- smoking herbs - energy herbs - healthy tea herbs - romance herbs - bulk practitioner lines - miscellaneous items - home -

THE WAR AGAINST HERBS AND WORDS

A recent American article(1) says that since one person dies after an overdose of Ultimate Xporia, a few States have banned the sale of some products containing ephedrine, which is used as an 'upper', or by dieters hoping to speed up metabolism. While the article says that ephedrine is found naturally in the Chinese herb, ma huang (ephedra), there was no mention of the herb itself being considered dangerous.

At the 1972 Olympics an American swimmer, Rick DeMont, won the 400 metres freestyle. His gold medal was taken from him when he later tested positive for ephedrine, a banned stimulant, which had been in his asthma medication. This shows that drugs with ephedrine have been around for a while and can't be especially dangerous.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, ma huang has been used safely for thousands of years for a variety of complaints. Imagine the suprise, then, at Herbal Highs - a small firm in Uki, near Murwillimbah in northern NSW- when the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), backed by the police, raided the place and confiscated six bags of ephedra herbal tea!(2).

According to the TGA, ma huang is a menace to society because crazed kids could, with the proper equipment and a lot of labour, extract ephedrine from the herb and do themselves harm. What the TGA doesn't explain is why anyone would go to all this bother when far higher concentrations of ephedrine are in a variety of over-the-counter drugs in pharmacies. Banning ma huang is equivalent to banning willow bark because people have over dosed on aspirin.

It seems obvious that the raid by the TGA was not to protect Australians from abusing or amusing themselves with traditional herbs, but to try to drive these natural products off the market. That way, if people want to use ephedrine they have to buy it in the concentrated and more dangerous form of drugs put out by the multinationals.

Some behaviour of the TGA makes no medical or social sense. For example, an item in (The Australian 6th August1997, pg3) reported on a popular laxative, available without prescription, that has been linked with three deaths. A TGA official said the drug was safe if given in low doses and that some doctors had been advising 'at risk' patients to take too much. Why isn't the same criterion applied to herbs?

An even stranger story is in a letter (Courier-Mail, 12th August 1997, pg16) from a Queensland woman on hormone replacement therapy who personally was paying for natural progesterone (a hormone cream made from yams) mailed to her from Western Australia. The TGA has now ordered this stopped , even though the Constitution supposedly guarantees freedom of commerce between States, and for personal use Australians are allowed to import medical supplies from overseas.

This freedom is not always the case with words, however. Steve Barnier, who runs Medicine Garden, a Lismore, NSW, firm thats grows, imports and distributes medicinal plants, got into trouble when he ordered 11 books. While these are openly available in America, alert Customs officials siezed them before they could endanger innocent Aussies. Steve was told that according to a Customs Act of 1901 he was guilty of trying to bring books "into Australia from parts beyond the seas" and that the said books were to be seized and destroyed.

Now, this is real Dark Ages stuff and could be a part of a comedy skit, but as the affair promised to cost Medicine Garden a lot of money, there was a legal challenge to the Thought Police.

Having heard about the matter a few weeks before the final court proceedings. I decided to attend and see how justice was meted out in Brisbane. I was told the time, the place, and even the courtroom number, but when I arrived at the Law Courts. I was stymied and passed from place to place. I ended up being directed to five (5) courts located in (3) separate buildings. In the end I missed out, and Steve told me later his impression was that officials wanted their dirty little job done as fast as possible and with no publicity.

When the Court ruled that the books indeed where a threat to the nations moral fibre, Steve asked if the offending material be returned to America, as otherwise he would have to pay for them and Medicine Garden was a small company. The Court rejected this common sense request. So, while our governments may say they want to get behind small business, Customs and the judiciary have a different agenda; the financial pain has to be felt by anyone out there breaking ye olde laws, bans and sundry prohibitions. The court costs alone came to AUD$1200 and then there was the cost tf the books, plus Steve's time and travel expenses. This may not seem like much to a well-paid court and customs officials, but in any small business trying to make a profit after paying the taxes to feed the public 'servants', it has got to hurt. By refusing to let Steve return the books, the Court was not protecting innocent Australians from evil literature available from decadent America; it was punishing Steve financially to deter him from providing substances not patented or controlled by the multinationals.

