Faces of drug legalization

[CarbineCaleb]

If I acquired a serious condition that requires long-term treatment, and available treatment options were not promising, I'd look for medical trials. If there were a trial that looked promising after researching what the drug/treatment is intended to accomplish, I'd consider it

While I think that's quite reasonable - you are saying, only if I had exhausted options among known safe and efficacious treatments that have been proven to work, and had a serious long term condition, would I offer to be part of the consumer testing. That's actually very different from saying we should abolish rigourous prerelease testing using controlled study groups, because we don't learn anything there anyway, and it just slows things down. If you do the latter, all there is, for anyone, with any condition, is individual experiments and anecdotal communication.

Take a look for example at any of these boards on the internet, in which people post their "real" experiences with medicines. You will find wildly varying reports there. Many people of course are seeing "side effects" that are completely unrelated to the medications, but it's not possible for them to determine that. Then, try to read up on the placebo effect... not just the basic idea, but really see what it is, how common, and how hard to resolve. Then, try to read up on side by side efficacy testing, and tell me you think people (or Consumer Reports) could figure that out, by either individual or casual testing.

If you eliminate scientific testing, you are asking for a return to the days of alchemy, voodoo, and witch doctors. Even in the Marxist Nanny State, plenty of the average public believe in these things (just look at how many devotees of "Homeopathic Medicine" there are).

Hey! While we're at it, how about eliminating all this long education for doctors and rigorous certification testing by the gubment too! After all, doctors make mistakes anyway, so their education clearly isn't providing any utility to society, and this suppression of the supply MDs is just a Nanny State plot to artificially support high prices and interfere with our ability to choose doctors! What constitutional right does the state have to require such a long study for doctors? And where do they get off testing them, and telling me who's competent??? I say, let anyone be a doctor, and let the market figure it out! Consumers are smart!

 

[MikeTx]

look at the pics.

If I post pictures of a vicious killer will you want to ban guns?

 

[Heist]

hell I say lets find a remote island.

I wonder what they'd say if you tossed them on an island somewhere and came back years later.

Probably something like "G'day, mate."

*badump-tish!*

 

[tyme]

Caleb, so no groups would conduct scientific studies on new drugs if such studies were optional? If that's the case, the drug in question must not be very important if, over the course of five years (or 3, or however long the decided-upon warning label period is), there are not enough rigorous studies on the drug to conclude whether it's reasonably safe and whether it does what it's advertised as doing.

[regarding licensing of doctors]
Consider why professional regulation by the government might be bad, or at least unnecessary. Certainly there is a need to know who's reputable in any profession before someone contracts services. Government regulation is simply not a good way to do that.

If the government stops regulating product X or profession Y, one of two things can happen. Either nothing terribly bad happens because those things aren't deemed important or dangerous enough to need regulation, or private groups form to bestow seals of approval on those products and professions. The seals mean nothing by themselves; only by a continuing track-record of thoroughness and honesty would the private group's stamp mean anything. If one becomes corrupt or sloppy, another would start to be preferred by patients, clients, and consumers.

The only reason for regulation of a profession is that someone, somewhere decided that the people have a right to some basic level of service from that profession, and convinced a few legislators. If I have no right to a doctor, why should the government regulate them?

By regulating and controlling entry into a profession, the government artificially inflates the profession's wages, which is only partially counteracted by tuition fees and/or other hoops necessary to become licensed; I suspect that legislators hope to reap the rewards of that increase through campaign contributions or other forms of support.

 

[publius42]

Caleb:
No, I do not have faith in the economic system to handle drug evaluation. Before the FDA exisited, there was a free market system for drugs, no heavy handed testing for efficacy and safety - just like you are advocating - so we've already been there. Consumers and physicians used drugs and decided for themselves what was best - so your innovative plan was rejected as the status quo about 75 years ago.

Closer to 90 years, actually. 1914 or 1916, I can't recall which. This guy knows.

I am a long time marijuana smoker. I would say since i was 16 on a daily basis. I am now 25....
Now i am not i criminal i do have a medical card for marijuana as i live in california and have severe back issuses.

Um, you're a criminal. Sorry to break it to you.

 

[CarbineCaleb]

Caleb, so no groups would conduct scientific studies on new drugs if such studies were optional? If that's the case, the drug in question must not be very important if, over the course of five years (or 3, or however long the decided-upon warning label period is), there are not enough rigorous studies on the drug to conclude whether it's reasonably safe and whether it does what it's advertised as doing.

tyme: Just who do you think would be doing that testing? Clinical trials have 3 phases, and typically take (there is no schedule) about 7 years to carry out - that's a long time. They cost an enormous amount of money: 350-500millions dollars per drug. And obviously not in every trial, but if you are going to be doing them, you have to realize that it's unavoidable that people are going to get sick, and people are going to die. That's a lot of responsibility and liability. So, even assuming they have the skill, what "groups" are going to have the endurance, budget, and fortitude to do them? Small biotechnology companies (those with say 500 employees and 50M in annual revenues) can't even afford to carry them out, let alone some hotshot professor at Harvard who may have a 2M budget - even if he's interested, he is not capable of carrying them out. So who is going to do them - Consumer Reports??? You keep on pulling statements out of your butt, but there are really no facts or knowledge to support them.

And as to what the success rates look like - 80% of drugs entering clinical trials never reach the market, and that's even with a whole fleet of real smart people designing, developing and testing them prior. So that's 80% of drugs that the broader public never needs to be exposed to. Even with this level of scrutiny and attrition, effects at lower levels of frequency, or drug-drug interactions effects still show up in the general populace with fatal results - they are undetectable from the level of testing in clinical trials, but show up when you go out to larger populations during initial product deployment, in what is called Phase 4 - monitoring what happens when it goes out to the general public.

This is just a whole lot harder than you think it is from what I am guessing you may get from Milton Friedman - he is a real smart guy, but he doesn't know squat about science.

P.S. I am sure you already know this as an expert on the drug industry and the FDA, but the FDA doesn't actually do the studies - they set standards, and provide oversight for the experimental plans, as well as evaluation and decision on the results. It's the drug companies that actually pay for and do the studies, if you didn't get that out of my explanation above.

P.P.S. I have to admire the thickness of your skull - facts just keep bouncing off, and have absolutely no effect - amazing!

 

[CarbineCaleb]

publius42: My understanding is that the FDA, as the FDA at least, was established around 1930. However, there were predecessor organizations before it evolved into what was named the FDA at that time. I don't know exactly how the mission responsbilities shifted during the time preceding that. According to the FDA (I just looked ) you can at some level trace them back - to 1862.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/history/historyoffda/default.htm

 

[70-101]

Here is further proof that drugs are corrupting our youth. The next thing you know she'll be drinking beer,smoking cigarettes and raping cub scouts. And from reading this thread; its become painfully obvious that some of you know even less about drug use and abuse than I do about gynecology. A couple of you really need to stick to what you know. And that's shooting holes in paper at close distances.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Time to put this one to bed.