Every citizen in the United States has individual rights protected by the Constitution. This protection also includes businesses that have gone through the legal process to become a legal entity ; more commonly known as becoming a corporation. Many times these individual rights, protected by the Constitution, conflict with the common good and as history shows, the courts consistently side with the common good when faced with a case that pits these two against each other. Big Pharma are corporations exercising their individual rights to market, and sell their product to consumers. In the process, the common good is suffering. We need to pass legislation that balances corporation’s individual rights to freely promote, market, and sell legal …show more content…
However, they should not be allowed to target the consumers themselves on television, only though physicians. This would drastically reduce over prescribing and patients being prescribed drugs they do not need. By banning drug and narcotic advertising, this would infringe the corporation’s rights to free speech. This has been one of the top argument for why legislation should not be passed, as seen in the lawsuit by Arimin against the FDA. This is a very strong argument as it has constitutional backing. Their individual right to free speech, however, is not as important as the common good. Legislation has passed on this same premise previously. The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act prohibits tobacco products to be advertised on television due to the public health concern caused by tobacco. This relates to the common good because of the public health concern. The Supreme Court has shown that public health and the common good trump the individual right to free speech in cases like this. Such as the Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly case which banned tobacco advertising. This decision was made even though it infringed on the corporations right to free speech (Hudson). I agree with this decision to ban tobacco advertising regardless of the fact that it is unconstitutional. This Supreme Court ruling refutes the validity of the argument that the individual right of free speech in advertising being more important than the common good, in this case the common good attributes to public health. It is clear these prescription drugs are a hazard to public health. Prescription drugs (opiates only) have caused over 165,000 deaths within the last 15 years and is currently on the rise. Over 2 million Americans in 2014 were addicted to Opiate prescription narcotics. The most troubling fact is listed directly on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website: “As many as 1 in 4
The court reached this decision by using the First and Fourteenth Amendment as rules in place for rights to free commercial speech and for state laws and their rules for creating bans and regulations. The First Amendment was applied to this case as the Gas & Electric Corp. held the right to free commercial speech as the Constitution states that, "Congress shall make no law" that prohibits "freedom of speech". Defining what "speech" is, is significant to the application of the law. In this case, speech was commercial advertisement which is, by definition, a form of speech and that form of speech is protected under the First Amendment since it does not violate the rules of speech that can be protected. Speech that is not protected under the constitution are, "obscenity, fighting words, defamation (including libel and slander), child pornography, perjury, blackmail, incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats" (Newseum Institute).
The First Amendment promises the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Citizens United felt that their First Amendment rights were being violated by the FEC because of the ban on independent expenditures—something that they saw as a form of speech. The FEC argued that the BCRA was valid because it assisted with preventing corruption and it protected corporation shareholders from funding corporate speech. While the points of the FEC could be considered valid, they do not negate the First Amendment law. The ruling of this case sets a precedent for media operations and corporations.
A free market system only hurts the economy, which is why the U.S is a mixed market economy. A mixed market economy is beneficial to consumers due to the fact there is government regulatory oversight of goods, and there is competition for goods. This type of economy means that companies cannot become monopolies and control prices of certain goods. However, this is not the case for pharmaceutical industries because there is little to none government intervention occurring. The lack of government oversight means that pharmacies that only develop specialized medicines have complete control of the price due to the fact they are the only ones able to reproduce the product.
