Sativex revenues for 2011: £29.6 million

[RainDog]

4. Andrea Barthwell: Deputy Drug Czar turned lobbyist for Bayer/GW Pharma/Sativex

Last edited Tue Jan 21, 2014, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

h/t to fredamae for this excellent information.

Here's what Barthwell had to say when she was being paid to promote prohibition:

...You won’t find any commercial development of plant-based marijuana medicines being pursued in the United States. Andrea Barthwell, a deputy director in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and President Bush’s point person on medical marijuana, says cannabis medicines aren’t compatible with modern science. They do not constitute “a serious line of research,” she says.

“The people who are advancing marijuana as a medicine are perpetuating a cruel hoax that exploits our compassion for the sick,” Barthwell says. “They are using patients’ pain and suffering in an attempt to change America’s drug control policy. Marijuana is a crude plant product that most definitely is not a medicine.”

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/andrea-barthwell-snake-oil-salesman/

More from Barthwell:

"Having this product available will certainly slow down the dash to make the crude plant material available to patients across the country," said Barthwell, an addiction medicine specialist.

Some medical marijuana activists suggested that Sativex could help spur efforts to legalize medicinal use of leafy marijuana.

"In practical terms," said Mirken, of the Marijuana Policy Project, "Sativex is to marijuana as a cup of coffee is to coffee beans."

Barthwell drew a different comparison.

"Comparing crude marijuana to Sativex is like comparing a raging forest fire to the fire in your home's furnace," she said. "While both provide heat, one is out of control."

(From Kirk Tousaw, Campaign Manager, BC Marijuana Party via the BCMP Website cache)

This is, again, pure propaganda to sell a product and make inexpensive medicine unavailable to Americans - and Canadians, for that matter.

Barthwell showed up at a conference sponsored by Americans for Safe Access and claimed that Sativex is not cannabis...and she's a doctor? An advocate from ASA noted her appearance.

After I pointed out to the few reporters that she was not JUST a private citizen, but the ex-Deputy Drug Czar, a representative of GW, and the failed Republican nominee for IL Senate, she told the press that rescheduling marijuana would not make it available to patients. I concurred. Then she asked me how I could say that Sativex was marijuana. I asked her if it was not marijuana, what was it? She rattled off her sound byte "If your grandmother was in pain would you give her opium?"

I am writing this list because I have major concern for the future of Sativex. Barthwell looked ridiculous. All the reporters kept asking her "They are here in support of Sativex, what is your problem?" And she just kept giving her sound bytes about how Sativex was not marijuana. Luckily Matt Atwood, Executive Director of IDEALReform, also a chemist was present and challenged her on the "compound level" to which her only response was "What are you a scientists?"

Directly after the press conference, I received a "Cease and Desist" order from the Bayer attorneys over a domain name ASA purchased but had yet put up the content www.SativexInfo.org , www.SativexInfo.com, and www.SativexInfo.net which is a pro-Sativex website they also found out about from Don Wirtshafter's e-mail. We have kindly told them we will not be giving over the domains and we will end up in court in the next 20 days or so.

So, we see that, yes, indeed, drug warriors like this woman are working with Bayer and GW to pull some slick shit and make Sativex legal while keeping the cannabis plant illegal by pretending that a medicine made from WHOLE-PLANT CANNABIS, not a synthetic, is not WHOLE-PLANT CANNABIS.

I suppose that's why the Drug Czar amended his pronouncement that there is no medical value to cannabis to "smoked" cannabis. He may soon have to start saying... smoked, buttered, baked, vaped, tinctured or any other way... if not done by the big pharma the government favors.

You know, long ago, some people in Boston had a tea party because their government favored a corporation, The East India Company, over those who lived in this nation who produced their own tea. King George ruled that the colonists must purchase the product that favored him, economically, rather than those who lived and worked here and often scraped by to eke out a living. The current teabaggers misrepresent this moment - this moment was a riot against corporate favoritism, not taxation. Now the tea is of a different blend.

Here's Barthwell on Morning Talking Heads TV

The host of the show failed to mention that Barthwell had worked as a lobbyist for a company that would benefit from keeping cannabis illegal.

In addition, the host didn't understand the difference between a synthetic and natural plant-based entity.

In addition, the crawl says 25 million have treated for marijuana abuse but failed to indicate that the majority of those entering rehab for cannabis had not used it for more than a month prior to rehab (which indicates they were not addicted), or that the majority of people in the U.S. who go to rehab for marijuana in the U.S. do so to avoid a criminal record for simple possession. iow, that stat is part of prohibition propaganda.

From Saturday, April 16, 2005 The Pharmaceuticalization of Marijuana: G.W. Does the "Right" Thing - Fred Gardner at CounterPunch

G.W. has also hired John Pastuovic, who headed the Bush-Cheney campaign in Illinois in 2000, to handle public relations in the U.S. The implication of the hires is that G.W. founders Geoffrey Guy and Brian Whittle will use any means necessary to push their products as alternatives to smoked marijuana.

Olsen v. DEA, according to the MPP, may provide a route for Bayer/GW to obtain special treatment for Sativex to allow it to be made legal while whole-plant cannabis that is not supplied by a pharmceutical company remains illegal.

The corruption, the pure financial consideration over the welfare and civil rights of Americans is, once again, is illustrated by a government that implements policy based upon lies. Who, with the power to do so, has the courage to stop this assault on Americans? Are we governed by cowards and liars who enrich themselves at the expense of the American people? I wonder, more and more.

The cycle of deceit continues, from Anslinger's Marihuana Tax Act legislation of 1937 to favor forestry paper pulp over hemp, to Barthwell's attempt to create a two-tier class of Americans based, again, upon lies.