Except this isn’t about someone owning a species of plant. They aren’t saying people can’t grow the plant on their own. They aren’t saying drug companies can’t use the plant for their own purposes.
They are stopping US companies from raping their land and stealing their natural resources. They are trying to maintain control of something that the entire world wants, is very expensive in the rest of the world, but that is being bought for peanuts within their country. They have seen this same story play out time and time again in African countries, including their own, and taking steps to control the supply chain to benefit the farmers instead of only benefit the drug companies.
It’s more expensive because the drug companies added value to it. The solution to not having manufacturing capacity or a skilled workforce is education, not extortion.
“A government decree … [recognised] traditional knowledge associated with iboga as national heritage and requiring benefit-sharing in return for commercial use,” and they are considering banning exports entirely.
That is unjustifiable. Medical research is so expensive compared to tribal knowledge because it can be relied on by so many more people. They’ve benefited from this for hundreds of years, and now they’re mad we all want to benefit too. I don’t understand this sense of entitlement, I think it looks silly.
It’s their national resource. If it can’t be grown anywhere else, then why should they not own it and profit from it? You are right, the answer to not having mfg capacity is education, but they have been exploited for so long by so many people for so much money, the only way to afford that education is by charging people for the natural resources.
But yeah, fuck these people for wanting to make money on something they have spent a thousand years developing and cultivating. You feel entitled to buying up cheap products from poor people so that white people can turn a hefty profit. How about those drug companies set up shop in Gabon and do the science in research there, where they can give education and good jobs and tax money to Gabon in exchange for that hefty profit, as opposed to just buying up cheap materials to take to the US where there is already a source of rich white people who are educated and have good jobs.
That’s not what they’re doing, is it though. Nobody is coming in and raping the land, drug companies aren’t literally harvesting this, it is all done by Gabonese people still, and what Gabon is asking for is not a higher price for a raw resource but part ownership in all downstream products.
Except this isn’t about someone owning a species of plant. They aren’t saying people can’t grow the plant on their own. They aren’t saying drug companies can’t use the plant for their own purposes.
They are stopping US companies from raping their land and stealing their natural resources. They are trying to maintain control of something that the entire world wants, is very expensive in the rest of the world, but that is being bought for peanuts within their country. They have seen this same story play out time and time again in African countries, including their own, and taking steps to control the supply chain to benefit the farmers instead of only benefit the drug companies.
It’s more expensive because the drug companies added value to it. The solution to not having manufacturing capacity or a skilled workforce is education, not extortion.
“A government decree … [recognised] traditional knowledge associated with iboga as national heritage and requiring benefit-sharing in return for commercial use,” and they are considering banning exports entirely.
That is unjustifiable. Medical research is so expensive compared to tribal knowledge because it can be relied on by so many more people. They’ve benefited from this for hundreds of years, and now they’re mad we all want to benefit too. I don’t understand this sense of entitlement, I think it looks silly.
It’s their national resource. If it can’t be grown anywhere else, then why should they not own it and profit from it? You are right, the answer to not having mfg capacity is education, but they have been exploited for so long by so many people for so much money, the only way to afford that education is by charging people for the natural resources.
But yeah, fuck these people for wanting to make money on something they have spent a thousand years developing and cultivating. You feel entitled to buying up cheap products from poor people so that white people can turn a hefty profit. How about those drug companies set up shop in Gabon and do the science in research there, where they can give education and good jobs and tax money to Gabon in exchange for that hefty profit, as opposed to just buying up cheap materials to take to the US where there is already a source of rich white people who are educated and have good jobs.
That’s not what they’re doing, is it though. Nobody is coming in and raping the land, drug companies aren’t literally harvesting this, it is all done by Gabonese people still, and what Gabon is asking for is not a higher price for a raw resource but part ownership in all downstream products.