
The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal - elleferrer
http://www.thenation.com/article/180493/anti-pot-lobbys-big-bankroll
======
refurb
I'll bet the reason why the drug companies are funding anti-drug organizations
are simpler than what the author is suggesting. They aren't doing it because
they think marijuana will steal all their market share.

Companies like Purdue produce prescription drugs that can be easily abused.
Purdue pulled some really stupid moves that made it a whole lot easier for
abuse of their product. They are funding the anti-drug coalition because it
makes for good PR.

"What is Purdue doing about drug abuse??"

"In addition to encouraging the appropriate use of our pain medicine, we are
also funding community programs to help stop our children from using illegal
drugs."

~~~
MichaelGG
Making pain relievers "a whole lot easier for abuse" is a good thing. Many
people would like to obtain IV solutions, but due to monetary/legal
restrictions, have trouble doing so. Instead, they must use other products and
convert them into a IV solution. By removing the "anti abuse" parts, Purdue
can ensure less people are harmed performing an improper injection.

------
rayiner
The reason pot is still illegal is because public opinion just shifted in
favor of legalization last year, and the attitude among likely voters (skew
older than the general population), probably is still against. See:
[http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-
supports...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports-
legalizing-marijuana)

The real reason isn't lobbyists. The real reason is soccer moms and dads and
baby boomers, who vote in droves, who are convinced that pot will make their
kids sit around and mastrubate all day. The ones that hold monthly anti-drug
assemblies in school where they shriek "just say no!" at the top of their
lungs.

~~~
snitko
Voters don't decide anything. They don't vote for laws, they vote for
politcians which after being elected have very little incentive to serve the
voters and all the incentives in the world to serve the corporations. It's
almost unseen for a politician to lose his job, and it's easier and more
profitable for him to lie throughout his term than to do good for his voters.

However you wanted it to be otherwise, politics still obeys economic laws, and
the incentive for a politician will always be in the wrong place.

~~~
rayiner
The marijuana situation is a great example of precisely why that assertion is
wrong. Public opinion shifts, and within a couple of years, places all over
the country are decriminalizing. You think the corporations have let up in the
last couple of years? What's the more rational explanation of the data?

~~~
snitko
And how long did it take? And how many staes is it legal in? Surely, at some
point politicians have to bend in and go with the voters, but it takes such a
long time and so many people suffer in the process, that you start asking
yourself, is this democracy thing worth all the people to rot in jail for
victimless crimes?

~~~
gizmo686
The US has a population of 318 million. We would expect change to be slow.

~~~
snitko
Tell this to people in jail. Anyone can change rather fast. You don't need
government or political authority to change. The only thing a society has to
change together is to realize that (quote from Leo Tolstoy): _" without
Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under
existing conditions... it [anarchy] will be instituted only by there being
more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power
and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this
power."_

------
justinator
From TFA:

> Prescription opioids, a line of pain-relieving > medications derived from
> the opium poppy or produced > synthetically, are the most dangerous drugs
> abused in > America, with more than 16,000 deaths annually linked to >
> opioid addiction and overdose.

But, that's wrong.

[http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-
use.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm)

"There are approximately 88,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use
each year in the United States.1 This makes excessive alcohol use the 3rd
leading lifestyle-related cause of death for the nation.2 Excessive alcohol
use is responsible for 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL)
annually, or an average of about 30 years of potential life lost for each
death.1 In 2006, there were more than 1.2 million emergency room visits and
2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking.3 The economic
costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5
billion.3"

~~~
adventured
And of course cigarettes are far more dangerous health wise than alcohol. With
the cigarette being the drug delivery method, as an beverage is the delivery
method for the alcohol.

[http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/healt...](http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/)

"More than 480,000 deaths annually (including deaths from secondhand smoke)"

"Life expectancy for smokers is at least 10 years shorter than for nonsmokers"

------
MichaelGG
What a terrible, lying, article.

"Prescription opioids ... are the most dangerous drugs abused in America"

That's patently untrue. Alcohol is far more harmful, as is smoking. Their
opiate death counts probably also include deaths from combinations of drugs.
And, the antidote for opiate overdose (Naloxone) is difficult to obtain.

The article goes onto say that painkillers are "overprescribed". What does
that even mean? Sounds like they're simply disagreeing with somebody else's
choice to use opiates. Which is thing they're arguing against with pot.

The article further spins Zohydro as some terrible thing, when it's really
just the removal of a denaturing agent from hydrocodone tablets. But the
article states it as "ten times stronger than OxyContin", which is a
nonsensical fabrication.

~~~
cmdrfred
Many Americans do not consider alcohol or tobacco a "drug", while this is
patently illogical, this may be more of a poor use of language than an
outright fabrication.

As for opioids and their over prescription I ask you to look into the case of
Florida and the "Pill Mills". You don't see drug companies lobbing to shut
these down, nor do you see them refusing to sell their products to these
obviously corrupt organizations.

~~~
vacri
It's not patently illogical, it's just a matter of where you draw the line.
People rarely call sucrose or fructose drugs, yet they're chemical compounds
that you put into your body to alter your mood.

