Natural stuff and the FDA

veggie boy

Greenpatch is good. I have only had one significant failure with them which related to my arrowroot that I purchased from them not shooting from the root cutting.

Anyone go any arrowroot?

steve

No arrow root here. Here, no arrow root

The quote below from wikipedia pretty much sums up the FDA and the TGA for that matter.

Quote:

The FDA maintains that "[ephedra] is dangerous at any dose". But there are many people including experienced users of ephedra who don't agree with the FDA. One popular website with a focus on ephedra questions the FDA's recommendation, asking, "If ephedra is as dangerous as the FDA claims it is, given that the Chinese have been using it for 5,000 years, shouldn't they have experienced enough adverse events to be wary of it? If the FDA is so forceful in its opinion that any amount of natural ephedra is harmful, why does it allow you to buy Big Pharma's synthetic versions of ephedra, 240mg pseudoephedrine and 25mg ephedrine without a prescription?

earthbound

Get yourself some Tumeric if you can.. Grows a little like ginger and it's deluxe used fresh in cooking..

steve

I'm making a list, checking it twice

Dear god, there won't be any growbed space left for bloody lettuce! :shock:

Sunrise Girl

Hi Steve,
I have a piece of tumeric root that's just starting to sprout, I can send it to you if you're interested in trying to grow it?

Jez

How long did you wait for your Arrowroot to shoot VB?

In the cooler weather they can sit dormant for quite a while...some of the tubers I've separated and replanted in the past have taken up to two months to shoot, but every one of them has shot eventually. I got mine from Green Harvest, but Arrowroot should be pretty bullet proof wherever you get it.

Greenpatch are a good place, I've bought quite a few of my plants and seeds from there. Every March Green Harvest have a great 'rare food' release as well which has been getting bigger and better every year - definitely worth looking out for.

veggie boy

Heh Jez. Yes - green patch sends me their catolgues and stuff cause I have bought quite a lot there. The arrowroot rotted away to mush. It was crap when I got it I'm sure.

steve

Thanks sunrise, i'd love it if you can spare it.

bio-farmer

steve wrote:

Ok Kids, you're going to have to bear with me wile i GO NUTZ!

I have just had a bender on the internet, forum was slow so i reverted back to my useless researching of "stuff"

Spent 7 hours looking up and getting quite addicted to medicinal herbs both edible plants with beneficial medicinal properties and the more hardcore medicinal herbs.

By chance the LAST of the 80 herbs i was reading up on hasgot me really upset.

Man if you thought i was upset when i learned that the FDA put severe restrictions on stevia then this is 10 fold. (Oz is governed by the TGA anyway, and stevia is a sugar substitute)

Any way Ephedra is the herb. It contains ephedrine. The herb is where they first isolated both ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from.

It caught my attention becasue it has saved many peoples lives when they have had a severe asthma attack. It gives almost instant releif from it. Now in a self sufficient sence, or if you are more than 20 minutes away from an ambulance and you have family that are prone to asthma then this is one herb i want.

It was given to us by nature. isolated by man, now the *potty mouth* ban import, export, use, and possesion under schedule NINE! :shock:

(same as heroin)

get *potty mouth*!

Quote:

Important legal information:
1) The importation of ephedrine containing Ephedra herb into Australia is prohibited under the Customs Act 1901, Regulations, Schedule 4 (Drugs).
2) The export of ephedrine containing Ephedra herb is prohibited under Schedule 8 (export regulations) of the Customs Act.
3) Possession/supply/consumption of ephedrine containing material such as Ephedra herb is illegal under the Standard for the uniform scheduling of drugs and poisons (Australia), Schedule 9 (the same schedule as Heroin!!!!!) as enacted under state drug legislation.
4) Importation of Ephedra species seed is prohibited. The reason given by customs is that "even though Ephedra seeds do not contain any ephedrine, they can be used to grow a plant that contains ephedrine and hence they are illegal" (yes, this is what they said!!).

Many countries are scheduling ephedrine and ephedra products, but many find their new laws challenged, ending in a confusing legal mess. Make sure you have up to date information on your local legislation before ordering any ephedra products from anywhere.

