Henry I. Miller (a doctor and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, who headed the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Biotechnology from 1989 to 1993) mouths one of the fundamental problems the pharmaceutical industry has with medical marijuana. Namely, that major drug companies don't manufacture herbs, and thus cannot make their normal massive profits on the sale of natural remedies that consumers could just grow on their own patio, if legal. Dr. Miller hides his disdain for natural remedies behind talk of fixed dosage and other scientific buzz words, but his position is still fairly obvious.
(note to self: don't try blogging before the days first coffee, no matter how pressed for time)
Henry I. Miller, Reefer Medicine
The F.D.A.'s position that smoking cannabis is an appropriate treatment is not a case of politics over science.LAST week, the Food and Drug Administration staked out its position on the long-standing controversy over the medical use of marijuana — and made a lot of people smoking mad. The F.D.A. endorsed a multi-agency study that found that “no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.” This came as an affront to those who claim that cannabis is an appropriate treatment for ailments from nausea and vomiting to muscle spasticity and intractable pain.
