Leading Anti-Marijuana Academics Are Paid By Painkiller Drug Companies

[Logical]

Is this a shock to anyone??

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 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 when he's writing anti-pot opinion pieces for CBS News, or being quoted by NPR and CNBC, 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).

More at: https://news.vice.com/article/leading-anti-marijuana-academics-are-paid-by-painkiller-drug-companies

[Avalux]

1. Of course they are! What would happen if *gasp* people stopped buying their drugs?

Their main competitor is mj and they know it. I hate it when docs farm themselves out as experts for the almighty dollar.

[eShirl]

2. the real drug pushers

[MindPilot]

3. Color me shocked!

Not.

A few months ago I was having a chat with a doctor on an airliner; he told me he felt the biggest impediment to public health is the drug research funding structure and FDA approval process. "It is about making money, not people getting better."

[TeamPooka]

4. K&R!

[MADem]

5. Well, who woulda ever thunk it? Those nice pharma people would nev-ah, I say I say, NEV-AH

do such a thang ... would they???????

[Dirty Socialist]

7. LOL!

[Hemmingway]

6. I think it's universally accepted that marihuana is a gateway drug

Prohibition doesn't work but I don't really care if it's ever legal. We don't need more stoners.

[MADem]

8. Universally accepted--in your own private universe? nt

[PatSeg]

17. By Big Pharma

and people who work for them.

[tecelote]

9. Sarcasm... right?

Have another drink.

[Hemmingway]

10. We don't need drunks either.

[tecelote]

11. You said... "Prohibition doesn't work"

So, let's keep jailing our youth. Especially those of color.

Yeah. Yeah!

[tecelote]

12. America, the land of the free?

We hold more prisoners than China!

You can support not legalizing but I will never respect your callous views.

You have said "Screw You" too often.

[Hemmingway]

13. When?

[F4lconF16]

14. I'm sure the only people that will benefit from legalization are stoners.

Not the thousands of people who can use it medically, from cancer patients to epilepsy patients to those suffering from depression. Not the thousands of young black men who are thrown into jail for years because they had a joint on them, and the gradual downfall of the bullshit war on drugs. Not to mention that legalization helps stop the pharmaceutical complex from making absurd profits off of us. There won't be any other benefits, either.

Nope, I'm sure that all legalization will do is create more useless stoners that encourage children to smoke crack.

[Bjorn Against]

15. It is also universally accepted that one puff of the demon weed turns people in to ax murderers

This important documentary provides irrefutable proof that the devil will take control of anyone who takes a puff...

[freebrew]

20. HAHA-you said "stoners"...

do you have any idea?

Cheech and Chong made movies. Real people don't act like that.

Stoners - indeed.

[navarth]

22. gateway drug LOL

you just keep trying to make that point, baby

[bobduca]

23. lol ok, "Hemingway"... so no sugar-free daiquiri for you ?!?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=317128

[Enthusiast]

16. Like the rest of corporate America they want a monopoly.

It's the American way (greedy).

[Uncle Joe]

18. These people have sold their morals and judgment to Big Pharma which

has caused infinitely more addictions deaths than cannabis ever has.

"Just follow the money."

Thanks for the thread, Logical.

[samsingh]

19. i would have guessed that

[samsingh]

21. climate deniers, gun lovers, weed haters are driven by commerce (for the most part)

not everyone, but the companies spurring the public seem to do it for money and not for any bigger purpose.