An odd sequence of ads ran on televison one day. A commercial illustrating the horrors of marijuana usage was flanked by commercials for two drugs that are approved, sanctioned, and prescribed. Drugs that have profound effects upon brain chemistry. One affects the reuptake of seratonin, the other has a similar function, but works on norepinepherine. Why are some substances lauded to introduce into the body, and others are outlawed? One of the aforementioned legal drugs states in its patient literature that the precise mechanism by which it produces its therapeutic effects are unknown. That's correct. The chemists who discovered it, the company that sells it, and the physicians who prescribe it don't know how it works. They simply believe that it does. They're the experts, right?

Before putting anything into your body regardless of the color of the coat of the pusher you obtained it from, do some research about it. Know what effects it is going to have on you. Look online, look in the Physician's Desk Reference. Your physician may not even know the complete information about what he or she is telling you to take. Pharmaceutical sales representatives get paid a great deal of money to convince the medical community to embrace new drugs as quickly as possible so that the manufacturer can begin recouping the costs of development before patent protection runs out and they lose market share to generic competitors. The driving force behind this industry, like most others, is monetary, not therapeutical.

Vargr, 2004