problem for the law to move in the direction of legalization/...that would lighten the burden and paranoia....*SNIP*

MOD NOTE: The New ATS Policy on Drug-Related Topics

[edit on Wed Jul 7 2010 by DontTreadOnMe]

reply to post by alaskan

You're joking, right? You're really saying there are no dangers in distilling your own alcohol, you just can't mess it up in any way that could end with a deadly dangerous poison? If you think I'm talking about over-consumption, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

Don't reply to this, it has nothing to do with the thread, but anyone reading this should do at least a little bit of research on the dangers of home stills...

I never said that it was not dangerous to brew your own, a lot can go wrong. I do appreciate the strawman. But you said:

Even if it were legal for everyone to make their own unregulated alcohol, there'd be people dying/poisoning themselves left and right

I was pointing out that it IS legal and people are not dropping like flies.



[edit on 6-7-2010 by zaiger]

reply to post by airspoon


They did the same thing to OPIUM.
Opium can be grown by anyone.

Same with Fentanyl, which is synthetic heroin 50 times more potent per weight than heroin. It can be made for almost nothing. In other words all the heroin addicts in the USA could be supplied their medical heroin for nothing.
But this would take a lot of the prostitutes off the streets,and impoverish the criminal drug gangs, and the prison industrial complex.

Its all about the money and power.

Even the CDC below says it is easy and cheap to produce. In effect they are saying the the 5,000 deaths a year attributed to heroin and Fentanyl ARE PUBLIC POLICY.

www.cdc.gov...
"the relative ease of illicit production and low cost of NPF (non pharmaceutical fentanyl) compared with heroin suggest that future epidemics of NPF overdoses are likely to occur (3)."



[edit on 6-7-2010 by RRokkyy]

[edit on 6-7-2010 by RRokkyy]

reply to post by RRokkyy

They did the same thing to OPIUM.
Opium can be grown by anyone.

Not really..
Opium has to be extracted from a poppy plant which anyone can grow. So it is perfectly legal to grow poppies but it is illegal to grow them to extract opium from. If you look up how much you really have to grow to manufacture opium you will see that it would be easy to see who is growing it for their garden and who is growing it for opium.

Same with Fentanyl,

How is it the same?

In other words all the heroin addicts in the USA could be supplied their medical heroin for nothing.
But this would take a lot of the prostitutes off the streets,and impoverish the criminal drug gangs, and the prison industrial complex

The idea is to not have heroin addicts, not give them a replacement.

reply to post by jetsettingvet


Well, that was a long drawn out post that was reflective of the "War On Drugs" campaign of the 80's.

Just because you are a reformed pot head, doesn't mean you have the inside scoop on the dangers, or, lack thereof of marijuana. The problem with kids these days are poor parenting, not a plant that grows from the ground. Everyone wants to point fingers except to the image that they see staring at them when they look in the mirror, you're no exception.

What you're really saying is, that since you decided to quit, that everyone should adopt your world-view and automatically agree with the former "sinner" who has a first hand outlook on their previous "wicked-ways." Boy, America really loves a sob story about a former gutter prince that found their way into conformity and accepts the golden rules of society. Unfortunately, there's nothing more annoying than one of those reformed smokers that preaches their sob story like an evangelist touting their undeniable guidance to the light. You exercised your free will, but don't try to claim to have all the answers so that others cannot exercise their own. Not only is this a lame thing to do, its short-sighted, infantile, and does nothing but make you look like a right-wing christian with nothing better to do than to interfere with the lives of others.

C-Ya

Namaste and Love

reply to post by RRokkyy


Fentanyl is easier to produce than heroin but not easy to produce. Also, fentanyl is very expensive. I was on very high doses of fentanyl for several years after returning home from the army and in fact, I just got myself off of it less than a year ago. The only reason why it is easier to produce, is on the farming end. You don't need the massive amounts of opium, as you do with heroin.

This brings me to opium and the poppy. To extract opium from the poppy for any practical purpose, especially to bring to market, you need to have a large swath of land as each plant bulb only contains a small amount of opium and the poppy straw only contains a small amount of morphine. Sure, you can make opium tea with ornamental poppy flowers but the effects are minimal at best. To produce any quantity of morphine or opium from the plant, you would need a large number, making in impractical for most people.

With marijuana plants, it only take two or three plants (male and female) with a foot-print of only a couple square feet at most to produce pounds of the consumable substance. There is a big difference between cultivating marijuana and cultivating opium or morphine.

Also, moving back to fentanyl, this substance is extremely dangerous, being the cause of most opiate overdoses. When heroin is laced with this chemical to make the heroin much more potent for a cheaper cost, it often leads to overdose and is one of the leading causes for heroin overdoses. It is a very dangerous substance that does take knowledge in chemistry to fabricate.

