AMERICAN HERBALISM

by Nicholas Smith - Community Market's Marketing Director 9/1/09

“The dichotomy between regular school medicine and wholistic medicine grows, the stridency against alternative medicine grows in the medical journals; the stridency against standard practice medicine grows in the wholistic community. Sophistication has increased…so has the finger-pointing on both sides. My response, growingly, is to flip my middle fingers (lovingly) in both directions…and heed my own council of the middle way.” – Michael Moore (the herbalist) January 9, 1941 – February 20, 2009

Most Americans grow up without ever being able to identify five plants in their region, much less their medicinal properties. With the rise of modern medicine, the healing techniques of our ancestors is labeled as archaic and pushed aside to make room for a growing industry of overpriced pharmaceuticals. (One must question the contradiction of dismissing traditional medicine as primitive, yet at the same time, administering plant-derived drugs such as atropine, codeine, ephedrine, morphine, and quinine; to name a few.) Unlike in Europe, and specifically in Great Britain, there is no standard training and certification program for herbalists in the US. To practice phytotherapy in the States, one must seek out alternative schools (which tend to be costly without the option of school loans) or rely on self education.

It’s mind-boggling to see the lack of interest from pharmaceutical firms on researching plants as a source for new drugs. Quoting Norman R. Farnsworth, Professor of Pharmacognosy at the College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois, Chicago: “Industry claims ‘patent difficulties’, ‘inability to control the source of raw material’, ‘biological variation from batch to batch causes nothing but frustration’, and other reasons for this lack of interest. Perhaps the real reason(s) will never be known for sure, but an understanding of the historical development of pharmacy and medicine provides a foundation on which one may draw fairly obvious conclusions.”

One palpable conclusion would be that the drug industry has no way of controlling the growing, harvesting, and use of medicinal plants in communities. If this trillion dollar industry were to do clinical research with positive outcomes, it might cease to exist as a trillion dollar industry. A heightened awareness about the multitude of medicines protruding from crevices in our sidewalks could cause Big Pharma profits to decline. The possibility of profit loss might explain the dumbing down of our culture on plant medicine, or rather the misuse and misrepresentation of medicinal herbs in our society such as Comfrey, Kava Kava, and Ephedra.

Modern medicine has many benefits. It is the corporate stronghold over our medicines and the misuse and/or overuse of pharmaceuticals that give this important pharmacopeia a bad name. To the drug industry, medicine is a business, not a way to improve health. Nevertheless, no matter how much critics animadvert on our nation’s drug industry, there’s no denying the many lives modern drugs save. The pretentious mentality of modern healthcare professionals perhaps initiates a carping wholistic community to fight back declaring herbs as sanctified entities, divorced and beyond medical and pharmaceutical practices.

According to a 2007 report, Americans spent more than a 10th of their out-of-pocket health care dollars on alternative medicine. Altogether, consumers spent an estimated $34 billion on these and other alternative remedies. Awareness is obviously growing in the US about the benefits of plant medicine, as well as other alternative therapies to treat or prevent common illnesses. Whether this interest was inspired by the cost of pharmaceuticals or their side effects (say out loud as fast as you can, “Side effects include: Insomnia, nausea, weakness, headache, diarrhea, loss of appetite, drowsiness, anxiety, nervousness, shakiness, dry mouth, decreased sex drive, suicidal thoughts, indigestion, dizziness, sweating, hostility or aggressiveness), or a little bit of both, one cannot deny this newfangled attraction towards alternative medicine.

Over the past few decades, herbalism has managed to find its place in modern society; the story of its struggles and importance is far too great to adduce in a two page article. In the 21st century where apocalyptic fantasies run rampant (economic collapse, the end of oil, over population, global warming, viral outbreaks, etc.), our interest in herbalism is conceivably a need to regain control of our health without a dependence on corporations to formulate, distribute, and market our medicines. Since the dawn of civilization, we have increasingly repressed our instincts, further detaching ourselves from the animal kingdom. We, as a society, can only hope to never lose what is innate; it can easily be lost in the age of persuasion and deception. As daunting as it may seem to dive into the world of plant medicine, let the alleviating words of the late Michael Moore dissipate those fears: “If you only end up with ten or fifteen plants that you know well and trust, then you are indeed blessed.”

Take Action Home