American Drug Cartels
The United States has been waging a war on drugs in the wrong theater. The biggest drug cartels are right here in our own front yard. They are not over seas; they are not south of the border; they are right here in River City, folks. I am talking about the legal drug pushers - Pharmaceutical companies.
For example, heroin is a bad thing- it is an opiate. It is illegal to consume. However, if you take any other opiate, prescribed by your doctor and made by a legal pharmaceutical company, you're okay; they're really okay. It is legalized drug addiction for profit.
Approximately 100 years ago, heroin was first marketed as “safe” by Bayer and it was widely prescribed to everyone including children. Around the 1920′s heroin was pulled from the market because of its highly addictive nature. This is why the majority of people understand the dangers of heroin. Today, OxyContin and Percocet are two of the frequently prescribed opioids used to treat pain. Both are narcotics containing the active ingredient oxycodone. The molecular structures of heroin and oxycodone are almost identical.
Pain killers are gateway drugs if there ever was. And we worry about the pot from Mexico. Geeze.
Prescription opioid narcotics come from the same place heroin does – the opium poppy. Oxycodone and other legally prescribed opioids mimic the effects of heroin on the body and mind and in fact are used interchangeably by many who are addicted.
Read More here about opiates
Perhaps if we legalized marijuana in the United States, Mexican drug cartels would become less violent. They wouldn't have to smuggle the stuff in the country, they could just pay the taxes for exporting it here. No need for guns and violence.
They [Big Pharma] get you hooked on opiates and when you can no longer afford their pills, you switch to heroin. Hey, it's cheaper and Medicaid won't pay for it; so Congress probably doesn't have a problem with it. If heroin is illegal, Oxycodone should be too. Morphine should also be illegal. But no, we're chasing pot smugglers.
Keep the people so stoned on their pain pills that we can do whatever we want.
And, after your life is destroyed by them (through addiction), they have the nerve to call you a bum; deny you health care, food, a job, etc..
Americans pay up to
60 times more than our international counterparts for the exact same drugs. Why? Because most other nations cap the prices that can be charged for medication. That is precisely why Americans spend more on health care than anyone in any other country in the world. We are not healthier for it either. That, my friends, is the power of single payer health coverge for all. Reduced drug prices for all. The governments who pay the medical bills don't want medication to cost so much, so they do something about it.
What can be done? Government could limit profits on medications. They could impose price caps, like other countries have.
Think of the savings for the government a moment. If drug prices were capped, then Medicare and Medicaid would not be on the hook for such charges. Insurance premiums could come down too. It is win-win for everyone but the
American drug cartels. Let's call them what they really are.
The only ones who lose in a price capped market are the pushers. And the Congressmen whom they don't get elected.
Out of the top 12, largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, six of them are in the United States.
Something I have always been curious about is why can drug companies afford to give drugs away for free, but they don't seem to be able to reduce the cost across the board. That doesn't make sense to me.
Why is it that the pharmaceutical wedge in the American pie is so much larger than any other health care related expense? Spending on pharmaceuticals has risen 114% in recent years. How much money do these guys need? Are we healthier for it? I don't think so. They charge Americans way too much money for what they offer. And, after you take the crap, you get to sue for damages. Remember, there is no profit in cure. Only in repeat customers. So, hoping that a drug company will come up with a cure for anything is like hoping your new puppy won't poop in the house. Ain't gonna happen unless you step up and teach them that pooping in the house is not okay. We need to teach drug companies it isn't okay to poop on us.
Most of the drugs they make have side effects which require more drugs. Funny how that works. I would think people would be smarter than that, but, I guess not.
And the disclaimers: Make sure your heart is healthy enough for sex. It should say, make sure your heart is healthy enough to take these pecker pills. All those drugs are bad for your heart, but they blame it on the sex. That is too funny. Never mind the fact that the drug makes your heart weaker, it is your fault for that heart attack because you were pumping the Mrs.. Too strenuous.
Think the FDA works for you? Guess again. If elections can be bought by the Kochs, the FDA most certainly be bought by Big Pharma.
More reading on corruption and the FDA.
Most drug studies don't even see the light of day. Studies are cherry picked to support the desired decision. If you spend any time looking, you'll find the buried studies from the 1970's that demonstrate marijuana's medicinal value and non-addictive properties. However, someone didn't want that to affect law or policy, so it was buried. The government did lots of studies, but didn't like the results, so they didn't tell anyone. They went as far as to deny them. Google it if you don't believe me.
So, if American drug companies are the cartels, who are the pushers? Doctors, of course.
