@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 1) Hi @Mandalorian_Ren , my last job on Academia was related to intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals and biotech. I was the PI in a team and part of a government task force on innovation. American pharm-PI attorneys and the MIT group was brought to Brazil..
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 2) ... to help us consider the new international agreements and shape our policies. That's also when I was sent to Amazonia, where I saw (not metaphorically) biopiracy happening in large scale.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 3) I did design tech transfer agencies that became policies than "unbecame". These are some of the things I learned, especially concerning the USA where drug regulation is surreal: it has nothing to do with the actual drug risk.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 4) First, I became really good at reading epidemiological curves in drug morbidity and mortality, drug discovery X FDA policies ("re-patenting", etc) and drug litigation. At first I tried to pitch in articles with an alternative, actually scientific..
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 5) ... interpretation of the opioid "crisis". It's anything but the mainstream interpretation. The curves elegantly demonstrate the fentanyl drug innovation and its dominance over the black market very soon after actual FDA approval.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 6) The curves also demonstrate co-variate behavior between alcohol consumption rise and any synthetic opioid, now dominated by the fentanyl "class" of drugs and not oxycodone.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 7) Public information on crime statistics and apprehensions suggest a "new deal" among two of the most powerful Transnational Criminal Organizations in the world: the Triad and the Mexican Cartels, and between them and American decision-makers.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 8) And here my track goes cold. I don't know who or where but I strongly suspect the FDA, given previous scandals, the VA and, obviously the legislative and executive branch fauna. That plus willing media participants creates the false perception that no decent
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 9) toxicologist will condone. Opioids are dangerous and so are most effective drugs. Ketamine is also addictive. Both are incredibly necessary. Anyone saying powerful drugs are not necessary and in millions of cases, chronically so, knows
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 10) shit about physiology and even less on pharmacology. I also happen to be good at reading suicide curves and the number of suicides out of untreated pain is completely unacceptable in a developed country. Yet, that's what's happening in the USA.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 11) This is a preamble about how I face the "enthusiasm" of the FDA with MDMA. Well, it is a tool. One tool. There are many tools that are demonized by the FDA. Read my words: they are ready for an attack on benzodiazepines. They will create a fictional perception...
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 12) about a "benzo crisis". And push MDMA that - wow, what a surprise! - will have its "drug form" just patented (anb therefore protected for 17 years). Trillions will be made and when the patent is burned, two things may happen:
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 13) one, a carbon radical may be substituted and lo and behold, you have a brand new drug and another 17 years of patent protection even if the new drug doesn't represent any benefit over the old one (see "perception").
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 14) the second thing is that Chinese big pharm, much, much more dynamic in innovation than the rest of the world, may (or may not) invade the black market with "alternative" forms of the drug, now that the American medical establishment
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 15) will have created millions of addicted customers. Does that mean the drug shouldn't be introduced? Of course not! ALL drugs with potential beneficial action should be introduced. But then comes POLICY.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 16) And I am a big advocate of not only the end of the war on drugs, about which there are serious, well published economic studies, but also something more controversial: the complete decriminalization and legalization of ALL drugs.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 17) Anyone can buy anything and physicians may go back to being what they studied for: to care, to prescribe, to treat and not to be drug pushers.
@EaterSouls @Mandalorian_Ren 18) wow... I wrote 18 tweets, I guess I'll collect them.
