Medical Marijuana: Why Isn't "Big Pharma" Interested?

I don't get why so many people speak as if the Pharmaceutical Industry is evil.

I don't either. The only thing I can come up with is that people feel powerless. Many of the people I hear talk this way, not only about the pharmaceutical industry, but industry in general, feel like they don't have much control over their lives. Many of them are not well educated and don't understand how things work. They feel trampled on. This is a common theme in country music. Country music is not at all about empowering people, it teaches them to be victims and blame the system. Meanwhile its stars live like royalty on the money they've made disdaining the wealthy lifestyle.

The anti-fracking meeting I went to a while back was a case in point. It was all about how evil the energy companies were and how government was in cahoots with them. There was a lot of emotion and few facts. It was one big pep rally. That's why I ended up walking out in disgust. My time is too valuable to be wasted on something like that. Show me some facts, bring in hydrologists, geologists, and I will stick around and listen. We have several excellent colleges and universities in the area, do you mean to tell me that the anti-fracking people can't get at least one professor of geology or hydrology to make their case? Instead of telling unverifiable stories about a now-defunct pharmaceutical company?

So pharmaceutical companies are evil. Energy companies are evil. Financial institutions are evil. Big business of any kind is evil. Government is evil. Even higher education is suspect. And we're the little people. But you know, "they" are going to get theirs someday, you just wait. Because as one country song I heard today puts it, "we are the chosen few."

There's a scene in the movie "Larry Crowne" that I particularly like. Larry, who only has a high school diploma, has lost his job at a big-box store because he doesn't have a college degree. He's the archetypical hero of a million country songs. But what does Larry do? He starts taking classes at the local community college. One of his classes is economics. While the other students fart around in class, Larry pays close attention to what the professor says about how the system works. Later, at the bank, he is able to use that knowledge to his advantage when they try to push him around.

The pharmaceutical industry threatens people. They don't understand it and so they call it evil. Rather than face up to their deficiencies in education and knowledge.