Being curious as to what my eyes were being shielded from, I got a list of the books to be barbequed. In 1990 I had done quite a bit of library research into shamanism and psychedelic subjects, so I had what I felt was a déjà-vu experience when I saw the list. Some of the titles seemed so familiar! I consulted the computers of four of Brisbane's libraries and found two of the books available on the shelves; there were in other cases very similar titles dealing with the offensive subjects. The only titles I failed to match were on how to cook with cannabis or how to grow it (does anyone by now not know how to allow this hardy weed to prosper?).

In the age of Internet, it is pathetic that books dealing with ancient subjects are being burned in Brisbane(3). Here is the start of an article in Queenlsand University of Technology's campus newspaper: "Drug users are tapping into the Internet to download the latest recipes for dangerous designer drugs, a visiting United States expert has warned."(4) The expert also said that while novel drugs once took years to spread around the world, the same thing now was happening in a matter of weeks.

The free flow of information brought about by modern technology has been resisted by a few countries. We call them police states. So affluent Australians can download all the literature and recipes in the world and for some reason authorities ignore these new drugs but feel they have to protect us from books dealing with traditional herbs. Could this be happening because officials understand what book are and how they can affect  people, but are a little in the dark when it comes to the Internet?

I must confess I don't understand much of this, now can I figure out why books are grabbed and burned when copies already wxist on the shelves of libraries. Could it be that the Thought Police feel they can stomp on a small business and slink away without a fuss being made, while raiding libraries would cause a commotion?

I also don't understand the motivation behind the original confiscation of the books. While the multinational drug companies for sound financial reasons want to eliminate competition from those selling traditional herbs, what possible could prompt Customs officials to act as they have? I have an idea, and it is not a nice idea, but I'll write on more; readers are aware of the level of corruption now rotting the fabric of our society should be able to reach their own conclusions.

So, some books dealing with cannabis, shamanism, mushrooms and aphrodisiacs can't be brought into Brisbane 'from parts beyond the seas' but hard-core pornography from the ACT (its only viable export) is freely available, while cinemas spew out sickening scenes of violence on a routine basis.

All this is strange and confusing. If words about banned drugs are as illegal as the drugs themselves, then shouldn't books describing how to commit the perfect murder be as illegal as the crime itself? It has been decided that the posession of certain firearms is now illegal in Australia. Will books about these weapons be confiscated? And if reading about illegal activities is prohibited, will even thinking about these things become a crime once technology gives the Thought Police the ability to detect, confiscate, and burn bad minds?

Don Eldrige

(1)Michele Pullia Turk "Ephedrine's deadly edge" U.S. News and World Report, pp.79-80 (7 July 1997)
(2)Even though the Australian product, Herbal Ecstacy, is innocuous, the TGA, with more zeal than intelligence-gathering ability, banned is because an American product of the same name contains ephedrine.
(3)It seems typical of backward mentalities that while Australian authorities worry about books on passé subjects, some of which were widely discussed in the Roman Empire, serious matters are ignored. For example, see Janet Fife-Yeomans "HK gangs direct 40% of world card fraud"  The Australian, p.3(6 August 1997):"...despite increasingly complex inbuilt safety measures such as holograms, plastic cards remained so easy to fake that even schoolboys could do it, with the internet providing most of the information needed...."
(4)Tine McLellan "Technology helps Australia catch up with deadly overseas drug trends" Inside QUT, p.9 (22 July 1997)

- smoking herbs - energy herbs - healthy tea herbs - romance herbs - bulk practitioner lines - miscellaneous items - home -

BEWARE - THERAPUTIC GOODS ACT - Proposed Changes

The ideal of our national anthem is that Australia is a land of the free...
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
FREEDOM OF CHOICE

...but I challenge this theory,
especially in the light of proposed changes to the Therapeutic Goods Act now before The Senate.

The instigator of these amenments appears to be MP Trish Worth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health & Family Services. She urges the public not to take any notice of the scare campaign. The proposed changes , she says, in her media release of 3rd March 98:

"Contrary to the claims being made in the same campaign, the Code".

