Tag: trofire
Big Pharma Has Launched A War On Medical Marijuana
Written by thcscout on . Posted in Medical. No Comments on Big Pharma Has Launched A War On Medical Marijuana
Medical marijuana has become a multi-billion dollar a year industry in the United States, and as more states continue to legalize cannabis for medical purposes, that number is going to climb even higher. So naturally, Big Pharma is trying to stop the medical marijuana industry in its tracks.
Attorney Mike Papantonio delves into this topic and more.
Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!: https://www.patreon.com/TheRingofFire
Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire’s video content!
Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/theringoffire
Be sociable! Follow us on:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RingofFireRadio
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RingofFireRadio
Google+: http://plus.google.com/118415831573195648557
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ringoffirenetwork/
Follow more of our stories at http://www.TROFIRE.com
Subscribe to our podcast: http://www.ROFPodcast.com
My next guest has been involved in some of the biggest legal cases of the last few decades, everything from the butterfly ballet lawsuit, the Bush v Gore case, to the big tobacco fraud cases of the 90s. But his biggest success no doubt is recovering more than $6.4 billion from the pharmaceutical industry for deceptive marketing tactics and failing to warn consumers about adverse effects of these drugs. These cases are the subject of his new book, Pharmageddon: a Nation Betrayed.
Author and attorney Stephen Sheller joins me now. Stephen, you’ve been involved in many landmark cases, some of the same ones I’ve been involved with. We’ve watched all this develop. One of the landmark cases was big tobacco, to the fraud of Bush v Gore presidential election, a whole variety of things that you’ve been involved with. Why did you choose to focus this book on the pharmaceutical industry with all the things that you could have talked about?
The main reason Mike is that with all the things you and I have done over the years to bring justice to our system of justice, it seems to be almost getting worse the way things are going. The reason I focused on the pharma industry is that they’re the ones that have been getting away with most of the bad things that I’ve been dealing with. It arose frankly out of Bush versus Gore, when I was in Florida litigating that I got to the point where one of the lawyers got a call from a client who got Prozac extended release in the mail for her teenage son. She called him and then I ended on national television because he had no prescription for it.
The next thing I know I got calls from Eli Lilly’s detail reps from the west coast who said, “Well, we’re doing the same thing.” When I began investigating that, that was in the midst of the remnants of Bush versus Gore, I learned about their effort to illegally market a drug called Zyprexa, off label for you name it, they were marketing it for almost anything.
Stephen let me interrupt you just a second. So the viewers understand, when a drug company has a product that they can use for one thing, in other words the FDA has approved that you can use it for birth control or whatever it may be, and they’re not making enough money, what they creatively do is they then try to say, “Well let’s find other things that doctors might by into.”
For example, with Yaz, you were involved with Yaz as well, with Yaz what they determined was, “We’re going to tell women that they can lose weight and that they can control acne if they take our birth control pill,” because there were dozen of birth control pills out on the market. Is this a common practice? You talk about Eli Lilly using this process, is this a common practice?
Yes, unfortunately it is all too common. Little is done about it, other than if they’re caught at it, they end up working out a deal often to pay some money but no one usually ever goes to jail for the illegal activity. It’s considered unlawful to market a drug off label intentionally by a drug company for uses not approved by the FDA. It’s gotten a little more complicated recently because now they’ve added freedom of speech arguments to this.
There’s only a couple countries in the world that even allow advertising, I think it’s New Zealand and the United States where you can advertise a drug.
New Zealand and [crosstalk 00:03:49] Yeah, that’s it.
What they actually do is create a disease. They create a disease. We saw Johnson & Johnson, Astrazeneca, for example engage in marketing practices for their antipsychotic drugs, but what they were really doing is sending sales people out in the field and saying, “You can use this for other stuff than it’s been approved for.” Now here’s what I want to ask you, what patterns have you observed in these cases about the ways that pharmaceutical companies market their products?
Father Regains Custody After Treating Daughter With Medical Marijuana
Written by thcscout on . Posted in Medical. No Comments on Father Regains Custody After Treating Daughter With Medical Marijuana
A father in the state of Texas nearly had his daughter taken away from him because he treated his daughter with medical marijuana. The daughter, who was 4-years-old at the time of the treatment suffered from autism and would hit herself so hard during fits of rage that she would break her own bones and even caused brain damage. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio and Peter Mougey discuss this.
Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire’s video content!
Watch America’s Lawyer featuring Mike Papantonio on RT: https://www.rt.com/shows/americas-lawyer/
A father in the state of Texas nearly had his daughter taken away from him, because he treated his daughter with medical marijuana. The daughter was four years old at the time of the treatment. Suffered autism. Would hit herself so hard during her fits that she’d break her own bones and even cause brain damage. They were trying to take the child away from the father for giving them medical marijuana. Judge says, “uh-uh (negative).” He looked at all the facts. He saw video where this was the child before the marijuana. This was the child afterwards. What’s your take on this case?
The way this case was brought is absolutely disgusting. The parents took a video of the kid that, as you mentioned, was hitting herself. The neighbor came over and said, “Try a pot brownie and see if that tones her down.” The parents took some videos, were trying to advocate for medical marijuana, showed the video publicly, and then Child Protective Services came in and starts pushing a case. Now, the judge ultimately brought everything out to even keel. The parents are okay. They can be guardians. The fact that Child Protective Services brought a case, because the parents were trying to do something to advocate that they-
Again, this is autism. We’re talking about autism. Now, we’re starting-
Severe.
To see the possibility that there may be some benefit. The judge looked at all the facts and said, “You know what? I’m not going to take the child away. As a matter of fact, I’m going to make the parent a guardian.
They were charged with child abuse.
Yeah. Welcome back. I’m Mike Papantonio here with Peter Mougey. The story to me is incredible. I think it’s an important story for a lot of reasons. Here, you had a parent that had an autistic child. The autism was so bad that what would end up happening was the child would break their own arm, break their own leg, cause brain-
Self mutilation.
Self mutilation. The father said, “Look, we gave the child medical mari- gave them marijuana, and that calmed the child down.” Now, you pick up from there. What happened?
There is a charge filed with Child Protective Services for child abuse. When I read the story, I’m thinking, “I’ve got kids.” You’d do anything as a parent to protect your kid. The kid’s beating themselves, breaking their bones, and they were given the child antipsychotic. They just turned the kid into a zombie. That scared the parent. One of the neighbors recommends, “Hey, you know what? Try this pot brownie,” and it worked. They videoed the results, miraculous results, videoed it, and were championing medicinal use of marijuana in Texas. The Child Welfare Services picks up the story and ends up charging them with child abuse, because they’re advocating, “Look at this wonderful result this had on my kid.”
That’s outrageous. That’s a recap. Let me pick up there. Florida, for example, Charlotte’s Web, we are involved … Again, full disclosure, our law firm’s involved with the Charlotte’s Web issue, and that is where there is a low THC marijuana that treats epilepsy that you would have children who are having 50 seizures a day, all of a sudden they’re taking-
Great results.
They’re taking Charlotte’s Web and they have zero seizures. Well, even the conservative, ultra conservative, legislature here in Florida says, “Yeah, this is a good idea, and we’re going to allow Charlotte’s Web to be sold.” The next thing that happens is medical marijuana in the state of Florida passes. Well, what has actually happened here is you’ve had a huge push back from the pharmaceutical industry. You have the pill, the drug, companies saying, “We don’t want people using marijuana, because it’s going to cause some awful horrendous results.”
Well, awful and horrendous results, we’ve seen at this law firm for 35 years, where you have products that are killing people brain damage, products that are killing people from kidney failure, liver failure, heart failure, DVTs, name it, we’ve seen the full expanse of it. Compare that to medical marijuana that’s been used all over the country and people are getting great results from this. Charlotte’s Web probably is going to save the lives of thousands of kids, people all over this country.