Far too long in this great country of ours have the big corporations taken advantage of the people at the bottom. Unfortunately, because of our laissez-faire oriented feelings this leaves millions of Americans who need to rely on government programs in order to survive. With this in mind the 28th Amendment will tackle the problem of big corporations head on with as little government intervention as possible. This Amendment will be composed of three parts initially the first two focused completely on the corporations themselves while the last part will deal with the individual so that he/
This case clashes with freedom of speech, but it is also about freedom to
“ Because they produce euphoria in addition to pain relief, they can be misused. Regular use- even as prescribed by a doctor can lead to dependence ,and when misused, opioid pain relievers can lead to overdose incidents and deaths” (Drugabuse.gov/opioids) Prescribing opioids have more dangers to the human than they do
Underlying Causes: The increase in the sale of opioids is considered to be the root of the opioid crisis, as the drugs have been proven to be highly addictive. An addiction to prescriptive opioids, however, can lead to an addiction to synthetic, illegal opioids, such as heroine or fentanyl, which are less expensive and easier to acquire. In fact, in their journal article, “Associations of nonmedical pain reliever use and initiation of heroin use in the United States” Pradip Muhuri and associates discovered that “the recent (12 months preceding interview) heroin incidence rate was 19 times higher among those who reported prior nonmedical prescription pain reliever (NMPR) use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent)” (Muhuri et. al). In other words, abusing prescription opioids significantly raises the chances of abusing illicit drugs, such as heroin.
The article argues that the courts should only view harmful speech in the same eyes and rule them the same as if they were conduct harms. The source then discusses how many scholars believe that freedom of speech only applies when the benefits outweigh the harms, regarding what is being said. The article does a good job of approaching the problem through a semi-neutral lens. The article clearly lets its opinion be known at times; however, it approaches the opposite side of the argument in a fair manner. The article will be incredibly beneficial because it discusses when freedom of speech should not apply with a neutral approach.
Dependence on prescription opioids can stem from treatment of chronic pain and in recent years is the cause of the increased number of opioid overdoses. Opioids are very addictive substances, having serious life threatening consequences in case of intentional or accidental overdose. The euphoria attracts recreational use, and frequent,
Opioid Epidemic in the United States The opioid crisis has risen over the years here in America. The addiction to painkillers has caused many drug overdoses across America. According to the Vox," In 2015, more than 52,000 people have died from drug overdoses from linked to opioids such as Percocet, heroin, Oxycontin or even fentanyl. This problem did not become an overnight health crisis, but it has become quickly known in America. Expanding our drug treatment centers across America would provide the support to those who are addicted to drugs.
1920s Advertising During the 1920s, advertisement started to increase and expand. Many ideas and tactics were used to lure the attention of the consumers. After World War I, America started to grow with a stable and growing economy. This flourishment made many American's live out the 1920s in prosperity.
Across the world abusing prescription drugs causes more deaths than street drugs do combined (“International Statistics”). Prescription drugs are so easy to get ahold of and so easy to get addicted to. The misuse of prescription drugs have gotten out of hand. These drugs can cause unintentional overdoses easily. The misuse of prescription drugs can lead to addiction, affect the health of users in a dramatic way, and even cause death.
These pills, such as xanax and oxycodone allow people for short periods of time to withdraw from the harsh reality faced today. “Between 1997 and 2002, sales of oxycodone and methadone nearly quadrupled” (Okie). Around 15 years later and the prescription pill problem is continuing to skyrocket. Since prescription pills are dispersed out to anyone by doctors, many people do not realize that it is as much of an illicit drug as cocaine and heroin is. “Misinformation about the addictive properties of prescription opioids and the perception that prescription drugs are less harmful than illicit drugs are other possible contributors to the problem” (NIDA).
Rivalry among existing firms (High): The retail pharmacy industry has two 800-pound gorillas: Walgreens and CVS. Both companies have over 7,000 pharmacy stores and both count on prescription drugs for about 65 percent of their revenue. Competition between Walgreens and CVS pharmacies is direct and aggressive. For ex: CVS recently ran an advertisement in millions of circulars instructing Walgreens customers how to transition their accounts to CVS, and this behavior has continued as Express Scripts customers can no longer use Walgreens as their prescription drug provider and CVS works to acquire this market share.
References Eaton, L. (2003). United Kingdom finally bans tobacco advertising. BMJ, 326 (7385), 345-351. Harper, T. (2006). Why the tobacco industry fears point of sale display bans.