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More Proof That Pill Companies Support Pot Prohibitionists
Lee Fang has delivered yet another crippling blow to the prohibition movement with a recent article for VICE that exposes how prohibitionists receive funding from pharmaceutical companies.
The title says it all: “LEADING ANTI MARIJUANA ACADEMICS ARE PAID BY PAINKILLER COMPANIES”.
In an article published by the Nation in July, Fang described the insidious relationship between multi billion dollar corporations like Purdue Pharma and many of the country’s largest anti-drug advocacy groups. Among those involved were Patrick Kennedy and Kevin Sabet’s infamous Project SAM, whose relationship with Purdue Pharma is especially ironic considering that Kennedy’s life was once de-railed by Purdue’s best selling product: Oxycontin.
In his expose for VICE, Fang articulates this point with no strings attached:
“As Americans continue to embrace pot – as medicine and for recreational use – opponents are turning to a set of academic researchers to claim that policymakers should avoid relaxing restrictions around marijuana. It’s too dangerous, risky, and untested, they say. Just as drug company-funded research has become incredibly controversial in recent years, forcing major medical schools and journals to institute strict disclosure requirements, could there be a conflict of interest issue in the pot debate?
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 easily be replaced by using marijuana. When these individuals have been quoted in the media, their drug industry ties have not been revealed.”
The academics mentioned in the article include Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University, Dr. A Eden Evins, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and current board member of Project SAM, and Dr. Mark L. Kraus, who is currently serving as a board member to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
To varying degrees, these three highly vocal academics have consulted for and or received grants from major drug companies that have reaped massive profits from America’s endemic addiction to opioids.
The United States sees some 16,000 opioid related deaths a year. As Fang so eloquently puts it, we are the “overdose capital of the world.”
Whether these three experts think they are doing the right thing or whether they are selfishly working to preserve a profitable status quo, they’re clearly standing in the way of a safer, non-overdose-able alternative to opioids is costing lives.
[VICE]
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2014/09/more-proof-that-pill-companies-support-pot-prohibitionists/