"Does not alter the way consumers or health professionals obtain therapeutic goods"

and....

"Does not allow drug companies to exert major control over the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code".

Speaking to a local MP's office manager, I am told that the changes to the Act will "only close a few loopholes", there's nothing sinister in it". Besides, Australia has a watchdog of unfair pratice in the natural therapies industry, called the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. They admitted the proposed advertising restrictions would stifle competition. It was their job to accept or reject the new code. However, it appears the government has zapped the watchdog, effective January 1998.

I decided to test my theory further, by seeing for myself - I got a copy of the Therapeutic Goods Act Amendment Bill. Only by reading the actual proposed changes to the act do I get a different picture. I will quote to you exact wording from the Act, and the attached Information Sheet.

With the new amendments to the Act, advertising of natural products to the public will be curtailed, eg "the Code prohibits the advertising of therapeutic goods for conditions such as asthma, immune systems conditions, Hodgkin's disease, breast cancer, heart conditions, stomach ulcers, depression, HIV/AIDS and whooping cough." Any published information, including brochures, interviews, articles, and even verifiable testimonials, can be said to be advertising, and therefore banned or the manufacture faces cancellation of licence.

Yes, the amendments are to include import and export licences and permission to manufacture natural products. These permits will be in the hands of the Department of Health & Family Services. Fees are not mentioned specifically but the wording "to be subject to conditions or requirements" allows for a multitude of possibilities. However, firstly, before a new product can be included in the Register, the manufacturer must firstly guarantee to the Minister of Health there is:

1. no worldwide patent or claim to a herb, then

2.gain written consent of that person to use that herb

3.seek approval of a "approved conformity assessment body ... approved by the Secretary and

4.provide "an acceptable form of evidence from relevant overseas authority" as to its standard of manufacture.

These and other restrictions will also apply to natural products already on the market because of the wording "or determining whether goods already listed in the Register should remain there".

Just where did these ideas come from? John Hammell of the International Advocates for Health Freedom reports: in Norway and Germany many restrictive health proposals are now in law. In these countries, Vitamin C above 200mg is now illegal and can only be obtained via prescription. In Germany, health food stores are now no longer permitted to stock natural products, thanks to an organisation called the Codex Commission based in Europe. Many other countries also follow the recommendation of the Codex Commission.

So what! you might say, that does not affect us here.

One of the new bills setting out amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act, was signed by the Governor General on the 19th December 1997. So it is very soon to be before the Senate. If passed, all these amendments already mentioned and others I haven't had time to mention, will be law immediately. My theory that Australia may no longer be the land of the free, will then be sorely tested. However, regardless of what anyone says, including me, the bottom line is the actual proposed changes to the Act. Ask your local Senator or MP for a copy.  See for yourself, will Australia always be an island, safe, secure, untouchable? Advance Australia Fair - if she can!

Comment: At the time of this writing (June '98) as far as I know this proposal has not yet been acted on by the Senate. But it is the Coalition in Government and this proposal has come out of their belly. Whether the opposition will in fact bury it remains to be seen. However, there are signs that the opposition would block it. Perhaps this should be kept in mind when voting in the Federal election coming soon.
Editor
Also, refer to:Vol 17. No. 3 Codex A term you'll learn to hate.

The proposed changes in our Senate include these exact words:

"approved conformity asessment body approved by the Secretary"

"as designated in the ...Agreement in the Mutual Recognition ...between Australia and the European Community".

"The European Community means any country declared by the Minister to be a member of the European Community."

These references refer to Australia's longwithstanding tie with the United Nations. The Codex Commision's full name is the United Nations/ World Health Organisaions Codex Alimentarius (Nutritional Code) Commissions. Australia has an official alliance with the United Nations. The Codex Commission is part of the United Nations. The other countries now lumbered with the Codex Commission's ideals are part of the UN.

Prominent Canadian Doctor, Zolten Rona, in his 8-page warning on the Codex Commission states: "Codex is not a benign group of boring bureaucrats ...the name of the game for Codex is to shift all remedies under the prescription category that would be controlled exclusively by the medical monopoly and its bosses, the major pharmaceutical firms.... Ocer 90% of the international organisations 'allowed' to send delegates to the meetings represent giant multinational pharmaceutical corporations... The Codex proposals already exist as law in Norway and Germany where the entire health food industry has literally been taken over by the drug companies... only one government controlled pharmacy has the right to import supplement medicines".

