Big Pharma Developing Ersatz Weed Treatment
May 29th, 2009 by Russ
Large conglomerates and multinational corporations seem to be intent on sucking the fun out of just about everything. It seems that they’ve now set their sights on doing this to weed. English Pharma Behemoth, GW Pharmaceuticals, is now seeking approval of Sativex, a marijuana-based nasal spray.
GW Pharma has assured investors that they have meticulously extracted only the finest, most potent cannabanoids from “proprietary” strains of gourmet marijuana grown in the richest most fertile soil, lovingly drawn from the moist nether regions of mother Earth. The company is very quick to congratulate itself on creating a drug that provides all of the benefits of weed with few of the undesirable ’side effects.’ In other words, GW claims to have developed a medicinal form of weed that doesn’t get you high.
As with the pharmaceutical industry at large, this medicine wasn’t developed with any societal good in mind. This is merely an attempt to seize as much market share as possible from a medical marijuana gold rush that appears to be in full frenzy. As we have learned from an industry that spends two-thirds of its research budget on copycat drugs, Big Pharma isn’t out to help anyone other than its own investors.
Unfortunately for GW, a cold corporate mindset can’t accurately wrap itself around weed culture. No self-respecting weed connoisseur will spend 10 to 20 times the price of natural herb for a product that is peddled as ‘refined.’ There is already a whole spectrum of refined greenery.
For instance, anyone with a passing familiarity with weed already knows that vaporization allows the ingestion of THC without inhaling particulate matter and allows for a much more mellow high. Sounds a lot more pleasant than shoving a dispenser up one’s nose.
2008 Indicates Decrease in Pharmaceutical Use
May 19th, 2009 by Erin
For the first time in a decade, prescription drug use in the U.S. declined last year. Medco Health Solutions said that it was because more popular drugs became available without a prescription and few new drugs were released last year (not to mention certain safety issues that some medications faced.)
This isn’t to say that people weren’t buying drugs; total spending actually increased by 3.3 percent; people are just buying brand name products, despite their 8 percent price increase in 2008. Drug prices increase as the patent expiration date approaches, and after it does, generic versions hit the market for a fraction of the price.
Medco predicts an increase of about 4 to 7 percent in spending over the next couple of years; possibly due to the increase in prescriptions for kids age 19 and younger (due to the rising rate of diabetes and ADD cases.) Formerly prescription-only drugs, the biggest being Zyrtec and Miralax, changed to over-the-counter last year, reducing overall prescriptions.
As you may or may not have noticed, several drugs were substantially affected due to safety concerns. The FDA added new warning labels about heart problems to the diabetes-targeted Avandia, and sales of Aranesp, a drug used for treating anemia in chemotherapy patients. The sale of these particular products have rapidly declined ever since they were connected to the growth of tumors.
Product recalls also hurt the sales of some migraine, cold and cough medicines.
Eminem Almost Died by Pharm Overdose
May 6th, 2009 by Rick
Relapse isn’t just a word Eminem used for the title of his new album, it’s something that he’s recently experienced. In an interview, Eminem confessed that while he was away from the scene, he became addicted to pills like: Vicodin, Ambien, and Valium. He first sought rehab in 2005.
It’s no secret I had a drug problem. [...] in a recent interview. “If I was to give you a number of Vicodin I would actually take in a day? Anywhere between 10 to 20. Valium, Ambien… the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking.
After a stay in rehab, Eminem had a near fatal overdose of an unidentified (at the time) blue pill called methadone.
My doctor told me the amount of methadone I’d taken was equivalent to shooting up four bags of heroin. [...] I probably wouldn’t have taken it. But as bad as I was back then, I can’t even say 100 percent for sure.
After that, Eminem managed to detox but after a painful knee surgery he was on the edge of another relapse and because of his past drug abuse history doctors wouldn’t prescribe him anything.
I started looking around my house to see if I had a stash box of Vicodin. [...] I’m ransacking my house, finally find something in the basement, in a little napkin, seven and a half Vicodin — the big extra strength ones — and a few Valium.
These days he realizes he was an addict:
It never once hit me that drug addiction runs in my family. Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.
He’s been clean for over a year now. He feels he slipped away when he left the limelight, because the music wasn’t bringing him that same feeling he had back in the days when he was addicted to music.
Rap was my drug. It used to get me high and then it stopped getting me high. Then I had to resort to other things to make me feel that.
Em’s new album, Relapse, drops May 19th and another album is scheduled to be released later this year.
