HEALTH CONFLICTS: WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC INCENTIVES OF DRUG COMPANIES?
Another party interested in keeping marijuana illegal for economic reasons is the pharmaceutical industry. Drug companies make money essentially in two ways. First, they provide their customers with drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Obtaining approval, though, can be a daunting task. Drug companies can spend anywhere from 80 to 100 million dollars in the testing and development phase before receiving approval from the FDA. Of course, there is never a guarantee that the FDA will grant approval. These costs, including presumably the calculated risk of a loss, of course, are passed on to customers in the price they pay for these drugs. Drug companies may also apply for patents that protect the development of new drugs. This is another source of wealth for these companies.
By keeping marijuana illegal, drug companies have the opportunity to develop cannaboids, or drugs that employ the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, which also cause the sensation and feeling a marijuana smoker might experience. However, this requires the companies to go through the rigorous and expensive testing procedures that are required for any drug being offered on the market. A successful development, though, will lead to profits from sales and probably a valuable patent for the company.
Oftentimes, though, the cannaboids developed by the drug companies are ingested orally and must infiltrate the blood stream before the patient experiences any effect. This may be too long of a delay for the patient experiencing nausea immediately after chemotherapy and the results may last too long afterward. By giving patients marijuana cigarettes, the patient can determine the dosage required to reduce whatever negative effects they desire to avoid. And as mentioned elsewhere, there is no threat that the patient will overdose on marijuana.
Also, the drug companies will charge an exorbitant amount for these newly developed drugs; they will be prohibitively expensive for many patients. [The average street price of marijuana per pound can be found at
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/laws/prices.html] Indeed, one of the advantages of marijuana is that it can be obtained relatively cheaply.Drug companies may be in favor of legalizing marijuana in its traditional smokable form only if they have control over its production. Again, though, that would put marijuana within the ambit of the FDA. Additionally, drug companies would be less enthusiastic about such a proposal since part of the advantage of developing new drugs is the patent. Since marijuana is a plant, it cannot be patented. Therefore, drug companies lose some of the value inherent in developing other new drugs.
While certainly more research needs to be done in this area, it makes little sense to allow drug companies to control the research process if the result will be the undoing of some of the most important current advantages of marijuana.