Healthcare Hullabaloo: Born to Run

...same old story, same old act
One step up and two steps back

Bruce Springsteen, "One Step Up"

Ah, the Boss – unofficial poet laureate of my generation.

Bruce certainly knows a lot about life’s ups and downs. This is in no doubt due to his experiences living in the great Garden State.

Witness, if you will, the latest debacle surrounding Medical Marijuana in New Jersey.

The prior governor, John Corzine, was certainly no Cracker Jack prize. His free-spending attitudes nearly bankrupted the state. But, giving proper respect where it’s due, Corzine did do at least one thing right: Shortly before leaving office, he made New Jersey the 14th State to approve the use of Medical Marijuana.

Now the new governor, Chris Christie, is doing a lot of good things to help the state get back on its’ feet financially.

Many are talking about him being a front runner for being the Republican presidential candidate in the next election. However, he is doing one thing very wrong here – he is doing whatever he can to sabotage legal Medical Marijuana in the state.

OK, I get it – Medical Marijuana wasn’t his idea – it was dumped upon him by his predecessor as a parting shot. But, Mr. Governor, that’s not any reason to try to sabotage a good idea.

At first, Governor Christie did whatever he could to drag the state’s collective feet on Medical Marijuana. He claimed that a production system had to be established. A distribution systems had to be in place. The entire matter required a great deal of study and evaluation. But, to anyone with half a brain, it was easy to see that this was just stalling tactics on the Governor’s part.

Hey, General Eisenhower didn’t ‘study’ and ‘evaluate’ this much before invading Europe in 1944.

Besides, if he ever bothered to tour any college dormitory in the state, he would have seen that many production and distribution systems are already in place….

Finally, after a year of delay, the Governor is now talking about ‘compromises’ in order to get Medical Marijuana off the ground in NJ. Chief among these ‘compromises’ is his declaration that Medical Marijuana can only be prescribed as a ‘last resort’ medication when all other medications have failed. In other words, if you are lying on your death bed, suffering through the final stages of terminal cancer, maxed out on morphine, Christie will give you a reluctant green light to light up.

Give me a fricken break.

Another compromise will limit the potency of Medical Marijuana. Yet another great idea. Patients who are dealing with extreme health issues will be forced into inhaling greater quantities of smoke in order to receive the needed dose. After all, conventional wisdom in the 1940’s was that smoking was good for you – none of this new-fangled anti-smoking rhetoric from Trenton, thank goodness.

Maybe they should pass a law taking that pesky surgeon general’s warning of the side of the cigarette pack – that stupid warning makes it so much harder for teenagers to look cool these days.

No other prescription drug is limited by such provisos, including popular pain killers like Morphine, Codeine, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Methadone, Fentanyl and Meperidine.

These drugs are all opiates, closely related to heroin. And they all carry the terrible potential side effects of addiction, overdose and death. (Of all the potential bad side effects of modern pharmaceuticals, death, for me, is one of the biggies). But the good Governor obviously doesn’t have a problem with these popular medications, even though they carry with them the very real risks? No siree – pop ‘em if you got ‘em – it’s OK with Governor Christie!

After reading about the latest developments with Medical Marijuana in NJ, I had to stop and check a calendar, and yup, it turns out that it actually IS the year 2010. So why are we still treating Medical Marijuana like the good people of Salem Massachusetts treated their single womenfolk back in the 1600’s? The governor doesn’t appear to be stupid or naive – so why the witch hunt on Medical Marijuana?

Perhaps the governor is concerned that, if Medical Marijuana was given the acceptance that it deserves, millions of dollars of the NJ economy would flow out of the state and across the river into Philadelphia. Philadelphia is, after all, the home of the Tastycake factory.

Come to think of it, the Governor is a known Twinkie aficionado – perhaps he is fearful of a shortage of his favorite sweet snack?

Applying Ockham’s Razor, it’s most likely some other influence that is affecting his decision making regarding Medical Marijuana – but what, pray tell, can it be?

