Did CNBC Just Sell Speed on Live TV?

CNBC has a show called Mad Money which Jim Cramer hosts. He gets paid to promote stocks; it's influencer marketing for public companies. He also asks viewers to subscribe to his membership program, where he says other stuff he's paid to say.

Last week, he promoted a speed-like pill without shame on live TV. Here's how it went down. 

He said he believes healthcare companies will take off in 2023. "Picking healthcare companies isn't like picking a needle in a haystack; it's like shooting fish in a barrel with a machine gun!!"

Then, he peddled the speed:

"Get this; at just 15mg, Lilly has invented a pill that will give you a 22.25% reduction in weight over 72 weeks! A reliable weight loss pill! That's like a license to print money! And when everyone makes their New Year's resolutions, how many people will want to lose 10 pounds? They're going to go crazy for this drug! So I'm not going to listen to an analyst scare me off from Lilly! This company only has 1 issue in my eyes: can they make enough of these pills to meet demand?!"

And after that shameful drug promotion, he says, “If you were in my membership program, you’d have known about this by now!”

If that's not peddling drugs on live TV, nothing is. Companies have been selling weight loss pills with speed-like chemicals for a long time, but I've never seen CNBC Mad Money pitch them to the public so blatantly. Times are tough for them; they don't care about their reputation anymore.