Animals used in experiments were happy to know that the weed provided to them by the scientists was fully funded by taxpayer money. The problem with the research is that the way the money was used was illegal. A report put out by the White Coat Waste Project shows that millions of dollars were wasted by researchers to help get animals high while conducting tests on them.
Devin Murphy is with the White Coat Waste Project. He noted, “The blunt truth is that tens of millions of tax dollars are going up in smoke for half-baked marijuana and vaping experiments on animals and NIH-funded white coats are breaking federal law by not disclosing how much they’re wasting to get animals wasted.” The failure by the researchers to report their usage of the funds and material is breaking federal law.
The Daily Wire reported that “One experiment, which began at Oregon Health and Science University in 2012, involved giving monkeys cannabis edibles to assess the outcome of THC on reproductive health. The researchers buy the cannabis and then force the animals to smoke and consume it. The animals are then monitored and watched to see what kind of reaction they have to the cannabis. The grant recipients received roughly $169 million in taxpayer dollars marked for this experiment.”
The animals were forced to use the drug and, then, watched to see how it affected their sexual activity. In this one project alone, $169 million was used to watch the monkeys have a good time.
The White Coat Waste Project states that every test done has violated the Stevens Amendment. Each test research team is to submit project details that dictate how the money is being used. They are supposed to record how the money is used and how much of it was a taxpayer and private funding. Failure to report accurately violates the law.
The lobster test involved testing tissue samples of various parts of the lobster’s body before cooking. The researchers were also involved in an experiment that had a price tag of $1.5 million that watched pregnant mice react to an injection of marijuana. And in another test, $24 million was used to drug up lobsters before watching them die.
Glenn Grothman is a Republican on the budget committee, and he is concerned about the number of wasted funds coming out from under Joe Biden’s presidency. The wasted funds could have been used to fund other essential projects that involved medical research. But instead, the Democrats wasted time and money on pointless ways of getting animals high from drug usage. The projects are deadly to animals and provide no value to human life.
People think that it should be used just because they have the money. Grothman noted that he thought the researchers got bored and decided to think of pointless ways to waste the money. And yet, the Democratic-run government was more than willing to send millions of dollars to the project teams to sit back and watch animals get high.
The White Coat Waste Project is demanding that an audit be performed on the project team. They also want to see all branches of government fall under the Cost Openness and Spending Transparency Act. Any violation of the law would result in funds being withheld until compliance was met.
The Democrats are the unlikely group to pass such laws. The liberals love waste, and they love being able to spend money without being held accountable. Many of their party members have been found guilty of the misuse of funds in the recent past. They, of all people, should be the ones watching for wasteful spending.
Joe Biden and his administration don’t care about how taxpayer money is used. They’re reluctant to pass laws that would hold them accountable for using funds. But the money being wasted on getting monkeys high could be used for other purposes that would benefit Americans. But that will not happen until the Democrats are pushed out of control, and the Republicans can take over.