--airspoon

reply to post by zaiger


i have experience making my own mead, and it's very time consuming, even though mead generally could take a month quickest for good honey wine, it's more of an effort and financial commitment for the tools, and proper cleaning than what you get out of it

the ingredients are expensive as well, well i mean, compared to spending five minutes going to the liquor store and spending 20 bucks for a bottle of drink, compared to 25 bucks or more for the cheapest recipes for mead or beer

and as someone else said, it really becomes a big petri dish for germs and bacteria, i'd rather just buy some from a company has factories with clean machines and all that taken care of, it's just too much of a hassle

i'm a gardener and i can tell you that gardening vegetables and tobacco is alot of work, there are some people who don't spend too much effort into it, and the results are medium size harvests, but in the end it's alot of work and sometimes more expensive to grow your own food or tobacco ( no to mention drying tobacco is an endeavor of itself )

but my main point is that, yes you can make your own alcohol, and grow your own food, and really you can do everything for yourself that you could just go to the store to buy, but the convience of the store, as well as the instant gratification it gives you ( it could take all spring to grow corn, or five minutes to get it at the store ) makes it not really worth making your own alcohol or gorwing your own tobacco

marijuana, on the other hand, grows like a weed

i have heard people claim that it actually IS a weed, but i have never heard from a scientific community that it indeed is somehow genetically related or in the 'weed' family or genus of plants, and i cannot specify wether or not i have ever grown it legally with a medical marijuana 'growers' license, but it does indeed grow very large very fast

marijuana requires less water than vegetables, so it's not going to be an extra effort like growing tobacco, veggies or brewing alcohol would be, it grows big and plentiful wether you give it attention or not, therefor besides having to wait 50-100 days ( depending on the specific strain ) for it to produce the buds that contain THC, it is as convenient as going to store to buy marijuana ( if it were legal )

so although there are many things people could do for themselves that they don't, marijuana is something that anyone, if it were legal, could easily grow themselves, and most people probably would

reply to post by jetsettingvet


This diatribe is ignorant and rediculous on so many levels that I am not too sure where to begin. Instead of humoring jetsettingvet I will simply ask one question(or two or four). What is wrong with those addicted youth wanting to get high without getting hassled? Personal freedom coupled with personal resposibility seems to have been a major factor in our country at one time.

I will implore any who believe this mindless blather to ask themselves this. If you are told what you can and cannot put into your own body does that make you a slave? Or perhaps just a good tool to the aforementioned drug companies who would rather sell you their drugs? What is the cost of freedom? Where does freedom end and draconian rule begin? From where do human rights originate?

Sorry for the idle banter I just cannot help it...

Originally posted by zaiger
Well anyone can make alcohol and that is legal and people make a proffit, same with tobacco.

You might want to check your facts:

Many homebrewing related articles and books mistakenly claim that, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed into law a bill explicitly allowing home beers and winemaking, which was at the time illegal as a holdover from the prohibition of alcoholic beverages (repealed in 1933). In fact, the U.S. Congress passed an Act in 1978 exempting a certain amount of beer brewed for personal or family use from taxation. President Carter signed the Act, which addressed other issues as well.

States remain free to restrict, or even prohibit, the manufacture of beer, mead, hard cider, wine and other alcoholic beverages at home.[16] For example, Ala. Code § 28-1-1 addresses the illegal manufacture of alcoholic beverages in Alabama, and no other provision of Alabama law provides an exception for personal use brewing.

Ala. Code § 28-1-1 - "In all counties of the state it shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to have in his or its possession any still or apparatus to be used for the manufacture of any alcoholic beverage of any kind or any alcoholic beverage of any kind illegally manufactured or transported within the state or imported into the state from any other place without authority of the alcoholic control board of the state, and any person, firm or corporation violating this provision or who transports any illegally manufactured alcoholic beverages or who manufactures illegally any alcoholic beverages shall, upon conviction, be punished as provided by law."
Interestingly, several homebrew stores operate in Alabama, so the status of homebrewing as an enforcement priority with the Alabama Alcoholic Control Board is unknown.

However, most states permit homebrewing, allowing 100 gallons of beer per person over the age of 21 per year and up to a maximum of 200 gallons per household annually when there are two or more adults residing in the household. Because alcohol is taxed by the federal governments via excise taxes, homebrewers are restricted from selling any beer they brew. This similarly applies in most Western countries.

en.wikipedia.org...

Homebrewing is only allowed if you don't produce much and don't sell it. Or you get taxed for your production and sells.

So no. Not everyone can produce alcohol and make money. The only ones who can legally make money from alcohol are the corporations who can afford the tax. Something that I hope doesn't happen with cannabis.

[edit on 6-7-2010 by Nutter]

reply to post by zaiger

Depends who you ask advocates either say it is a "weed" and grows it's self with little effort or they will say that it takes hard work to create "good" plants. So if it is easy to grow or not really depends on if it suits your argument. But it is just more activist propaganda, the term "weed" only means a plant that is unwanted in that area so a rose would be a weed in a pumpkin patch. But im not sure how a plant could be evasive.

It doesn't matter whether people like to spend considerable amounts of effort in growing a good plant because the point is, you only need little effort to grow a plant at all. Sure, there are all different things you can do to produce better results but you can still produce adequate results from minimal efforts. If you take a handful of seeds and throw them out into your back yard, chances are, some will germinate and grow. No effort at all.

Compare this with paying through the nose for harmful chemicals pushed on to us by "big pharma". Not only do you pay through the nose, but you also have to make an appointment with the doc, go to that appointment and then take whatever medicine he is pushing for big pharma. You then have to go to the pharmacy and pay through the nose again to recieve whatever medication you were prescribed. Add the fact that these chemicals often have horrible side effects and can be extremely dangerous to one's health and you have a huge hassle, just to be poisoned by big pharma.

Now, when you could simply walk into your back yard or walk into the closet, pick a flowering bud off one of your plants and throw into your dinner or consume it through a vaporizer, really no money at all or even leaving your home.

I think many people would opt for the marijuana, as it is so much easier, cheaper and natural, not to mention you can do it on your own account with out the hassles of doctors, insurance and pharmacies. This is what big pharma is so worried about and the reason why they would rather corner the market with a pill form of the drug (with the same benefits).

--airspoon