@Jinx
@enoch
@VoodooV

Fair point on acceptance, I guess seeing people on TV smoke it and continue to be productive members of society has its benefits in dispelling the fear around it. Not the best comparison but kind of like how the Cosby Show, Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs helped bridge racial tolerance in the 80s by exposing whites to black people on TV and in movies.

Totally with you guys on the hypocrisy of policy, and the libertarian argument.

I don't know how much pharmaceuticals actually care about pot legalization. I mean at this point the likes of Pfizer don't do that much actual research. They buy up other drug companies (Allergan is the recent big example) as well as benefiting from government funded basic research.

If anything what they've become specialized in is getting the drugs approved and adhering to regulation (which they probably helped draft and make complicated to keep their advantage). So if anything they should be well placed to be the first to sell pot based drugs in scale when they get fully legalized.

Prisons and law enforcement is a different issue, they do lose out a lot.

Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
The drug costs $0.10 in India but, thanks to the prohibitive restrictions imposed by the FDA on the manufacture of more generic medicines like Deraprim, it's unavailable to Americans for less than $750. It's true that there are likely to be quality issues with Indian generics, but Pyrimethamine is widely available in Europe and an approval elsewhere ought to translate with reciprocal approval here. It used to cost $1 million to bring a generic to market; now it costs $10 million and that's the direct result of big pharmaceutical companies lobbying the FDA to make it cost prohibitive to bring competitive generics to the market. This is the consequence of government-created monopolies, so this is not so much a issue of "price gouging" and "CEO greed" as it is about government greed and its pursuit of an ever increasing expansion of its political power. But haters gonna hate based on preconceived biases and there's no reasoning or common sense among irrational people.

I wonder if he's not allowed to use Prescott Pharmaceuticals?

False dichotomy. There are without doubt exceptionally ethically dubious practices within the pharmaceutical industry (look up "patent evergreening" for a start).

However that doesn't mean their products don't work.

Oil companies are working hard to protect their profits by actively lying about climate change, but no-one claims that cars could run on a "natural alternative".

Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are all spying on us to one degree or another, but we can still search the web, post stupid photos and ignore each other with our phones.

TL;DR big pharma are dicks, but at least they use science.

Just gonna throw that number out there without a reference? So i looked and the group who came up with that is largely funded by the PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY. Try again
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/upshot/calculating-the-real-costs-of-developing-a-new-drug.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

Dude's eyes... yeah, I'm thinking some sort of recreational pharmaceuticals are involved here...

replying here to avoid hijacking another thread...but leaving it public in case others might be interested in my reasoning, or yours.

Perhaps at times he has advocated responsible use, but often (like this instance) it's nothing more than 'DMT is what you all need, take some'.

I also agree, some people may benefit from psychedelics...but some may have disastrous experiences that end in death or permanent brain damage, especially when not done with pharmaceutical grade substances (which is never mentioned here). You never know what you have on the black market, video's I've seen of testing being done on drugs bought at 'raves' and concerts showed that well over 50% were not what they were supposed to be, or had dangerous adulterants. Unless you pay for testing, you don't know what you've got (sometimes true even with pharmaceuticals, sadly).

I also see it that way, as proselytizing for a drug that can have life altering effects, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. That always leaves out the dangers and usually any warning on how to be 'safe' at all, which leaves some readers thinking there are no dangers. That's my main issue, if there was a clear warning with each advocating instance, I wouldn't complain (but might still disagree that it's good for all).

My point exactly, people are made differently and what works for one may destroy another. That's why blanketly advocating strong drugs is a problem for me.

I have a healthy respect for psychedelics and their effects, especially one's as strong as DMT, which is why I'm disturbed at the off hand, blanket promotion of taking them without clear warnings included.

