Big Pharma Controls Cannabis Research



In 1976, when it was thought that research into the medicinal use of cannabis was about to take off, a ban on cannabis research was accomplished when American pharmaceutical companies successfully petitioned the federal government to be the only ones allowed to finance and judge 100% of cannabis research.

According to the research conducted by Jack Herer in "The Emperor Wears No Clothes":



"The previous ten years of research prior to 1976 had indicated a tremendous promise for the therapeutic uses of natural cannabis, and this potential was quietly turned over to corporate hands – not for the benefit of the public, but to suppress the medical information.



This plan, the drug manufacturers petitioned, would allow our private drug companies time to come up with patentable synthetics of the cannabis molecules at no cost to the federal government, and a promise of “no highs.”



In 1976, the Ford Administration, NIDA and the DEA said in effect, no American independent (read: university) research or federal health program would be allowed to again investigate natural cannabis derivatives for medicine. This agreement was made without any safeguards guaranteeing integrity on the part of the pharmaceutical companies; they were allowed to regulate themselves.

Private pharmaceutical corporations were allowed to do some “no high” research, but it would be only Delta-9 THC research, not any of the 400 other potentially therapeutic isomers in cannabis.

Why did the drug companies conspire to take over marijuana research? 

Because U.S. government research (1966-76) had indicated or confirmed through hundreds of studies that even “natural” crude cannabis was the “best and safest medicine of choice” for many serious health problems.



Protecting Pharmaceutical Companies’ Profits NORML, High Times, and Omni (September 1982) indicate that Eli Lilly, Abbott Labs, Pfizer, Smith, Kline & French, and others would lose hundreds of millions, to billions of dollars annually, and lose even more billions in Third World countries, if marijuana were legal in the U.S.*



* Remember, in 1976, the last year of the Ford Administration, these drug companies, through their own persistence (specifically intense lobbying) got the federal government to cease all positive research into medical marijuana."

The drug companies effectively took control over all research of cannabis and cannabinoids. Eli Lilly came out with Nabilone and later Marinol, synthetic second cousins of THC Delta-9, and promised the government great results.

Unfortunately, cannabinoids produced in a lab are a dismal failure relative to the synergistic effect obtained from the plant as a whole.



The Pharmaceutical companies of Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others stand to lose at least a third of their entire, highly profitable, patent monopoly on such drugs as Darvon, Tuinal, Seconal, and Prozac if Big Pharma lost their control of the cannabis plant.


Is it a surprise to learn that American drug companies and certain pharmacy groups provides the funding for almost half of each of the 4,000 “Families Against Marijuana” type organizations in America? 

The other half is supplied by Action (a federal VISA agency); tobacco companies like Philip Morris; liquor and beer makers like Anheuser Busch, Coors, etc.; or as a “public service” by the ad agencies who represent them.

In conclusion, most studies (matched populations, past and present) indicate that everything else being equal, an average cannabis smoker will actually live longer than his counterpart who does not utilize cannabis; with fewer wrinkles, and generally less stress thereby having fewer illnesses to upset the immune system.

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