They can go to hell, i WILL get my hand on some one way or another, and i WILL grow it. (PM's are a nice way to share

)

Man, this sort of lunacy gets me fired up! I seriously need to have some chamomile now at the least!

Sorry guys, i feel the need to share and need a place to vent.

This site is very interesting
http://altnature.com/gallery/

It all started about a week ago when i ordered some plant via the net from a organic shop in NSW. Plants arrived in TIP TOP shape, with the root mass still in a very organic looking and smelling rich soil. The icing on the cake was when i saw 5 worms happily living in the root mass and soil. Anyway one of the herbs i ordered was yarrow, only 'casue it sounded cool and the description mentioned some medicinal uses. I looked it up on the above site and its kick ass. below is a link to the place i got my plants from, they have seeds and bare rooted plants.

www.greenpatchseeds.com.au

Steve

your spot on steve. i think you have the right attitude.

imo the large drug companies and TGA are powerful corrupt profit driven entities. only way to fight them is to do what you feel is right even if its illegal. otherwise we're going to loose these medicine plants before people are enlightened enough to realize their benefits. our societies reliance on synthetic chemical medicine is an epidemic imho. but hey the taxes derived from these chemicals do pay the way for the great state of the hospital system. not.

nuff said.

Sunrise Girl

Steve,
If I was trying to get ephedra seeds I would try nurseries who grow for chinese herbalists (ephedra - ma huang), there used to be such a nursery in Gembrook, but I'm not sure if it's still there (not much help, no) or the Seed Savers in Byron, they have a lot of stuff and if they don't have it, they might know someone who does...

It might be of interest to people who get aggrieved by govt regulations banning 'dangerous' plants to know that if incorrectly used side effects of ephedra include: crankiness, prostate issues, irregular heart beat, stroke and *even* death...
You can go to 'B'/supermarket/nursery etc and buy foxglove (digitalis purpurea) seeds for your cottage garden. Digitalis purpurea is used by pharm co's to make heart drugs including beta blokkers and ingesting even the smallest amount can give side effects including but not limited to: vomiting (which I'm sure would lead to crankiness eventually), dizziness, irregular heart beat and *even* death...
So go figure on the sense of the banning of plants... :scratch:

Fight the good fight Steve, but don't self medicate :wink:

lol

Andi

steve

Actually ephedra can be quite dangerous if taken in the wrong dose, over extended periods or if you have high blood pressure. But can also be a real life saver too.

I know what you mean though, there are heaps of people that think just cause its natural its fine. Most of histories finest poisons were extracted from plants.

Things are banned (for the most part) by places like the fda tga because it suits THEIR purposes, not ours.......................sigh.

i heard some one say once that western culture medicine sends peopleto the doctor when they are sick, where as herbal medicine keeps people from getting sick. U still gotta know what yu're doing though.

oh yeh, i found a place to order ephedra seeds from.......byron bay.....LOL

Jez

Geez VB, they must have stored it a long time prior to sending for it to be unviable. I laughed when I got mine from Green Harvest...the bloke emailed me and said that my order had been delayed a couple of days because he hadn't got around to digging up the arrowroot yet! :lol:

FWIW, I've got a couple of things from Greenpatch in the past that were packed pretty badly and thoroughly DOA...I explained the problem, politely asked for a replacement and they were happy to send new stuff when I ordered next.

If you're still looking for some I can send you a few tubers over the next couple of weeks...I've gone from having five to about 50 in a year or so and I have no room to plant the next batch.

veggie boy

Would love some Jez provided its not going to cost you too much in postage. Will PM you.

aquamad

me too please Jez - I am more han willing to pay the postage (that is if you have any left

) If it is all spoken for dont worry, just trying my luck!

steve

Ummmmmm, me too? LOL :shock:

will also PM you, i'll chuck ya some postage dinari, i'd swap ya some stuff, but i have the feeling you're more connected than me when it comes to herbs

Steve

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Natural stuff and the FDA

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