Weed and Pharma
Sundays article in the NYTimes titles Pets on Pot tells us a lot about how THC (weed) is an incredible pain reliever and attitude adjuster.
Our dog injured himself the other day. Not exactly sure what happened but he had obviously injured his leg and was in pain. I took him to the vet and she prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication and an antibiotic. He was fine a day later but as you should do with yourself is you have to complete the prescription.
In the last few years I have become more suspect of the pharmaceutical industry. Perhaps it has to do with the ads they run on TV. When the ad gives you the benefits of taking something and then moves into a soothing music over the voice of someone telling you that by taking this medication you could get this and that and this and that and on and on and on and on, it is almost comical if it wasn’t.
Edible products sooner or later will be available everywhere not only for humans but animals too. They will be used for anxiety, pain and a slew of other ailments that the Pharmaceutical industry has made products for and promoted for decades. They are not excited about weed induced products changing their bottom line. We will see lobbyists pouring into the Government to try and stop the positive realities of cannabis.
In the end, we will be able to buy products at our local liquor store or perhaps 7-11 but as always the amount of legal bills that will be paid by big Pharma to stop this from happening will be just lining legal pockets because eventually we will get there.
I am betting on it.
Comments (Archived):
you are starting to see George Stigler in action. http://www.wsj.com/articles… He received a Nobel Prize for his work on regulatory capture. It’s not just pharma. It’s farming, banking, oil, and virtually every industry. If there is a Department of (fill in the blank), with a cadre of regulatory agencies around it, there is regulatory capture. It favors big incumbents. An example in the tech industry is Amazon. They built their business and were beneficiaries of no sales tax on the internet. Now they are cool with a tax on everyone since they can use size and scope to crush competition. All of a sudden we see Uber and Airbnb hiring political operatives rather than more marketers. It’s a slippery slope and one reason why I favor limited government. (I’d legalize pot)
We agree on that. Legalize pot
It will be legal when the Big Pharma’s figure out how to make big money off of it.
Unfortunately true
Oddly enough I have this theory that smoking pot will also allow a select group of people to do certain drudge or low paid work and be less bothered by either a) the nature of the work or b) the amount they are getting paid. As such economically this could be a benefit to society. I know it’s a wild idea (especially coming from someone who not only hasn’t smoked, but has never even tried pot) but that is my way of looking at legalization.Also helpful with people who are exceeding what I call their baseline ability to deal with stress or job. For example my father, when I was growing up, never drank and certainly didn’t smoke pot (my wife’s parents did a great deal… a different generation) but looking back I think it would have been great if he chilled out when he came home. He was a bundle of nerves and not really approachable.
I attended an Alternative Investment forum last week in CT, and of the breakout panels, the one garnering largest audience was the private equity investing in cannabis….I can share that what I heard was that while recreational use biz (esp. with the California legal rec use referendum upcoming in Nov) is one focus, many investors choose to focus on medicinal only, and while some of those investors were interested in getting State approvals for growing (manufacturing) and “picks and shovels”, many were focused on the markets and the medicinal products themselves. Those medicinal investors emphasized the Canada market, plus making visits to Israel, because of Israeli ingenuity in the area of proprietary IP in medicinal cannabis products. Many States in U.S. that have legalized medicinal use require patients to have “pre-existing” relationship with a doctor in order to get a valid scrip for medicinal cannabis, and the States are watching which docs are writing scrips. Many docs don’t want the “stigma”. On the other hand, California, and its zillion dollar market, is in a world in of and to itself, with the heaviest demand in the L.A. basin.
Re: “picks and shovels”What did you encounter? Did they cover inventory control?
Speaking of weed for pets, there’s a product out here called CBD Companion that a lot of folks rave about. Haven’t tried it with our dog yet, but certainly as he has more join pain and other old age issues it is something to think about.As it were, on their website, they can’t yet say it is for animals: “Unfortunately for a couple of more months, we are not able to speak to medicinal uses and/or benefits of these products, nor can we confirm/or deny the benefits of this product on pets”.http://fairwindscannabis.co…
Good to know
If it matters, the reason those pharma ads always include all those paragraphs of fine print, or droning on voice overs explaining every possible side effect, is that the laws governing pharma marketing explicitly require that type of every-possible-risk disclosure in every pharma ad. Plus of course corporate attorneys demand such disclosure to try to ward off consumer protection litigation …Today it’s illegal to advertise cannabis , even medical cannabis, because the substance is illegal under federal law, regardless of contradictory state laws. The federal govt has more or less pledged to not interfere in state look level experiments as long as such remains at the state level. Marketing would almost by definition cross state lines ergo no one is doing itWhen the federal regulations of cannabis arrive I suspect it’s marketing will be severely proscribed by law as is case with pharma and also other controlled substances, eg alcohol …..
Full disclosure, I have a cannabis 3PL startup in CA.Cannabis is a natural food and the legalized market will become a CPG market. Where organic and natural CPGs are sold today, cannabis CPGs will be sold tomorrow.Right now, two of the fastest growing categories are concentrates (think vape pens) and edibles. Why? If you’re a baby boomer who is looking for pain relief, you’re overwhelmed by all the products on the shelves and may not know how to roll a joint. But a cookie or pen, you likely don’t need much instruction and it is discreet. That great design!However, the real strength in the future cannabis CPGs, in my humble opinion, will be non or low psychoactive cannabis products that have CBD, CBG, CBN, etc. We are just scratching the surface of the new brands that will come to the market. Especially now in CA that MCRSA has passed and the pending AUMA (aka Prop 64 aka the Sean Parker Bill) next month. These products are for a general audience where as products today are for prosumers. Low dose and non psychoactive will be readily available at Wholefoods and the alike. The brands will only benefit in the future as the price of the active ingredient decreases as larger and more efficient suppliers enter.In terms of Big Pharma, it is having an impact on their bottom line. During the summer, University of Georgia revealed a study showing how prescription drug use is lower in states that have legalized cannabis for medical use: http://news.uga.edu/release…
We are absolutely just scratching the surface
When the ad gives you the benefits of taking something and then moves into a soothing music over the voice of someone telling you that by taking this medication you could get this and that and this and that and on and on and on and on, it is almost comical if it wasn’t.It’s actually a hobby of mine to watch these commercials. Some are works of art. The idea is always the same, to distract you from anything negative (the side effects which they have to mention) and keep you engaged and entertained. Obviously.The ads are also for doctors not just patients … because they watch tv.Years ago I knew a guy who ran a big printing bindery and he made a great living doing giveaways for pharmaceutical companies. So he invests in machinery and is humming along for years doing this work. Next thing in roughly 2008 [1] you can’t do that anymore and poof in a year or so he files bankruptcy. At one point the biggest issue he had was not being able to buy and expensive car because he didn’t want the union guys to want pay hikes. Next “how will I pay for college now!”When I was a kid my uncle was a pharmacist. I came up with this great idea “hey why don’t we print up prescription pads with ads on them”. He nixes the idea saying it would never be allowed (was the 70’s). Next thing, years later of course its being done (that has happened to me a few times actually..)Here are a few my picks for ads for Viberzi (the mime).https://www.youtube.com/wat…https://www.youtube.com/wat…[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008…
A bit of history…http://www.drugwarrant.com/…