CBS MarketWatch: End the War on Drugs, Start the Legalization

The folks who follow the big money at CBS MarketWatch can see the handwriting on the wall – there is too much money going underground in the War on Drugs that corporate America is missing out on:

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” made the Forbes list of billionaires earlier this year. No, you can’t make this stuff up: He runs the Sinaloa cartel, a major supplier of cocaine to the United States. He’s an assassin, another bin Laden … and Forbes honors him right up there with the world billionaires.

Psychologist Anne Wilson Schaef saw the trend coming a couple decades ago: We’re a “Nation of addicts … our society is deteriorating at an alarming rate.” Why? We refuse to face the real problem: Demand. Legalizing it will.

Till then we’re losing the war. In a “nation of addicts” it doesn’t matter if drugs are legal or not … where the drugs come from … who gets hurt … nor if we have to waste hundreds of billions fighting ineffective wars to protect suppliers … a corrupt Afghan government, the source of 95% of the world’s heroin … or Mexico, the main traffic route for wholesalers feeding America’s addicts … or Big Pharma the biggest pusher for prescription drug addicts. When a “nation of addicts” needs a fix, they always find it.

Seriously, drugs are a megabusiness. America spends about $2.5 trillion on health care annually — including $315 billion in Big Pharma revenues last year. They must be secretly exploring the untapped market in illicit drug traffic that siphons off an estimated $400 billion annually — plus keep in mind another $175 billion on alcohol addiction.

If Big Pharma can capture part of the market share that’s now going to competing Mexican and Afghan drug warlords, then they can feed their shareholders addiction to earnings, feed their CEOs’ addiction for megamillion paychecks, while capitalizing on the American addicts need for a fix. We just need to end our moralistic charade, decriminalize and control all illicit drugs.

The truth is, there’s no war on drugs to win, nor to lose, just millions of addicts who need help. I’ve been in recovery 36 years. Back in the ’80s I worked professionally with hundreds who went through places like Betty Ford Center. Statistics show that over 10% of Americans are physiologically predisposed to addictive behavior. That will never change. It’s in our DNA.

Given that painful reality, Big Pharma should wise up and get ahead of the legalization trend. Lead it. If Big Pharma capitalizes on their unique experience, they can capture new products and new markets driven by the relentless demand for a fix. Lead in the development of a new national policy shifting away from military action to treatment, decriminalization and regulation, generate new sources of tax revenues, and help millions of addicted Americans.

Big Pharma is already on that trend, examining different ways of synthesizing the therapeutically-active cannabinoids in marijuana in pill, spray, lozenge, and inhaler form.  The problem for Big Pharma is that their bar-coded, marked-up, highly-profitable cannabis drugs can’t compete with the raw cannabis plant itself.  They need a system wherein raw plant cannabis is prohibited, but synthesized cannabinoid extracts are allowed.  This would be somewhat like a cookie maker requiring a law that chocolate chip cookie dough is illegal, but a box of Chips Ahoy is not.

Furthermore, Big Pharma is also aware of reports from medical marijuana patients around the country who’ve found they can cut their need for prescription opioids and benzodiazepenes in half by using natural raw cannabis.  Big Pharma can’t have a free plant competing with their cannabinoid drugs and reducing demand for their other products!