Patrick Kennedy: A 'Useful Idiot' for Big PHARMA?

According to a story on page 4A of today's Denver Post ('Kennedy Plans Crusade Against Legal Pot') the son of Edward Kennedy and former U. S. Representative for Rhode Island, has formed a bunch with the acronymn SAM ('Smart Approaches to Marijuana') to wage an all out crusade against any further legalization of pot. His solution? According to the article, in the case of cancer patients and others in severe pain, he wants them to get their relief via DRUGS containing cannabinoids, which would be regulated by the FDA.  In other words, this "liberal" wants people suffering from cancer and wracked with pain to help fill the monstrous coffers of Big PHrMA even further!  Isn't it enough that the bastards have rejected every call to permit the government from bargaining for the lowest prescription drug prices - for Medicare- thereby adding $100b to our deficits each year? And now Kennedy wants to compound it?

 Jeezus peace, man! I know you've been out of the political spotlight for a while, but this isn't the way to get back in or gain attention! The article does mention Kennedy's prior problems with oxycodone, but that's a different breed of 'fish' from MJ. For one thing, the addictive levels are far higher with any kind of opioids, while MJ - whether in cookie form or smoked, merely produces a mild high. There is no evidence whatever of ongoing addiction as there is for the opioids.

Further, the cannabinoids drug idea isn't even new! A hyper-conservative stooge (Niall Ferguson)  first proposed it in an article in TIME  (‘How Marijuana Got Mainstreamed’ (Nov. 22, 2010) which claimed without any evidence at all that the medical marijuana laws and systems set up for example in Colorado and California were merely a cover to "mainstream pot" and get it accepted and legalized through the back door. It's hard to believe such codswallop could be generated, but then one saw the conservative connection - a la the Weekly Standard of Bill Kristol!

 As I pointed out in a letter to TIME's editors, the point is that many legitimately sick people (including those on chemo) now have an option apart from being in the maw of the profiteers at Big PhrmA. That a “high” is often an accompaniment ought to be applauded, not condemned.  But we have way too many Puritans still lurking around who would deny and prohiibit ANY sensate experience or pleasures at all - which subject I will get to in a future plog on the "jen ratio" and goodness and why the U.S. suffers from a low jen ratio and social pathology..

 What is the difference anyway between someone whose chronic pain is dulled, and who feels a little euphoria from a medicinal joint, and a person taking Vicodin or a cannabinoid prescribed by a PhrmA outfit? Well, in the first case, the person isn’t hostage to a drug maker’s lobby! The fact that someone from the conservative Weekly Standard wrote the piece is also nothing to commend it. The fact that Patrick Kennedy now supports a similar strategy puts him directly in the same camp as the denizens of the Weekly Standard.

The fact is, Colorado's MJ laws are under rigorous regulation by the state's own systems. Hence, standards are assured and patients can be confident of what they are getting...in whatever form. Further, the tax revenue from the sales go directly back into the state's hands and can be used for education, health and other needs. This is as opposed to more profits for Big PhRma so they can ply the TV waves with even more Nexium Viagra, and Cialis ads!

Patrick, you need to pull your head out of your butt and get on the right side of this issue. Don't be like Don Quixote tilting at windmills generated in your febrile mind! Don't be a useful idiot for the Big Pharma corporate pigs!