~~~
cmdrfred
Not many people take sucrose to get impaired, the intent of an alcohol drinker
(despite the protestations that they "like the taste", "are a wine
connoisseur" or "drink socially") is to get drunk.

Tobacco users are simply addicted, and use the drug to return to a state of
normality.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
> Tobacco users are simply addicted, and use the drug to return to a state of
> normality.

So do coffee users, ice cream users and chocolate "users".

------
tptacek
If corporations are the primary influencer in cannabis public policy, why
aren't they taking to the airwaves to influence public opinion? That's what
corporations do when they want to influence other public policy issues; they
ran commercials all through the health care debate.

------
chx
This is complicated as usual. There are quite a few people who gain power
(think police) and/or wealth (think private prisons) from the War on Drugs.

~~~
oldmanjay
Hell, it's a public jobs program at this point. There's a lot of good-paying
work in saving people from themselves.

------
buckbova
This isn't the only country where pot is illegal and I doubt it's "big pharma"
behind every country where the drug is prohibited.

~~~
LeeHunter
But when other countries have tried to loosen their drug enforcement policies
it is the US that has historically leaned against them very hard with the big
sticks of trade sanctions and development aid.

------
Scitr
"Overall, we find that the impact of decriminalization is concentrated amongst
minors, who have a higher rate of uptake in the first five years following its
introduction."

[http://scitr.com/a2a](http://scitr.com/a2a)

"Early initiation of cannabis use and regular use during adolescence are
particular risk factors for later problematic cannabis and other drug use, as
well as mental health problems, delinquency, loss of cognitive capacity and
educational achievement, risky sexual behavior and criminal offending."

[http://scitr.com/a29](http://scitr.com/a29)
[http://scitr.com/a2b](http://scitr.com/a2b)

------
n0rm
any TL;DR?

~~~
elleferrer
tl;dr: Pot is illegal because of the money coming in from big Pharma companies
to keep it down, since they will lose money once legalization occurs.
Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA) is hypocritical in it's war
against marijuana while choosing to ignore the dangers of opioids and related
prescription drugs.

Also, law enforcement is lobbying hard to keep the status quo since property
seizures from pot activities are a major source of income to law enforcement
since the Reagan administration.

"Legalizing marijuana could, however, hurt the bottom line of drug companies
that make money off drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin."

~~~
refurb
I find the "bottom line" argument to be pretty weak. Marijuana is not going to
replace pain killers like Oxycontin or Vicodin.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Not as prescribed, no, but as an alternative recreational drug is less far-
fetched. What surprises me more frankly is that no large corporations appear
to be gearing up to enter the legal pot market (think BT developing solar
power; can't hurt to diversify...).

~~~
refurb
If that were true, that legal marijuana leads to less abuse of "harder" drugs
like opioids, then the drug companies should be happy about that.

They might have been able to make more money off their drugs when people
abused them, but not really anymore. It's a pretty big social issue now and
companies are trending pretty lightly in this area.

------
drakaal
While Marijuana may have uses for medicine. As a recreational drug, I think
the in ability to easily check when you consumed it, or to have a high as a
result of just burning off fat. (it is fat soluble, and you can end up high
even years later if you burn enough calories) Makes it harder to enforce
responsible use than say alcohol.

I don't think we want pilots, surgeons, or police doing their jobs while high,
and since the buzz could come quite a long time after consumption that would
always be a risk.

Hemp is often promised to be this miracle product that will solve all of our
problems, but visiting places where hemp is legal we don't see massive
quantities of it.

We import cotton, and bamboo, but you don't see many hemp t-shirts.

We even import paper, which is one of the things Hemp is pretty decent at. But
we don't see much Hemp paper. Turns out ink doesn't stick to it as well as it
does to Wood pulp and cotton blends.

The real reason Pot is still illegal is that it is dangerous to those who
aren't consuming it. A stoned Doctor might not smell of it, might not have any
real outwards signs, and then could get the giggles when he nicked an artery.

Edit: Years may have been a stretch. Looks like 7 days has been shown in a
lab, and the CDC thinks weeks. [http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/one-
toke-many-hits-exe...](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/one-toke-many-
hits-exe..).
[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm)

~~~
bpeebles
Do you have any links to actual studies that find you can get high by burning
fat "even years later"? Everything I've read has said that some of the
metabolites of THC can be stored in fat--and those are the actual compounds
tested by "marijuana" tests, but THC itself isn't stored in the human body
after the initial processing even if it is fat soluble itself.

Lengths of high vary, but so do lengths of being drunk. And lengths of
undergoing caffeine or nicotine withdrawal or being high on them.

~~~
drakaal
Years may have been a stretch. Looks like 7 days has been shown in a lab, and
the CDC thinks weeks.

[http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/one-toke-many-hits-
exe...](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/one-toke-many-hits-exercise-
could-trigger-additional-high-for-marijuana-users/)

[http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm)

