Monday, June 17, 2013

Big Government and Big Money Scooping Up $142 Bil Medical Marijuana Market

Christina Sarich
by
June 17th, 2013
Updated 06/17/2013
With only two states in the US currently allowing recreational use of marijuana and six more states with pending legislation to legalize medical marijuana, it is no wonder that Big Money and Big Government are looking for a way to capitalize on a market that has been overrun by special interest restriction and underground ‘pushers’ for hundreds of years.
big-government-medical-marijuanaWhere once those who sold pot were demonized and jailed, now cannabis sellers will be heralded as the latest entrepreneurs.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, pot sales are worth a whopping $142 billion annually. It seems ironic that selling pot was once criminalized, and that now that it is in the infantile stages of being legalized nationally, ex Microsoft executives and venture capitalists are looking to jump into a new corporate playground of selling these highly beneficial ‘drugs’. Does that mean they will try to patent cannabis, the same way they have tried to patent other natural medicinal herbs?
UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals would like to patent marijuana to treat cancer. They make a product called Sativex that contains cannabinoids, utilizing THC and CBD that are derived from cannabis plants. The patent is currently pending.
The US government already holds several patents on cannabis. That’s odd, since they have denied that cannabis has any medicinal benefit for years! One US Patent 6630507 titled “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants,” which is assigned to The United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services states, “Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.”
That US patent was obtained in 2003.
Considering all the research that has been coming out to prove the effectiveness of cannabinoids, including a Harvard study that even claims THC cures cancer, make no mistake, the legalization of pot will lead to corporate monopolies no less significant and drastic than the rest of Big Government’s reign over the drug market.

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