The Truth About Drugmakers Profiteering on the Nation's Alcoholics and Addicts

Imagine a treatment for drug addiction and alcoholism that:

·????? uses no drugs,

·????? requires no trained personnel,

·????? no resources or insurance

·????? and makes no money for anyone.

This "people's program" is the anonymous 12-Step groups which have quietly saved millions over 80 years.

But lately, Big Pharma sees potential in all that free healing. Increasingly, it is "partnering" with rehab facilities to monetize addiction recovery, especially by facilitating “dual diagnoses” that require expensive pills.

A patient is no longer just an alcoholic, he is an alcoholic with?bipolar disease?or major?depressive disorder.?Ka-ching.

Long before the vaccine profit party, drugmakers wanted a new revenue stream. Its blockbusters like Lipitor, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Singulair and Concerta had long gone off patent and Medicare and Medicaid were sometimes balking at paying for brand drugs that are no better than generics. (Some states even sued for reimbursement for what they spent on brand drugs.) Huge fraud settlements in recent years against Abbott, Pfizer, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca and Merck have also taken their toll.?

Less easy to see is why the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), often working closely with Pharma, is trying to fix one of the few things in the health care system that is not broken--free, anonymous treatment for alcoholics and addicts. "All addictions can be eliminated if the?brain’s receptors can be controlled," said an ominous NIDA flier announcing a speech by its director.

Behind the search for drugmaker “solutions” to treat addictions is Nora Volkow, NIDA director, called "an early champion ?of the idea that drug addiction is a medical problem, rather than a lack of willpower or moral fiber" which actually was the founding??precept of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. But unlike AA founders who discovered that free, anonymous moral support--without drugs and outside of traditional medicine--worked in almost all cases, Volkow seeks high-tech interventions.??

"We?have identified ?many of the biological and environmental factors [of addiction] and are beginning to search for the genetic variations that contribute to the development and progression of the disease," she is quoted in MedlinePlus a publication of the National Library of Medicine, Brave New World style.

Why is seeking genetic causes and bio treatments Huxley-like?

First, because addiction and alcoholism are?diseases of denial so few would take a vaccine voluntarily (which is why Antabuse failed).?You would think NIDA as the government's top drug agency would know that.?

Secondly, because Pharma, with whom?Volkow has published ?many papers, loves drugs for people "at risk" of heart disease, diabetes, bone thinning, and, of course psychiatric diseases—who are symptom free. If someone feels no symptoms but may be at risk, it is a chance to sell hypochondria and drugs through direct-to-consumer ads. Don’t ask about those with no symptoms who never even needed treatment—they can buy the drugmaker stocks too.

Finally, the quest for a biotech answer to alcoholism and drug addiction is chilling because the government and Pharma subject animals to painful, unnecessary experiments for "addictions."

Making animals "addicts" to treat the uniquely human phenomenon is a fool's errand and a cruel one at that.

One paper co-written by Volkow shows a bloody "pregnant bonnet macaque in transverse position within HR+ PET scanner... positioned so that maternal and fetal organs were within same field of view." The paper concludes that when primates are dosed with cocaine, their fetuses are affected too. No sh$t!

NIDA's pursuit of a bio treatment for addictions and alcoholism is not only stupid and cruel, it wastes money on diseases that can be treated?with a cup of coffee in a church basement.?So many scientists object to Volkow's "magic bullet" treatments for addiction and alcoholism, she was compelled to defend the funding as "stable...despite concerns expressed

by some researchers that funding in other areas is being sacrificed to support the medication development portfolio,” on the College on Problems of Drug Dependence CPDD Community Website.

?A?high-tech treatment few will take voluntarily?that treats a condition already?treated with low-tech non-medical?means that?kills primates in the process??

Sounds like the government is thinking a lot like Big Pharma.

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