Well, it's not like the Feds are opposed to *all* drugs. Since the FDA is practically on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry, the Feds are opposed only to *non-prescription* drugs. Marijuana has been proven to be innocuous by centuries of popular usage -- if categorized as a food additive, it should easily qualify (but obviously never will) for the FDA's "Generally Recognized As Safe" classification (GRAS, appropriately enough). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generally_recognized_as_safe>
By contrast, the FDA tends to treat relatively untested prescription drugs, no matter how dangerous, with kid gloves -- merely posting warnings about adverse effects in tiny type on product labels. If a prescription drug is potentially exceptionally lethal, the FDA will simply require that the label warning be surrounded by a ruled box, the so-called "black box warning." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_warning> That highly ignorable warning presumably does little to discourage sales but does provide the safeguard that really matters, i.e., protecting the pharmas against product liability suits.
BTW, I think people driving under the influence of marijuana likely pose less of a health threat than people driving, asleep, under the influence of the new prescription drugs Ambien and Lunesta. But since the latter products give pharmas $3 billion in sales, it's unlikely the FDA will pull them off the market anytime soon.
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March 15, 2007 F.D.A. Warns of Sleeping Pills’ Strange Effects By STEPHANIE SAUL
The most widely prescribed sleeping pills can cause strange behavior like driving and eating while asleep, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday, announcing that strong new warnings will be placed on the labels of 13 drugs. ...
Sales in the United States of Ambien and Lunesta alone last year exceeded $3 billion. Use of those medications and other similar drugs has soared by more than 60 percent since 2000, fueled by television, print and other advertising. Last year, makers of sleeping pills spent more than $600 million on advertising aimed at consumers.
The review was prompted, in part, by queries to the agency from The New York Times last year, after some users of the most widely prescribed drug, Ambien, started complaining online and to their doctors about unusual reactions ranging from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations, violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all — driving while asleep.
Night eaters said they woke up to find Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen counters overflowing with flour from baking sprees, and even lighted stoves.
Sleep-drivers reported frightening episodes in which they recalled going to bed, but woke up to find they had been arrested roadside in their underwear or nightclothes. The agency said that it was not aware of any deaths caused by sleep-driving.
The reports gained credence from scientific studies. A forensic toxicologist in Wisconsin, Laura J. Liddicoat, gave a presentation at a national meeting on six instances of Ambien-impaired driving.
And Dr. Carlos H. Schenck and Dr. Mark W. Mahowald of the University of Minnesota said that they had been studying cases of nearly 30 Ambien users who developed unusual nighttime eating disorders.
Last May in Washington, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, blamed Ambien when he crashed his car near the Capitol building. ...
Dr. Mahowald directs the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center, where doctors have been involved in a study of about 30 patients who developed sleep-eating while using Ambien. Some of the patients gained weight before discovering that they were getting up at night to cook and eat.
"Hopefully this will make doctors think twice before blindly giving patients a prescription," said Dr. Mahowald, who advocates a combination of medication and behavioral therapy to treat insomnia.
He also criticized marketing of the products. "I personally think the extent of advertising has just been unconscionable," he said. ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/business/15drug.ready.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print>
Carl
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