Podcast: Kava, bliss and angst

Lol! About an hour after I posted the below I got an email from a Hawaiian kava vendor I know that said "after four years, we finally have Hawaiian kava back in stock!"

Of course I bought some. One can't ignore those kinds of synchonicities!

Yea, we have pretty successful lobbying on this side of the pond, too.

I think one of the reasons that we didn't face banning in the US is that kava was actually a growth industry and was becoming quite a big cash crop in Hawaii.

Unfortunately that's been destroyed. I know someone who sells kava ('awa) out of Hawaii, and he thinks the Hawaiian market will never recover. Business has picked back up again, but the damage is done and they'll never really be able to compete with the island nations in the "developing" world (Fiji, Vanatu, etc.).

Anonymous,
Although kava's market share among anti-anxiety meds may not have been big, "they" always anticipate trends and when they see some herb picking up media attention and quickly jumping from 0.3% to 0.9% market share, they take measures to prevent it from becoming a threat 5 or 10 years down the line.
Sure, not always and everywhere, but considering kava's efficacy, inexpensive price, low side effects profile, and non-prescription availability, I'd say it's quite likely they saw it as a threat.
I happen to live in Europe, close to Germany, and the EU regulatory framework leaves many loopholes for successful lobbying here, all within the law of course. Lobbyists are given their own offices in government building to support the legislative process with their "expert knowledge". All they have to do is finance a little study and twist the results to fit their agenda.

Morrison, I tend to agree with what you said here, but in the places it was banned (Germany, Canada) the pharmaceutical industry may not have played as large a role as you imply. Of course, one can never be sure what goes on behind the "closed doors of lobbying," but the pharmaceutical industry didn't do any outward campaigning (ads, pseudo-reports, etc.) so it is somewhat speculative to assume that they were "behind it" because "that's what they do." Governments are capable of making asinine decisions on their own, too! By all indications kava may have been below their radar, at least in Canada. In Germany kava preparations were becoming fairly popular so perhaps they started to see this as a threat.

The liver damage thing was never fully proven. There were only tiny amount of cases where it wasnt clear if they also took other meds at the same time. It was then way overblown and used as red herring by the pharmaceutical industry to get it banned so that their own anxiety meds' profits margins wouldn't be threatened by a cheap and natural alternative.

I used to drink quite a bit of kava (not so much anymore; whereas I used to find it euphoric, now it more-or-less just makes me drowsy). I can definitely see where it could help with anxiety, but I'm a little surprised that it would be helpful for depression.

Oh, cool, one of my favorite 'lighter' drugs, not sure whether the report will have a negative or positive spin or maybe neither, but I'm interested either way.