Barrier to Legalization: Pharmaceutical Industry

While there are many barriers to the legalization of medical marijuana, some are far more influential than others. One of the largest barriers to legalization, pharmaceutical companies comprise a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Two US companies alone, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer, have combined annual revenues upwards of $100 billion. With such huge profits, these corporations have very strong incentives to work toward marijuana’s continued prohibition. Here are a few reasons the pharmaceutical companies don’t want medical marijuana as an option:

Marijuana can replace hundreds of pharmaceuticals. Pain pills, antiemetics, antidepressants, appetite stimulants, and more, all can be replaced with marijuana. The pharmaceutical companies know that if patients have legal access to marijuana to treat them for their various ailments, annual sales will plummet.

Marijuana is less harmful than many FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. Countless studies, credible medical professionals, and FDA statistics all show that marijuana has both less side effects and less harmful side effects than many current pharmaceuticals.

Patients can cultivate their own marijuana. Under most state laws, medical marijuana patients can grow their own marijuana. This violates some founding concepts of capitalism, and therefore violates the pharmaceutical companies’ credos – keep the customer coming back, and always turn a profit. A patient that buys one inexpensive seed can eventually turn that into a self-replenishing medicine cabinet, forever cutting the cord between them and the pharmaceutical industry.

The bottom line is that medical marijuana will hurt the profits of one of the largest global industries in the world. Knowing this, huge, well-funded pharmaceutical lobbies spend a great deal of time with congressmen on Capitol Hill, making “campaign contributions” and ensuring their interests remain protected. And, so far, the interests of this enormously powerful industry do remain protected by their friends (supposedly our representatives) in Washington.

The fact that an industry based around providing medication to sick individuals would work to prevent an effective medication from becoming available is truly appalling. Of course, those jaded by the sad realities of our society would accept this as “just the way things are”, just as the fact that those same pharmaceutical companies add a significant markup on many medications sold in the United States.

But, the truth is, this isn’t the way things have to be. We all must forever strive to improve our society, and never accept the status quo. If a corrupt money-fed system has become the norm, we must all work to see honesty, transparency, and the well-being of average Americans restored as the top priorities of our policymakers.