However, a bigger worry for us, the land of the free, may be - will all this lead to restrictions on the back yard farmer? It could too , becase of the Codex commission. On the 1st January this year, the Canadian Government banned 160 herbs for therapeutic cultivation and use, including aloe vera, capsicum, psyllium, garlic, ginger and peppermint. You see, a herb is seen as any useful plant: these herbs have been declared drugs. The Canadian laws were passed on the recommendations of the CODEX Commissions.

Reprinted without permission as appeared in Health and Healing, Vol. 17 No.4 p.38-39

As a consequence, Mr Thorpe was awarded the dubious distinction of being the first man in Australia (and probably the world) to be arrested and charged with the sale and possession of the ancient medicinal Chinese herb DESERT tea and the North American Mormon Tea.

This herbal tea, which has been safely used by the Chinese and other cultures for well over 5000 years, is considered a dangerous drug only by the T.G.A. because it contains NATURAL  Ephedrine (which in the plant is balanced and has no side effects). Unlike the chemical ephedrine which is marketed illegally as amphetamine (speed) and generally snorted, smoked or injected. While the chemical is damgerous, the herb is not. It cannot be smoked, snorted, or injected or taken in pill or pawder form, it can only be consumed as an invigorating Herbal Tea.

The T.G.A. fear that this Desert Tea may be used to extract ephedrine. Mr Thorpe argues that this does not happen and there are laws in place to stop this happening. It is illegal to extract alcohol from wine as it is to extract the alkaloid ephedrine from the Desert Tea and Mormon Tea Herb. This practise has nothing to do with the drinkers enjoyment of wine or tea, is uncommon in any event and subject to blackmarket policing. This should not affect the rights of the people to enjoy natural herbal teas says Mr Thorpe.

Ray, a  long term advocate of man's return to the tradition of herbs and natural remedies , has previously expressed public criticism of the T.G.A. in the past for their continued attack upon the use of natural and traditional folk remedies and recreational herbs.

Some people enjoy stimulating herbs, others like relaxing herbal teas. When this natural enjoyment is denied them, their only options are pharmaceutical chemicals or illegal drugs. Ray feels that this is the ultimate agenda of the T.G.A. and/or the influence if Global Pharmaceutical companies behind the T.G.A. and is calling for an independent inquiry and investigation into corrupt vested interests within their association.

Pharmaceutical Ephedrine is already available legal over the counter at chemists in unlimited quantities (which could also be the subject of extraction) and Ray believes the attack against the Desert Tea herb is not only corrupt but is part of a larger strategy to diminish the power of herbalism. As in the case of Mormon Tea it is MOST effective in the treatment of asthma, chronic obstructive respiratory disease, sinus, obesity and lethargy.

Western Governments under the influence of the very powerful chemical companies have a history of attacking plant use. But the people in turn have a history of herbal rebellion from the Spanish Inquisition to the Boston Tea Party that created the United States of America. People have been willing to die for their right and freedom to use and enjoy natural herbs and plants. Ray has similarly expressed  his resoluteness in defending the people's right to freely enjoy the benefits of all herbal teas.

A T.G.A. executive recently said "If Camelia Thea and Coffea Arabica were to arrive on Australia's shores today he would ban their entry!" That would mean NO TEA OR COFFEE for the twelve million Australians who enjoy their morning 'cuppa'! Would the T.G.A. prefer us to start our day popping a chemical pill in flouridated water?

The attending police officer Detective Senior Constable Paul Willingham confirmed with Mr Thorpe that the myriad of dangerous and destructive chemical drugs available through the underground market is a huge problem in this region. Mr Thorpe says the consequence of banning natural recreational herbs yeild social results that the lawmakers have no answer for - yet the T.G.A. are intent on destroying the answer! H.E.R.B. (Hippy Ethnobotanical Research Base) activist Floyd Davis says "You've got to understand the type of people we are dealing with in the T.G.A. They are the sort of people who don't even trust the side salad on their plate."