True story: I went to the doctor, complaining of pain in various parts of my body. He asked me if I wanted pain pills; I said no, and he left the exam room never to return. Several years later, I was diagnosed by another doctor as having Multiple Sclerosis. The first doctor wanted nothing to do with me if he couldn't prescribe a pill. He wasn't interested in the cause of my pain, only in the kickback he'd get for writing me a prescription for a highly addictive drug.
Make no mistake, doctors who prescribe a lot of drugs are compensated very well.
I read somewhere that the majority of medical schools teach doctors to diagnose and prescribe. Is it any wonder, since many
medical schools are owned by
pharmaceutical companies>?
According to Toke of the Town (Don’t be judgmental! Their sources are legit.), over 50 percent of Americans are on a prescription drug right now, and around 50 percent of doctors admit to prescribing drugs they don’t believe will work. Stop. Rub your eyes, and read that again. Soak it in.
If medicine isn’t working, why aren’t doctors focusing on something else? Did you know that, up until recently, U.S. pharmaceutical companies funded the majority of U.S. medical schools with very little regulation?
And they claim they need to charge these prices to recoup on their R&D. Yeah... Right!
In 2008, AMSA (American Medical Student Association), in collaboration with The Pew Charitable Trusts, uncovered just how extensively pharmaceutical companies influenced medical institutions in the U.S. AMSA created a conflict-of-interests scorecard to show just how ethically academia was interacting with the pharmaceutical business:
40 out 150 schools received an “F”, including Harvard, which had no conflict-of-interests policies in place. (Note: Harvard received an “A” on the next survey.)
Less than 15 percent of medical schools scored an “A” or “B,” insinuating the overwhelming majority of doctors have received a severely skewed education.
The real reason the Pharmaceutical companies do not embrace medical marijuana is because they can't put a patent on it. It occurs naturally and therefore it is outside the realm of patent medicine. It may even cure some of the things they make other potions for and that would deplete the return customer base. No profit.
The government has increased the cost of marijuana exponentially through taxes. What once cost $200 is now approximately being sold, legally for $580. That's right; an ounce of pot that once sold for $200 is now $580. at a dispensary. That is $20.00 per gram. Is that crazy, or what? So, our government is no better than the drug companies. They've taxed the hell out of the stuff, just like with tobacco and alcohol. We pay a sin tax on medical marijuana. Do we pay a sin tax on opiates, or any other pharmaceutical? Nope.
If the government really wanted to do something about the addictive properties of cigarettes, they'd make the manufacturers stop adding chemicals to their product. It isn't the tobacco that is addictive, it is the chemicals they add to the tobacco. Why don't they legislate this issue? Because the more people smoke the more tax dollars roll in.
So, is the government looking out for us, the consumer? Nope, they are just as greedy as the rest of them. They want tax money and they don't care how they get it, as long as it doesn't come from the pockets of their corporate donors. Poor people pay taxes in some form every day. Whether it is on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, or building materials. We pay sales tax. We pay gasoline tax. We pay all kinds of taxes, but the government refuses to help those in need. While protecting the wealth of the 1%. Is that crazy or what? Wealth is more important that health.
Let's fight the drug war the right way. Let's go after Big Pharma. No one should have to choose between taking their medication and eating. The Mexican cartels are nothing compared to the American cartels.
They make and sell dangerous, addictive crap legally. The manufacturers are the cartels and the doctors are the pushers. All 100% legal; and we put pot smokers in prison.
We need a government that works for the people who do the work. A government that does not waste money fighting a war on drugs in other countries, and caps prices on the legal Cartels right here at home. If other countries can limit profits and prices on these drug companies' products, then why can't we? Could it be the power of the Almighty Dollar? Elitist greed, perhaps?
They don't care about you; they care about your money and where you spend it.
A great place to start reducing the cost of health care is to regulate the profit margins of these Cartels. You don't have to take health care away from people, just force these multi-national corporations to reduce their profit margins; cap their prices. It's not hard- Just Say No! No to high prices.
Sun May 17, 2015 at 6:37 AM PT: Generic drug companies and brand name drugs come from the same places.
http://pharma.about.com/... That is why the price on generics keeps going up. Drug companies are their own competition. So much for free market.
Mon May 18, 2015 at 8:47 AM PT:
In addition to the traditional behavioral self-help groups and programs available for rehabilitation, there is a varied array of preventive and therapeutic approaches to combating addiction. For example, a common treatment option for opiate addiction is methadone maintenance. This process consists of administering the drug, a potent opiate with some potential for abuse, as a drink in a supervised clinical setting. In this way, the brain opiate levels increase slowly without producing the high but remain in the system long enough to deter addicts from injecting heroin.
Thanx again wiki