Ken Kesey beat you to the cult of acid by what, 47 years or so, at least according to Tom Wolfe. (Electric koolaid acid test)

I knew this would happen. Talking to you, too, @oritteropo:

I'm leaving it with just this, because people are attached to their bacon and steaks as tightly as they are tied to religion. Perhaps it's again apples to oranges, but I'm guessing a lot of you are the same folks who rant against religion and wonder why people are so stupid and don't look at logic and science, blah blah blah. This is the perfect time to look in the mirror and see a touch of what you're up against. When you've been indoctrinated with something since you were literally born, you fight against being wrong so hard. So, so hard. Seriously. Take a moment, take a deep breath, and take a little search inside looking at how much of you knows for a fact that eating meat is just fine, and how much of it is cognitive dissonance. How much of it is emotional and how much of it is logical. Look at a video of people going on and on about how Jesus Christ is Lord and another video of people going on and on about how much they love bacon. It's kind of disturbing how zealous bacon-lovers get. Try it. It's fun. It's why I became vegetarian only about 4 or 5 years ago. And I gotta say, getting rid of that cognitive dissonance is very, very relieving and satisfying.

Yes, yes, yes. Loads and loads of vegetarians and vegans are unhealthy. Actually, I would argue that most vegetarians and vegans are wholly less healthy than omnivores since most of them have a high-and-mighty "I'm vegetarians/vegan so I'm automatically healthy" and eat some of the most disgusting, heart-disease-inducing, oily, fatty, un-nutririous, processed shit that's ever been made. Look at some of the fake meat stuff to just have a peek.

No. If you actually watched any of the videos you will see that it's not just being vegan that is important. It's to be a healthy vegan. You know, all that shit you can't ever, ever argue is bad for you. Fruits. Leafy greens. Beans. Lentils. Whole grains, occasionally. But mostly leafy greens and fruit.

And there are loads of studies that control exercise and all sorts of other arguments for "NO NO NO! IT'S NOT MY MEAT! STAY AWAY FROM IT IT'S ANYTHING BUT MY MEAT!". I can think of a specific one that I read/watched about controlling for exercise, and I can find it for you if you'd like, but I'm guessing you aren't really interested. They discovered that very aerobic, exercising, running omnivores were as healthy as lightly walking vegans. He even had a cute graphic for it.

And it's not just this guy, either. Head over to Dr. Fuhrman's website for more of the same. Except Dr. Fuhrman is toting stuff to sell, so that unnerves some people. They claim he's just trying to make a buck. But all the money he makes goes to nutritional research.

The last thing I'll say is this:

I honestly don't give a flying shit about what you eat. I don't really care about the environment at all. I'm not planning on having kids, and I'm sure I'll kick the ol' bucket before antibiotics stop working, water is scarce, the waters rise above NYC, and all the other possible doomsday things that'll probably happen within the next 100 or so years. It's true that I also enjoy not feeling guilty for eating animals who live. It'd make me happy if you stopped eating them because the main thing I believe I'm around for is to minimize suffering in the world. So, that'd be nice if more people didn't eat them.

But if you want to live a nice, long, healthy life where you don't die of a stroke, heart attack, or diabetes by the time you're 65, eat better.

There's a reason why the milk, sugar, meat and pharmaceutical companies pump out study after study about how it's totally fine to eat their shit. They spend so much money on it, it's ridiculous.

Cheers to your health, either way.

Yep, this is currently a big issue with the Trans Pacfic Partnership trade agreement between the US and NZ (among others).

In NZ, there is a government subsidised drug buying agency called Pharmac. It standardises what treatment is used for each disease and as such, buys drugs in bulk at a discount.

The US pharmaceutical industry really wants to get rid of this, so they can shaft NZ like everywhere else, but it would be political suicide to get rid of it.

I respect anyone's choice to do or not do anything they choose. I thought the same way about it until I started to wonder if I wanted to go to my grave not knowing what it felt like out of some stubborn desire to win an imaginary "drug free" sticker at the moment of my death.

I saw some people who smoked it and were a) not addicted or changed by the act and b) functioned excellently and contributed greatly to society (in the form of music and literature and art). So I tried it, and I'd say it taught me a way to cope with my brain and how it works, so I can fight long term depression.