Big Pharma Terrified That Medical Marijuana Will Kill Their Deadly Opioid Business
Written by thcscout on . Posted in Medical. No Comments on Big Pharma Terrified That Medical Marijuana Will Kill Their Deadly Opioid Business
Major pharmaceutical companies are pulling out their check books to defeat marijuana legalization efforts around the country, and documents show that the industry is terrified about the prospects of medical marijuana eating into their opioid painkiller profits. SUBSCRIBE to Ring Of Fire: https://www.youtube.com/user/golefttv
Link – https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/pharma-opioid-marijuana/
Interns GRILL Jeff Sessions Over His Backwards Stance On Marijuana
Written by thcscout on . Posted in Medical. No Comments on Interns GRILL Jeff Sessions Over His Backwards Stance On Marijuana
At a recent Q&A featuring Attorney General Jeff Sessions, interns at the Department of Justice grilled the AG about his stance on medical marijuana. Sessions seemed to struggle when coming up with a defense for his horrible policies and spewed complete lies to the audience. But the audience wasn’t having it and didn’t buy his excuses for a second. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
Link – https://news.vice.com/story/watch-jeff-sessions-tell-interns-that-weed-is-as-dangerous-as-guns
Link – https://news.vice.com/story/watch-jeff-sessions-tell-interns-that-weed-is-as-dangerous-as-guns
Ring of Fire needs your help! Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!: https://www.patreon.com/TheRingofFire
Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire’s video content!
Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is absolutely not going to let his obsession with marijuana die. At a recent Q & A, with Department of Justice interns, Jeff Sessions, was at the podium, taking questions from members of the crowd. When one woman asked him, why he doesn’t support any kind of restrictions on guns, even though they kill far more people than marijuana in this country, sessions kind of lost track of his thoughts there, and offered this rambling, lying explanation to this young woman. Take a look at how Sessions responded to this question.
You support pretty harsh polices for marijuana, and pretty lax gun control laws. I’m not even sure where you stand on the assault weapons ban. I’d like to know, since guns kill more people than marijuana, why lax laws on one, and harsh laws on the other.
Well, That’s apples and oranges, a question I would say first and foremost. The second amendment, you’re aware of that, Guarantees the right to the American people to keep and bear arms. I intend to defend that second amendment. It’s as valid as the first amendment. That’s my basic philosophical view about it.
Look, there’s this view that marijuana is harmless and it does no damage. I believe last year was the first year that automobile accidents that occurred were found to have been caused more by drugs, than by alcohol. Marijuana is not a healthy substance in my opinion. American Medical Association is crystal clear on that. Do you believe that?
I don’t.
Okay. Doctor, whatever your name is. You can write to AMA and see why they think otherwise.
First and foremost, let’s get one thing clear right off the bat. One of the biggest lies of what Jeff Sessions just said, which is the fact that the AMA does not consider marijuana to have any kind of medicinal benefits. That’s not true. For at least two years, the American Medical Association has stated as their position, that yes, there are medicinal benefits to marijuana.
Jeff Sessions can make fun of that woman and say, “Doctor whatever your name is,” all he wants. She was right. His demeanor, the way he was demeaning her, was absolutely inexcusable. I mean, that’s what somebody who doesn’t understand what they’re talking about does. He tries to make it seem like, “Oh, well you’re not a medical professional. You don’t know what’s going on, so I’m gonna trust the real doctors.” Well, if that’s the case, then you’re still wrong, because real doctors disagree with you.
Jeff Session has a very unhealthy obsession with making marijuana illegal, which kind of makes me start to wonder, did something happen in your life buddy? Did something when you were younger. Maybe your parents caught you smoking marijuana, and had such a crazy outrageous reaction, that you just made it your lifelong crusade to make this vile weed illegal for everyone.
The fact of the matter, is that the reason weed is illegal in the United States, was cause back in the early part of the 20th century, testimony before congress said that white women, who smoked marijuana makes them want to dance and sleep with black men. That happened in congress. That was one of the driving forces that made marijuana illegal in the United States. A giant smear campaign based on absolute lies. Jeff Session just can’t let go of that.
We all know that he holds some pretty strong racists beliefs. I’m assuming that he’s singing that congressional testimony and that’s what he is basing his entire belief system on today. We have seen what has happened in the communities, in the states, and cities where marijuana has been legalized. Not only has teen usage of marijuana actually dropped, but the economies are doing great, because of the additional revenue from marijuana as well as marijuana tourists coming to those areas. At this point, we have to look forward as a society. We have to understand that, you know what? We’ve made some mistakes. Perhaps, making marijuana illegal in the first place was one of those mistakes