Ray is to appear in the local Lismore Court on the second of June. This case will set a precedent and will have world wide ramifications for the herbal movement. Ray suspects that the T.G.A. is testing the courts decision before taking on the medicinal use of Ma Huang (Desert Tea) by Chinese herbalists.

Ray is interested to see whether the court will rule in favour of the people or whether the court is bound to enforce the corporate interests that so obviously hide behind the power of the T.G.A.

As Ray says with 72% of drug deaths coming from tobacco, 25% from alcohol and 3% from drug misuse, and with over 80% of crime being drug related, why are police and law resources being wasted on chasing down innocent herbal teas?

Ray and his supporters have formed a Herbal Tea Drinkers Front and are campaigning for funds to fight for the peoples right to drink herbal teas of their choice.

For a campaign conrtibution of ten dollars Ray is offering a special Herbal Tea Drinkers Front information and campaign pack including a "tea for two" sample of an endangered herb tea.

Ray Thorpe

This present debate is whether tobacco should be banned or not! Prohibition never works, a fact that was proven dramatically in the States with alcohol prohibition that led to the rise and fortunes of organised crime. And now the criminal element are making it in illegal drugs (and tobacco if they try to ban it as well!).

We all know that nicotine is poison; (three drops of pure nicotine will kill an adult). We are all aware that cigarettes are a very addictive carcinogen. What most of us don't know is that pure NATURAL tobacco is far less addictive, if addictive at all, and is also far less carcinogenic as there are no chemicals added and less smoked. Pure NATURAL tobacco seems to satisfy and does not lead to a craving for more of a nicotine hit.

It is the manufacturing process of tobacco that is killing. Not only by the addiction to nicotine as well as the chemicals (up to 4000 different and toxic chemicals are created in the smoking of a tailor made) but also by the convenience of ready rubbed, ready rolled, so called, 'tailor made' cigarettes. Governments themselves are a part of this evil process of addictionby allowing tailor made cigarettes witht their addictive carcinogenic chemicals to be sold anywhere and everywhere.

For the present the sale of tobacco should be restricted to licensed tobacconists along with the sale of pure NATURAL tobacco is - believe it or not - illegal!

Governments OUTLAW the sale of NATURAL tobacco in order to protect the evil industry of the cigarette manufacturers as well as protecting their own excise made from the sale of 'tailor made' cigarettes. It is a scandal. If cigarette manufacturers could be prosecuted for the culpable manslaughter of addicted smokers, goevernments are certainly accessories to the painful cancerous deaths of thousands of smokers as well.

By the way, have you noticed that even the cigarette companies do not label their chemical cigarettes, "tobacco" anymore. The reason why is that tobacco is so adulterated with chemicals, that it can no longer be called tobacco, in fact it is more a chemical laced carcinogenic cocktail.

Cigarette companies are rich and powerful. The annual income from Phillip Morris alone far exceeds the gross domestic output of New Zealand. But their power to addict the population with their convenient toxic substances would be broken immediately with the introduction of pure NATURAL tobacco in the market place.

You can do something to change the situation. Write to your respective health ministers and local politicians to have the ban on natural unprocessed tobacco lifted and the sales of manufactured tobacco restricted to tobacconists. This one step will save many innocent lives and millions of dollars in future medical care.

Ray Thorpe

Legal High's mission is to promote natural legal alternatives and to see the lifting of all prohibitions on NATURAL HERBS. The smoking of natural tobacco has helped people wean off cigarettes altogether. Unfortunately, at the moment NATURAL tobacco is illegal. Another herb, Passiflora incarnata, also assists people in nicotine withdrawal. This harmless herb is also being resetricted. For what reasons we can only guess!

Young people are also becoming addicted to a lethal 'mull' mix of marijuana and chemical tobacco, thereby magnifying the adverse effects of marijuana (paranoia, de-motivation and lung congestion etc) with the toxic addicitive effects of chemical tobacco (addiction, lung cancer, heart and throat problems, lung congestion etc).

- smoking herbs - energy herbs - healthy tea herbs - romance herbs - bulk practitioner lines - miscellaneous items - home -