May Day! Most Medicinal Herbs Disappearing in EU Under Guise of 'Your Own Welfare'.

The 1984 world we've entered with the theft of medicinal herbs from the people, under the guise of our welfare, needs to end. Please get involved in a new Forum—be part of the change to throw off this repression.

by Heidi Stevenson

5 May 2011

Doublespeak, outright lies, false claims, and more of the typical methods used to push through egregious infringements on our rights have all been on display in the selling of the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, which went into full effect on May Day. At this point, there is little that looks terrible. Nothing has disappeared off store shelves—yet. Never let it be said that the governments stripping us of our rights are stupid. They're fully aware that, if all medicinal herbs disappeared at once, there would be an outcry. So, it doesn't happen all at once.

Mamma Earth: One of the First Herbal Stores to Go Under

However, the first signs of disaster are already showing. Take a look at the website of Mamma Earth, which sells products chosen for their earth friendliness, high quality, and healthful benefits. You'll see that most of their stock is sold out, and once the rest is gone, Mamma Earth will disappear. The reason is straight forward. Most of their products cannot be replaced once stocks are gone, because the THMPD makes them illegal.

Take, for example, ColonX. It contains Cascara Sagrada Bark, Barberry Bark, Cayenne, Ginger Root, Raspberry leaf, Turkey Rhubarb, Fennel Seed, and Goldenseal root. All ingredients are either wild and ethically gathered or organically grown. Such a product is not amenable to large-scale manufacturing, so it is not feasible for the manufacturer to pay £80,000 - $120,000 (or more) to attempt to gain approval. In point of fact, no amount of money could have gotten that product approved under the THMPD! Products with more than four herbal ingredients have become illegal, period. No exceptions.

So, Mamma Earth is going out of business. Aside from their own trauma, their customers have lost the ability to purchase fine quality products for their health needs. Who benefits? Big Pharma and a modern medical system that's gone mad.

The THMPD Propaganda

Yet, the standard line is that this egregious directive is for our own good! The BBC reports the Chief Science Advisor to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society as saying:

Crucially, this EU directive and the registration scheme puts consumers in the driving seat so they can identify that a product meets assured standards on safety, quality and information about safe use. Safety speaks for itself, but quality means, are they using the right part of the plant? Is it free from contamination? Is the claimed shelf life suitable? Product information will include possible side effects and interactions with other drugs, but above all it must make very clear that it is based on traditional use.

Driving Seat?

My head spins trying to make sense out of that! Consumers are put in the driver's seat? Huh? The THMPD has done precisely the opposite. They've taken away the people's ability and right to make choices about medicinal herbs.

How dare they tell me what herbs I may use? How dare they presume that I don't have the ability to make my own decisions?

Contamination?

Issues like contamination and shelf life were already addressed by existing law. There was absolutely no need for anything but enforcement of existing statutes. Those cases in which people were harmed because of adulteration of natural products should never have happened—but they did because the authorities in charge didn't bother to regulate according to rules already in place.

Yet, the THMPD is pushed on us with the claim that it's protecting us against things that we were already protected against. Worse, it adds enormous layers of expensive bureaucracy to enforce what wasn't properly enforced before.

The authorities apparently think we're stupid!

Plants Equated with Drugs?

Notice how the propaganda equates plants with drugs? By simply saying a plant carries a health benefit, this corrupt international construct called the European Union says that a plant has become a drug! Worse, they blame the plant, which has existed for thousands or millions of years, for "interfering" with the effectiveness of an artificial drug, which has probably not been around for as long as a decade! Where's the sense of proportion and propriety?

Black is white, two plus two equals four, and plants are drugs. Thus spake Big Brother, also known as the EU.

Safety?

Then, of course, there's that fraudulent claim that the THMPD is for our safety. That is one of the most absurd bits of hogwash ever promulgated! Safety is an issue in driving a car. Safety is an issue when crossing the street. Safety's a huge issue in pharmaceutical drugs. And we all know the danger in entering a hospital. Yet, the EU's regulators are claiming that they're concerned about our safety in using medicinal herbs, which have a record for safety that isn't equaled by virtually anything else in our lives!

Not even drinking water compares with herbal medicine for safety. We are constantly facing concerns about water contamination—primarily because our government doesn't seem to value its safety enough to make it a priority. But they claim that they're concerned about the safety of medicinal herbs? Who do they think they're kidding?

The people of the EU never asked that our government protect us from medicinal herbs.

The Real Reason: Big Pharma's Profits

Of course, medicinal herbs are competition for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, so it's no surprise that they are twisting the nature of herbal health care to make it sound like it's the same as drugs. Their interest is primarily in consolidating their hold on access to products with health benefits. They, along with the medical establishment and in conjunction with government oversight, have dominion over access to pharmaceutical drugs. Control of plants with medicinal qualities would further expand their reign.

The big winners in this travesty, though, are the Big Pharma corporations. They have incredibly deep pockets, so they have the means to treat plant-based products as drugs, and to gain approval for their sale. They stand to gain whether we are completely denied access to natural medicinal herbal products or granted access only to those that have been approved through the draconian system now in place.

We, of course, have seen Big Pharma's track record—and we don't want them in control of medicinal herbs!

Of course, pharmacists and Big Pharma are not the only winners. Mainstream medicine wins, too, and in a very big way. When people don't have access to herbal products, they become sick more often, and they lack the ability to treat themselves. Sicker people having nowhere else to turn but their GPs increases the business of medicine enormously.

The suggestion that modern medicine's primary goal is to heal the sick and ease suffering is belied by the fact that doctors did not speak out to stop the THMPD. If they truly want the best for their patients, then they would support the safe and effective treatment of herbal medicine.

In the wake of thousands, more likely millions, of bodies from Big Pharma's drugs, the exceptionally rare negative effect from medicinal herbs is grotesquely inflated. Nowhere do these self-proclaimed "protectors of the public health" put it in perspective. Nowhere do they note that nothing is completely safe. Even drinking water can be abused. People have died from drinking too much of it. Yet, we don't demand that access to drinking water be controlled. That's obviously ridiculous—yet that's exactly what's happening to our medicinal herbs.

We don't have to accept this tyranny!

Time to Come Together

It can be hard to believe that we have power. In the society we now inhabit, we feel declawed, powerless. If we think only of what we each, as individuals, can do, then we're certain to feel overwhelmed in a construct as big as the EU.

However, there are lots of us, literally millions of us. We don't have to accept this tyranny! What we need to do is make our voices known. We need to make noise. The question is, how?

The answer is by getting together—and there is a new website, set up just for this, and related, issues. Rights Train is a brand new forum. People who care about the THMPD, who want to see the abrogation of their rights stopped, are asked to join in. Help mold the site into an active unit. Find people in your own area to work with. Help decide how to more forward and end the usurpation of our most basic rights.

Join the Forum at Rights Train and be part of the change we want to see!

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