We are a clever species. This means we can also be devious: using our cleverness to deceive and/or harm others.
This capacity to be devious means that people can extract evil from almost any concept. Even a children’s nursery rhyme.
No one is more devious than Big Pharma.
Drug companies can make reasonable profits producing drugs that make sick people healthy. However, drug companies can make much more money by selling drugs that make (relatively) healthy people sick.
It’s a strategy (and business model) that is all laid out in a popular children’s nursery rhyme. Here is an abbreviated version.
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider.
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die…
…There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly
Perhaps she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse
She’s dead, of course.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly,
Perhaps she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a spider.
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die…
…There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
I don’t know why she swallowed a fly
Perhaps she’ll die.
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse
She’s dead, of course.
Why does Big Pharma invest so much time-and-effort to sell drugs that make healthy people sick? For the $1 trillion per year in revenues that these multinational corporations take in each year.
How is Big Pharma able to succeed with its devious nursery-rhyme business model?
Because Big Pharma has trained our physicians well. Big Pharma invests enormous amounts of energy in promoting and “educating” (read: programming) physicians about its drugs.
When doctors prescribe a drug that makes someone sick (via side effects), they don’t look to get the patient off that drug. Instead, physicians prescribe a second Big Pharma drug – to treat the symptoms of the first drug. And then sometimes a third drug, and a fourth drug, and even a fifth drug.
Ever watch the commercials that Big Pharma produces today for its toxic chemicals? Often nearly half the commercial is used up in warning consumers about a long list of dangerous and even deadly side effects.
First Big Pharma gets people to swallow the fly, when they don’t really need the fly.
Then doctors prescribe “a spider to catch the fly.”
Then they prescribe “a bird to catch the spider.”
Then they prescribe “a cat to catch the bird.”
And on and on.
- Roughly 70% of Americans are being prescribed at least one prescription drug.
- More than 50% of Americans are being prescribed at least two prescription drugs.
- And 20% of Americans are being prescribed five or more prescription medications.
Big Pharma’s nursery rhyme business model is even more effective (and deadly) with older people.
- More than 80% of older patients (ages 57 to 85) use at least one prescription medication daily.
- More than 50% take more than five medications or supplements daily.
Does Big Pharma really get doctors to regularly prescribe drugs that patients don’t need? Yes.
A flagrant example is anti-depressants.
Anti-depressants are dangerous drugs. Indeed, they have a long list of potential side effects that (ironically) include an increased risk of suicide.
Anti-depressants also have terrible efficacy. In lab testing, anti-depressants are only slightly more effective than placebos.
Put another way, nearly 50% of the Americans who are being prescribed anti-depressants would get just as much benefit from a non-medicinal placebo, without any risk of side effects. But in the United States, “placebo therapy” is illegal – just like cannabis.
Let’s put some numbers on this outrageous fact.
Roughly 13% of all Americans are being prescribed anti-depressants – even children. That’s roughly 44 million Americans. And approximately 21 million Americans would get just as much benefit from a non-medicinal placebo.
That’s 21 million American men, women and children who are needlessly (and dangerously) being prescribed anti-depressants. And that is just one medication out of Big Pharma’s big bag of toxic chemicals.
It gets worse.
Big Pharma particularly preys upon older women with these dangerous anti-depressants.
White women over 45 account for about one-fifth of the adult population but account for 41 percent of antidepressant users, up from about 30 percent in 2000, the analysis found. Older white women account for 58 percent of those on antidepressants long term.
Enter cannabis.
Cannabis is safe. It’s non-toxic and non-addictive. Cannabinoids (the active ingredients in cannabis) are produced naturally in the human body. They are essential to human health.
Because of this, cannabis has an enormous number of medicinal applications. It is currently being used as a medicinal therapy by millions of people in North America, to treat hundreds of different medical conditions.
Cannabis can make sick people healthy. But because cannabis is so safe, it doesn’t make healthy people sick. For this reason, cannabis is a major threat to much (most?) of Big Pharma’s $1 trillion per year in revenues.
Example: opioids.
Thanks to the drug-pushers of Big Pharma, opioid overdoses kill more than 40,000 Americans each year. They are responsible for roughly two-thirds of all drug overdose deaths in the U.S.
These drugs are highly toxic as well as being extremely addictive. Thus, any prolonged use of these drugs can cause other health issues and lead to death via other causes (such as liver failure).
Opioids are also a big money-maker for Big Pharma. The global market for opioids is valued at over $26 billion per year. In a world with hundreds of thousands of pharmaceutical products, Big Pharma gets more than 4% of its $1 trillion per year in revenues from just this one class of drugs.
Cannabis is a threat to those billions.
In a recent study conducted with 600 chronic pain patients who were heavy opioid users (addicted):
- 81% were able to reduce their opioid consumption
- 26% stopped taking opioids completely and were cured of their addiction
Separate studies have showed that legalizing cannabis can reduce opioid deaths from 20 – 35%.
Cannabis is not contra-indicated with respect to any pharmaceutical. This means it can be safely used to address other forms of prescription drug addiction.
With its relaxation and ant-anxiety properties, cannabis can be prescribed as a replacement for anti-depressants and/or sedatives. It’s already being increasingly used as a successful treatment for PTSD. Sedatives, in particular, are also highly addictive and widely prescribed.
Altogether, 1 out of 6 Americans takes some form of “psychiatric drug” (that includes sedatives). Deaths from sedative overdoses have “soared in recent years”. Even more dangerously, increasing numbers of Americans are mixing deadly opioids with deadly sedatives.
More dead Americans = more profits for Big Pharma.
No one has ever died from a cannabis overdose.
Big Pharma kills. Cannabis saves lives.
Big Pharma makes people sicker. Cannabis makes people healthier.
Big Pharma addicts. Cannabis can be used to treat addiction.
It is for these reasons that Big Pharma has been (and continues to be) a driving force behind cannabis Prohibition.
Legalized cannabis means healthier societies. For Big Pharma, that’s bad for business. Very bad for business.