DEA Doesn't Want Pot Legal in Colorado

Pamela, I generally tend to agree with many of your positions, but you do no favors for your arguments -- and the positions they represent -- by playing fast and loose with the data and not sourcing your numbers. Where did the $80 billion on drug company television advertising come from? The entire advertising expenditures in the US in all media amounted to US$143 billion in 2005, with television (network, cable, spot, and syndication) adding up to a little over US$55 billion. Not only that, but no prescription drug company appears in the top 10 advertisers, nor does prescription drug advertising as a category make it into the top 10 list. If someone like me who agrees with your ideas can't trust your writing, how do you ever expect to get those folks on the fence to come over to our side?

Pamela...with Rx drug use advertised on television to the tune of $80 billion just for the adverts

evano..Pamela, I generally tend to agree with many of your positions, but you do no favors for your arguments -- and the positions they represent -- by playing fast and loose with the data and not sourcing your numbers. Where did the $80 billion on drug company television advertising come from?The entire advertising expenditures in the US in all media amounted to US$143 billion in 2005, with television (network, cable, spot, and syndication) adding up to a little over US$55 billion.

evano you are right and I meant to do 8 not 80 but even that was wrong. I do let my fiery Irish temper get my fingers clicking faster than my grey matter more times than I should. It's something I work on but it does still happen and the best thing I can say for that is I have gotten practice at saying I was wrong. I'll keep trying and you keep me honest, thanks!.

The Food and Drug Administration will hold a public hearing on direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising, "more than two years after the last public hearing ... failed to produce any guidelines to regulate the $4 billion ad category," notes AdAge. In announcing the November 1 and 2 2005 meeting in Washington, DC, the FDA said it "believes the agency, the industry and other members of the public now have enough experience with DTC promotion to understand what regulatory issues may need to be addressed."

"Expert" in quotes is right.

The 1973 report by the Nixon-appointed commission on drugs is prescient:

"Because of the intensity of the public concern and the emotionalism surrounding the topic of drugs, all levels of government have been pressured into action with little time for planning. The political pressures involved in this governmental effort have resulted in a concentration of public energy on the most immediate aspects of drug use and a reaction along the paths of least political resistance. The recent result has been the creation of ever larger bureaucracies, ever increasing expenditures of monies, and an outpouring of publicity so that the public will know that "something" is being done.

Perhaps the major consequence of this ad hoc policy planning hag been the creation, at the federal, state and community levels, of a vested interest in the perpetuation of the problem among those dispensing and receiving funds. Infrastructures are created, job descriptions are standardized, "experts" are created and ways of doing business routinized and established along bureaucratic channels. During the last several years, drug programming has become a multi-billion dollar industry, one administering to its own needs as well as to those of its drug-using clientele. In the course of well-meaning efforts to do something about drug use, this society may have inadvertently institutionalized it as a never-ending project."

That's what this is about: keeping this gravy train running.

I've never understood that assumption about alcohol. Alcohol companies already have distribution networks set up. Wouldn't they be able to just roll right into the pot distribution biz if it became legal?

"This Bud's for you. And now, this bud's for you too."

And as much as I liked weed when I smoked it, I don't see how it's a competitor for pharma. What, am I going to stop taking high blood pressure pills because I'm high? Will anti-depressants be irrellevant just because you could be high all day? I don't think so.

hahahaha

Hmm, war on sanity....I LOVE IT!

War on Hannity? All right! Where do I sign up?

The legalizers incorrectly claimed that the DEA is using taxpayer money to fight politically. What remains true is that the DEA does not want pot legal; that a DEA agent is (privately) encouraging, using a government email account, private groups to raise $10,000 to oppose the ballot initiative.

That's still illegal. Look up the Hatch Act. This bites gov't employees in DC all the time. That agent can't use a gov't email account or a government computer to conduct any political activities.