Today I learned: Heroin is a trademark of Bayer

[Recursion]

In case anybody still thought Pharma was on our side.

[brucefan]

1. Huh?

[tiny elvis]

12. name gesetzlich geschützt

[rurallib]

2. Interesting - any idea when they trademarked that?

I have always heard - and am too lazy to check - that cigarette companies have plans to market marijuana the minute it becomes legal.

Don't know if it is true, but it would make sense

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. About 1898, I think. It was sold legally in the US until after the Harrison Narcotics Act.

Ironically, touted as cure for morphine addiction, just as Freud touted cocaine to defeat the habit.

Given what our century of drug prohibition has accomplished, maybe the old days weren't so bad.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Bayer also produced gas for THE Gas Chambers...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Controversies

The Bayer company then became part of IG Farben, a German chemical company conglomerate. During World War II, the IG Farben used slave labor in factories attached to large slave labor camps, notably the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp IG Farben owned 42.5% of the company that manufactured Zyklon B, a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. After World War II, the Allies broke up IG Farben and Bayer reappeared as an individual business. The Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. That is a really bad argument.

There are probably thousands of drugs that are no longer made or ceased development that are patented in some manner.

AZT was originally developed a possible cancer drug. It sat around unused for years but became one of the first treatments to prolong the lives of people with HIV.

The fact the heroin was a blunder (and one prior to the FDA drug approval process, I might add), is hardly indicative of pharmaceutical companies being bad.

[SummerSnow]

6. ...and now a word from our sponsor.

[Aerows]

7. "Assholes International, Inc."

"You'll live better. Hand over all of your money, live a cloistered existence, and uh, oops, gotta go. Bye now!"

[sylvi]

8. The generic name is

morphine diacetate.

[Warpy]

9. Yes, it was supposed to cure morphine addiction

Oops.

Still, the kindest thing would have been to allow addicts to get clean and reliable drugs instead of listening to the moralists and getting punitive enough to put black marketeers in business and create a whole new international gang problem.

Good going, moralists! Your war got us dirty drugs, more of them, and full prisons. You must be so proud!

[Logical]

10. So, do you think any drugs are useful? n-t

[lunasun]

11. Bayer is bad

Last edited Sat Mar 23, 2013, 11:48 PM - Edit history (1)

J&J is worse!