All I can say is I’m not surprised. Big Pharma has spent billions on lobbying the FDA, and apparently they also pay millions to well-credentialed “experts” to run their PR campaigns against competitors: in this case, cheap legal marijuana.
VICE has found that many of the researchers who have advocated against legalizing pot have also been on the payroll of leading pharmaceutical firms with products that could be easily replaced by using marijuana. When these individuals have been quoted in the media, their drug-industry ties have not been revealed.
Take, for example, Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University. Kleber has impeccable academic credentials, and has been quoted in the press and in academic publications warning against the use of marijuana, which he stresses may cause wide-ranging addiction and public health issues. But . . . what’s left unsaid is that Kleber has served as a paid consultant to leading prescription drug companies, including Purdue Pharma (the maker of OxyContin), Reckitt Benckiser (the producer of a painkiller called Nurofen), and Alkermes (the producer of a powerful new opioid called Zohydro).
That’s not a conflict of interest or anything. I’m sure the fact that Kleber and so many of his cronies are on the payroll for Big Pharma has no influence at all on their public opinions. Honestly, people, I have nothing personal to gain from this. But the worst and most dangerous drug dealers in this country are not the ones selling weed from their living rooms. They’re the white lab-coated drug “experts” who have the FDA wrapped around their fingers and the media and academia kowtowing to their interests. Do you know how many overdoses there are a year from legal drugs? A lot:
Prescription drug overdoses now claim more lives than heroin and cocaine combined, fueling a doubling of drug-related deaths in the United States over the last decade.
Health and law enforcement officials seeking to curb the epidemic have focused on how OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and other potent pain and anxiety medications are obtained illegally, such as through pharmacy robberies or when teenagers raid their parents’ medicine cabinets. Authorities have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed for them by their doctors.
Do you know how many fatal overdoses there are from marijuana. Zero. You can’t overdose on marijuana. But Big Pharma is your friend. Big Pharma loves you. Right.