NRA are pikers compared to Opioid's lobbying by a factor of 8 to 1

[packman]

"A searing new report from the Associated Press claims that the makers of opioid painkillers, the dangerous drugs at the center of the tragic overdose crisis, outspent the US gun lobby on lobbying and campaign contributions by 8:1. "
...

"•Opioid drugmakers including Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, spent more than $880 million, or roughly $98 million per year, on lobbying and campaign contributions that included efforts to support the drugs.

•Drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed a yearly average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative centers. "



http://www.businessinsider.com/new-ap-report-opioid-drugmakers-outspent-nra-lobbying-2016-9

[Warpy]

1. Shouldn't that be "pharmaceutical lobbying?"

Your headline (and theirs) makes it sound like that lobbying is only for opioids, not for all the other drugs they manufacture. It isn't.

[packman]

3. The article headline "A searing new report claims opioid drugmakers..."

It's focus is opioid's and the lobby influence , whether they make Pepcid, Tums or other medical yum-yums is not the point of the posting or the article.

[Warpy]

4. Uh, who make a lot of drugs besides those

The premise is a bit dishonest.

However, I would see these guys investigated for drug diversion at the manufacturing or import point. A lot of stuff is hitting the street that never had a prescription written for it.

Then again, I'd rather see an end to the drug war, all that money being poured into paramilitary units offshore and prisons here used to rehabilitate people who run into trouble.

[Eleanors38]

6. When it comes to WOD politics and gun control politics, anything goes.

[deathrind]

2. ?

Apple to Oranges.

I can aim all the Vicodins or Oxycodones at you in the world and nothing will happen to you.

But if you are going to make the comparison, should the NRA and its backers agree to even a small percentage of the kind of controls and regulations in place that pharmaceutical companies are bound by before their product hits the market or the controls in place before a patient can get the medication that would be a step in the right direction.

[Eleanors38]

5. ...or Brussel Sprouts.

All the guns in my safe are just as safe as opioids, until someone chooses to misuse them.

"Controls and regulations," of course, must pass Constitutional muster, esp. Since there are thousands of regulations and laws already affecting the sell, posession and use of firearms.

I don't keep up with NRA, but it doesn't surprise me that it spends only a fraction of Big Pharma's outlay: The big majority of Americans see the Second Amendment as recognizing an individual RKBA. That organization has only to go after gun control laws and those legislators who support them. In other words, it is easier to defend a right than to push for taking a right away.

[SecularMotion]

7. A majority of Americans may recognize the 2nd amendment as an individual right to keep and bear arms

but they do not agree with the anti-regulation agenda of the NRA.

[Eleanors38]

8. You will have to take it up with the NRA.