Is Big Pharma Weed Coming With Pfizer’s Recent Purchase?

Perhaps you haven’t heard the wonderful news. Our great overlords and global saviors at Pfizer announced their intention to enter the medical cannabis market through their $ 6.7 billion acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. Of course, due to the pandemic, the huge pharmaceutical company has a lot of “expendable cash” at its disposal.

However, the news that Pfizer is looking to get into the medical cannabis industry is nothing new. Any proponent understood that once cannabis was legalized worldwide, these giant pharmaceutical companies would definitely claim a part of the market. Whether this is “good” or “bad” is irrelevant; The truth is that the entry of pharmaceutical companies into the cannabis industry is inevitable.

If I put my personal prejudices aside for a moment, along with some of the company’s more gruesome historical facts, perhaps this could be the start of the next wave of cannabinoid drugs. While some may shy away from the idea that the pharmaceutical industry is handling this sacred plant, cannabinoid-based drugs will evolve into standardized packaging. It will eventually be dose-specific and potentially a robust cannabinoid treatment protocol for a large group of disorders.

To do this, the pharmaceutical industry must dig its greedy hands into the market and begin research and development. In the case of their most recent acquisition, we can already see that they will target specific diseases and develop a drug rather than trying to make tinctures, whole plants, etc.

Benzinga reported on the takeover:

“The proposed acquisition of Arena complements our capabilities and expertise in inflammation and immunology, a Pfizer innovation driver to develop potential therapies for patients with debilitating immune-inflammatory diseases who need more effective treatment options,” said Mike Gladstone, Global President & General Manager, Pfizer Inflammation and Immunology.

“Leveraging Pfizer’s leading research and global development capabilities, we plan to accelerate clinical development of etrasimod for patients with immune-inflammatory diseases.” Etrasimod is Arena’s drug candidate for the treatment of immune-mediated and inflammatory diseases.

These type of cannabinoid drugs could be obtained through health insurance, which means that cannabinoid-based drugs could be made widely available to people who might need them.

What good can result from it?

While it is probably easier to give in to the masses and portray Pfizer as the incarnate devil, they too are simply a force of reality that exists and behaves according to its own self-preservation. If their business is to make a profit they will adapt to market needs and if endocannabinoid treatment options become a thing then their self-preservation would create net benefit.

RELATED: Pfizer Has Entered the Cannabis Arena

I am by no means saying that I support their aggressive strategies and their general influence on virtually all of the major institutions in society. I’m just saying that Big Pharma’s involvement will further legitimize cannabis as a medicine. In fact, it will likely open up the medicinal side of cannabis widely and we will begin to develop a wide range of medicines from these discoveries.

We’ve seen some giant leaps in medical cannabis in the past few years, and since it’s completely legal at the federal level, you can bet that drug companies will step up research into cannabis and potential drugs.

RELATED: Why Is Big Pharma Going To Canada For Its Cannabis Patents?

A new era of medical cannabis is heralding with easily available and widely available cannabis medicines that you can purchase through your insurance company. At this point we will have a complete separation between “cannabis medicine” and recreational cannabis. While whole plant medicine continues to be viewed as medicinal, doctors are likely to be motivated by the pharmaceutical industry to advance their drugs. That means we look at the potential downside of their engagement.

Photo by HighGradeRoots / Getty Images

Pharma Weed – What Could Go Wrong?

As mentioned above, if Big Pharma makes drugs, they will want to sell them. The vast majority of anti-cannabis scientists at some point were funded by the pharmaceutical industry. They actively fought cannabis because it hurt their profit margins. For example, states that legalized medical cannabis saw opioid use decline, which had a direct impact on some pharmaceutical companies.

As for Pfizer itself, I’m not sure where their lobbying and research funding had the greatest impact, largely due to the complex nature of their finances. To find out what they are spending where, they research thousands of hours, go through thousands of papers, and follow the money trail.

RELATED: Why Big Pharma Loves the Power of Synthetic Cannabinoids

Nonetheless, with Pfizer entering the market now, they will certainly be advancing their medicine over whole plant medicine. You will start to see studies claiming their medications outperform the plant itself, and possibly even some smears.

In fact, I wouldn’t trust the pharmaceutical industry to invent things about fentanyl being added to cannabis to reduce confidence in buying cannabis on the street.

In addition, the pharmaceutical industry will increase the perceived value of cannabis in order to sell it to insurers at a higher premium. This is primarily for the pharmaceutical industry to earn its money. They develop a drug, hand it over to the FDA (which, according to some sources, gets 75% of its funding from the pharmaceutical industry), and then sell it to insurers to buy it at an inflated price. If a drug only cost dollars to manufacture, Pharma would sell it to American taxpayers for hundreds of dollars … per pill! This is common practice.

Pharma would probably also try to patent as much of the process as possible, cannabinoids, etc. It would be very important to keep an eye on the intellectual property battles that are sure to happen at some point in the near future.

Bottom line

Pharma will enter the medical cannabis industry trying to dominate the market share. In all likelihood, they will succeed on this front. However, if the current cannabis community can maintain its independence, there will be enough of the cake for everyone. Those who blindly trust pharma will catch up with the cannabinoid drugs they offer, while those more inclined towards naturopathic treatments will stick with the local crowd.

It’s important to make sure all of these options are available in the future, however, and if you hear of further restrictions on home-grown medical cannabis, be sure to be aware of who is funding it.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and was republished with permission.