Let’s take a moment to ponder this query – and whilst we ponder, here is an interesting, totally unrelated, factoid.

Did you know that 10 out of the top 12 pharmaceutical companies in the world have ties to New Jersey? Here’s a list:

1 - Johnson & Johnson - 5 NJ Locations including US and World Headquarters

2 - Pfizer - 7 NJ Locations

3 – Roche - 2 NJ Locations

4 – GlaxoSmithKline - 2 NJ Locations

5 - Novartis - 3 NJ Locations including US Headquarters

6 - Sanofi-Aventis - 2 NJ locations, including their US Headquarters

7 - AstraZeneca - No NJ connections (Boo! Hiss!)

8 - Abbott Laboratories – 2 NJ Locations

9 - Merck & Co. - 4 NJ Locations including Global Headquarters

10 - Bayer HealthCare - 2 NJ locations

11 – Eli Lilly – No NJ locations

12 - Bristol-Myers 2 NJ locations including Corporate HQ

Those ten top compsnies with ties to NJ had combined revenues in 2009 of around 389 billion dollars.

That’s not a typo – that’s Billion with a ‘B’

Isn’t that interesting?

OK, enough pondering – let’s get back to our main topic.

Rats. Ponder as I may, I still can’t figure out why so many of our elected leaders are so against Medical Marijuana.

I guess we’ll never know why our politicians are so freaked out by an ugly little weed that has proven medical benefits with very few harmful side effects. Mind you, I am not talking about making it available to everyone - or decriminalizing it - that's someone else's bailiwick - I refer only to it's medicinal use. Also, Medical Marijuana is not some illicit substance that outlaw bikers are cooking up in an abandoned trailer out in the woods – it’s a silly little plant that anyone could grow in their backyard. And that, my friends, is the problem.

Big Pharm doesn’t want the competition. In fact, none of the formulations that they produce can compete with Medical Marijuana when it comes to the ratio of benefits/harmful side effects. In addition, no one needs Big Pharm to produce Medical Marijuana – almost anyone could produce their own backyard. Big Pharm hates competition. They spend billions on lobbyists and spin doctors to help ensure that no one rains on their 400 billion dollar cash parade. In the meanwhile, millions of Americans are suffering needlessly because they are being denied medicinal use of this ugly little weed – and it’s just not fair. In fact, from my standpoint, it’s downright criminal.

So what are we going to do?

Well, regular readers of my blog should know that I have already published the solution last Spring. If anyone had the foresight to follow my lead, the debate over Medical Marijuana would already be moot point. In case you missed it, here’s a link to my brilliant idea:

http://healthcarehullabalo.blogspot.com/2010/03/medical-marijuana.html

Barring this solution, I would ask a special favor of all our lawmakers who continue to roadblock Medical Marijuana– something we all should demand them to do before they consider any further legislation against Medical Marijuana. It wouldn’t take them very much time, but I’ll warn them up front, it may be a very difficult for them to do.

In fact, it may be the most difficult thing that they will ever have to do.

First, I would ask them to visit a few people in their constituency. People wasting away in cancer hospices. Other people who are in the midst of battling cancer, and who are devastated by the horrible side effects of chemotherapy. Other courageous souls who are trying to live with Multiple sclerosis. Or with the insidious creeping blindness of Glaucoma. Or living with chronic pain. Or who are dealing with a host of other debilitating diseases and conditions. People whose suffering might just be eased, if only by a little bit, by a silly, ugly little green plant.

Then, after visiting these people – people who they’ve sworn a sacred oath to represent – after seeing and experiencing the hell that is their daily lives – I would ask them to go back to their homes, walk into their bathrooms, and take a long good hard look at themselves in the bathroom mirror.

That’s all I would ask of them.

I bet they can’t do it.

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Who are you? Do you agree with me, disagree with me, or have another perspective to share?

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