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| Dr. Herbert Kleber, an anti-marijuana doctor who has served as a paid consultant to Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. Image via YouTube |
As
Americans continue to embrace pot—as medicine and for recreational
use—opponents are turning to a set of academic researchers to claim that
policymakers should avoid relaxing restrictions around marijuana. It's too dangerous,
risky, and untested, they say. Just as drug company-funded research has become
incredibly controversial in recent years, forcing major medical schools and
journals to institute strict disclosure requirements, could there be a conflict
of interest issue in the pot debate?
VICE has
found that many of the researchers who have advocated against legalizing pot
have also been on the payroll of leading pharmaceutical firms with products
that could be easily replaced by using marijuana. When these individuals have
been quoted in the media, their drug-industry ties have not been revealed.
Take, for
example, Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University. Kleber has impeccable
academic credentials, and has been quoted in the press and in academic
publications warning against the use of marijuana, which he stresses may cause
wide-ranging addiction and public health issues. But when he's writing anti-pot
opinion pieces for CBS News, or being quoted by NPR and CNBC, what's left
unsaid is that Kleber has served as a paid consultant to leading prescription
drug companies, including Purdue Pharma (the maker of OxyContin), Reckitt
Benckiser (the producer of a painkiller called Nurofen), and Alkermes (the
producer of a powerful new opioid called Zohydro).
Kleber, who
did not respond to a request for comment, maintains important influence over
the pot debate. For instance, his writing has been cited by the New York State
Association of Chiefs of Police in its opposition to marijuana legalization,
and has been published by the American Psychiatric Association in the
organization's statement warning against marijuana for medicinal uses.
Could
Kleber's long-term financial relationship with drug firms be viewed as a
conflict of interest? Studies have found that pot can be used for pain relief
as a substitute for major prescription painkillers. The opioid painkiller
industry is a multibillion business that has faced rising criticism from
experts because painkillers now cause about 16,000 deaths a year, more than
heroin and cocaine combined. Researchers view marijuana as a a safe alternative
to opioid products like OxyContin, and there are no known overdose deaths from
pot.
Other
leading academic opponents of pot have ties to the painkiller industry. Dr. A.
Eden Evins, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is
a frequent critic of efforts to legalize marijuana. She is on the board of an
anti-marijuana advocacy group, Project SAM, and has been quoted by leading
media outlets criticizing the wave of new pot-related reforms. "When
people can go to a ‘clinic’ or ‘cafe’ and buy pot, that creates the perception
that it’s safe,” she told the Times last year.
Notably,
when Evins participated in a commentary on marijuana legalization for the
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the publication found that her financial
relationships required a disclosure statement, which noted that as of November
2012, she was a "consultant for Pfizer and DLA Piper and has received
grant/research support from Envivo, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer." Pfizer
has moved aggressively into the $7.3 billion painkiller market. In 2011, the
company acquired King Pharmaceuticals (the makers of several opioid products)
and is currently working to introduce Remoxy, an OxyContin competitor.
Dr. Mark L.
Kraus, who runs a private practice and is a board member to the American
Society of Addiction Medicine, submitted testimony in 2012 in opposition to a
medical marijuana law in Connecticut. According to financial disclosures, Kraus
served on the scientific advisory panel for painkiller companies such as Pfizer
and Reckitt Benckiser in the year prior to his activism against the medical pot
bill. Neither Kraus or Evins responded to a request for comment.
These
academic revelations add fodder to the argument that drug firms maintain quiet
ties to the marijuana prohibition lobby. In July, I reported for the Nation
that many of the largest anti-pot advocacy groups, including the Community
Anti-Drug Coalitions for America, which has organized opposition to reform
through its network of activists and through handing out advocacy material
(sample op-eds against medical pot along with Reefer Madness-style videos, for
example), has relied on significant funding from painkiller companies,
including Purdue Pharma and Alkermes. Pharmaceutical-funded anti-drug groups
like the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and CADCA use their budget to obsess
over weed while paying lip-service to the much bigger drug problem in America
of over-prescribed opioids.
As
ProPublica reported, painkiller-funded researchers helped fuel America's deadly
addiction to opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin. These academics, with quiet
funding from major pain pill firms, encouraged doctors to over-prescribe these
drugs for a range of pain relief issues, leading to where we stand today as the
world's biggest consumer of painkillers and the overdose capital of the planet.
What does it say about medical academia today that many of that
painkiller-funded researchers are now standing in the way of a safer
alternative: smoking a joint.
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