Yesterday's entry still resonates with me today. We've become very estranged from the natural world have we not. Large corporate interests like ADM and Monsanto have begun patenting plants and seeds, and brewing up insecticides and herbicides that dovetail with their genetically modified creations. Meanwhile governments around the globe ban one plant after another, deeming them dangerous to the public. Plants used for millenia by tribal cultures are, in a quick stroke of the pen, made illegitimate dismissed as dirty "drugs". America's venerable Food and Drug Administration has essentially followed a policy which states that all natural herbs and remedies, even those never in fact studied by the agency are to be assumed dangerous until clinically proven safe. Pharmaceutical companies cannot patent herbal medicine, so just who will finance trials to prove traditional plant pharmacopeia as safe? It's really as though we have declared nature guilty before the trial.
At the Basement Shaman we've always walked the razor's edge between keeping available traditional plant wisdom and incurring the wrath of governmental regulatory agencies. I can't tell you how many times I've winced when a customer has asked if botanical "X" is still legal. It's time to pick up the phone, send an e-mail or write a letter to your local, state and federal law makers to let them know we're tired of of having the government make decisions about the natural world. These are the same people who are still having a difficult time reconciling the fact that the appetites of the Western world might just be screwing up the balance of nature.
Many who have voiced opinions such as these have endured much suffering at the hands of their government. It is best to keep a low profile.
Perhaps you could start a botanical preservation society and pay a lobbiest to make these arguments for you. I would be willing to contribute to such a cause.
Posted by: Eric | February 20, 2007 at 08:38 PM
Or... Just show up at the Bohemian Club and dose 'em under the 50 foot owl.
Posted by: johnnypod | February 27, 2007 at 02:53 PM