I'm sorry that he didn't stress that there are absolutely no causal links established either between psychosis or education. I still strongly believe that there will be a link between psychosis or mental illness and the willingness or desire to try it - which in turn would give them medicinal relief and in effect they end up unwittingly self medicating. We know it has medicinal qualities as did our ancestors. I think that the link between poverty and social elements greatly affect the uptake rate, having grown up both in council estate (very poor) areas and middle class areas between parents I can vouch for that disparity personally.

I think it's an obvious logical conclusion, and all I need is evidence to disprove it. Until then I certainly will not apologise for using something that has been of the earth for millions of years over something mixed and concocted by pharmaceutical companies that have documented side effects, overdose risk, and actual addiction.

Shame your "evidence" comes from a website that is a front for a law firm to sue pharmaceutical companies.

The reality is that the link between antidepressants and suicide is complex and not fully understood yet. For a start, antidepressants (by their very nature) are prescribed to people who have an increased risk, thus skewing the results. While there may be a link, there's also a serious issue of people who go off their meds having an increased risk.

So it's certainly not as black and white as you paint it.

Yep, this is a big issue in the current Trans Pacific Partnership trade talks between NZ and the US (among others). The NZ drug buying agency Pharmac gets really good bulk prices. The pharmaceutical industry, of course, hates this and the USA are pushing to have this abolished. Luckily that would be political suicide in NZ.

Not true, at least not the primary reason.

The reason they're high is because pharmaceutical companies can get away with charging high prices and reaping high margins, because of their strong competitive position, margins some 50% higher in the US than the EU.

Source

See page 12 - Pre R&D margins are 65% in the US to 43% in the EU.

A big reason for this is the lack of a universal public option, only Medicare exists for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor. With a universal public option like in most developed countries, the monopsony buying power of the government for a much larger part of the population would force down margins.

@ShakaUVM

By that logic, what would make sense is a lower standard of oversight, not none. Scientific studies are not a realistic source of guidance unless you are an expert in the field. Regulatory agencies such as the FDA, should and do exist for the purpose of informing the average consumer. If they are not working they need to be fixed, not circumvented.

If both Zoloft and Wort have discernible and scientifically significant benefits against depression, then medical decisions shouldn't be made by a seemingly arbitrary price classification into pharmaceuticals or alternative supplements.

The problem is, as with any multi billion dollar industry, existing players entrench the status quo. I have no doubt that to some extent existing pharmaceuticals companies benefit from the high barriers to entry the FDA has imposed in being able to deter competition from new starts.

Similarly, they would fight tooth and nail any new and uncertain supplement oversight because of the potential impact on their existing lines of revenue. But purely relying on merit, these are all terrible justifications.

I don't get the wait times argument from those who oppose a single payer system. They clearly never went to an emergency room in the US. I've never had a short wait time in a US ER/Stat Care/Ultra Care type facility. Even when they seem empty it seems like an hour wait before you finally see a doctor. Oh your 2 year old is having a hard time breathing, wait an hour and a half. Your one year old is running a high fever and vomiting, wait two hours. Heck, the wait times to find a doctor if you don't already have a family doctor can be weeks or months, forcing you to go to the ER for stuff you'd probably normally see a doctor for. That isn't an efficient medical system. They anti-single payer people then will say they don't trust the government to make decisions about their health insurance... but they trust the one of the most profitable, per dollar earned, business in the US? (I vaguely recall insurance being number 3 in per dollar earned profits, right behind banks and pharmaceuticals, with a rather large gap to get to number four.) They don't get those huge profits by making decisions in the best interest of the patients and consumers. Walmart could pay $3 more per hour to every employee, give them benefits, increase the work force, and still make profits without raising prices, meaning that while half the work force there needs food stamps now, none would if the company would do the right thing and pay a living wage, but instead we have people mad at the people who work there for not making enough rather than the people who run it... anyhow the point is people like that, who run the business, can't be trusted to make decisions about your health insurance as they only care about their bottom line and their paycheck. Getting you the proper health care costs them money and they will gladly sacrifice you and your family for a better paycheck for them.