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Healing & Alternative Health:
Religious and Medical Freedom:
The Legal Borderlands of Herbal Medicine
by Kevin O'Neil, L.Ac |
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Last month I wrote about my training in acupuncture and herbal medicine. I shared some clinical and historical insights about Traditional Chinese Medicine. This month I'm getting political and will be connecting medicine, religion, drugs, and the law. My hope is to show how this issue of health freedom is important to the metaphysical and esoteric communities and how it overlaps with a call to end the War on Drugs.
Quite often when I mention that I'm an herbalist and prescribe herbal medicines, one of the first things to come up is joking about marijuana. Medical marijuana, legalized by voters in my state (Oregon) is a hot topic and is the subject of much humorous commentary. However, the example of medical marijuana is important in the field of herbal medicine and esoteric spirituality.
Many legal debates about herbs and have an unquestioned assumption that the US Government and FDA/AMA should create one monolithic, controlled medical system. The idea is that the government will know the best treatment for every condition and should make sure that people can't choose another solution, such as an herbal treatment, even if the individual is willing to take personal responsibility for their choice. The idea that Americans ought to have complete healthcare freedom is not accepted by the powers that be. A simplistic view is taken which says, "there is only one type of medicine-that which works and has scientific backing." This supposes that when 2 or more people exhibit the same symptoms, the cause was the same and the same treatment will work-a concept that is against a fundamental theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
It really is a shame that the First Amendment didn't include health freedom. I think it should say: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or prohibiting the free choice of medical treatment; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
You may think I'm a silly libertarian because I think that the "inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" includes spiritual, medical, and pharmacological practices. I figure that if our society has learned to live with the right to damage body and mind with alcohol, tobacco, sugar, coffee, and TV, we should also have the right to self-prescribe medications, herbs, and nutrients. This is even more so if they are powerfully effective with a history of use by minority religious groups. This includes marijuana, ephedra, opium, and kava, to name a few.
Let's look at opium in more detail. M.D.s are currently the exclusive dealers for legal opiates such as Vicodin and OxyContin. These drugs are indeed abused by many, and have known street value. For pain relief, there is nothing more effective than opium derivatives. In fact, a doctor known as "the Shakespeare of Medicine," Thomas Sydenham, wrote "Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium."
Many other physicians of the past realized the importance of opium to medicine. Doesn't it deserve a place in herbal medicine today? The AMA has criticized modern doctors for under-medicating pain. There are many people who are left to live in pain, even after they have spent thousands of dollars going to specialists trying various treatments including surgery. Patients with severe chronic pain who are prescribed opiates sometimes can't afford them, as the medical monopoly has not led to low prices. Would you jail a retired gardener with chronic pain cultivating opium poppies as an inexpensive source of an effective natural painkiller?
One objection to that concept, as well as medical marijuana, is that "pills of synthetic versions are a better method of administrating that chemical in known doses than using a plant." In some cases that may be true. Certainly I feel the gardener should have the freedom to pay $2-4/pill for OxyContin if she would prefer that approach. She should also have the freedom to prepare opium as a tincture, pill, or smoke and discover the proper dose through experience. It's black-market heroin of unknown purity which causes most opiate overdose deaths. Heroin manufacturers make the opiate extract of high potency to make smuggling and shipping easier. It becomes safer to cut it with other chemicals than sell it in its pure form.
The government may be providing a good service in using tax dollars to fund research. Most such research, often co-funded by pharmaceutical companies, shows that taking a synthetic pill from a pharmaceutical company won't kill most people, will only cause side effects in a few, and will help the majority of people with a specific condition. However, I don't believe the government should then restrict our ability to choose a natural alternative. Giving the drug companies a monopoly on molecules and the doctors a monopoly on the sales of those molecules has produced one of the industries with the highest markup in history. The evidence clearly shows that this has not always been in the best interest of the consumer, financially or medically.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported that over 100,000 Americans die every year from adverse drug reactions. And these are just the drug deaths which happen in hospitals. The AMA states that these deaths are not due to "prescribing errors" (which would raise the number), but are unforeseen reactions to "properly prescribed and tested" drugs. This makes death by prescription at least the 5th most common cause of death in the U.S.A. This death rate is over 5 times that of all deaths due to illegal drugs (there are no deaths directly attributable to marijuana). Does today's medicine sound like the same profession which swore in the Hippocratic Oath to use diet to cure disease, never give deadly drugs, and never charge to teach the art and science of medicine?
The number of 100,000 American deaths per year is astounding, and I'd like you to ponder it for a minute. The average number of American hospital deaths per day from "carefully controlled and prescribed" drugs is about 275. Imagine, if you will, an airliner crashing and killing all 275 Americans aboard. It would be the headline news for days. Now imagine that such an airliner crashed and killed 275 Americans every day for a year. Wouldn't we mobilize the military to find and stop the cause, even if it meant doing something as drastic as going to war?
Yet the same body of people who approve, promote, and prescribe these dangerous drugs is entrusted with the decision to outlaw and regulate traditionally used herbs, such as marijuana, which have a long history of medical and religious use.
There is a significant overlap between the freedom of religion and health freedom. If Congress is to "make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion", that means that there should be no law or governmental body which tells people if their religion is legitimate or not. Since a religion is defined by its practices, rituals, and sacraments, how can the government honor the First Amendment if it's telling Hindus, Rastafarians, Taoists, Tantrikas, Shamans, and Witches that some of their traditional sacraments are illegal? There is no question that cannabis, among other herbs and drugs, was and is highly revered by practitioners of many significant world religions.
These issues are very important for the metaphysical and natural medicine communities. One of the fundamental beliefs in the metaphysical community is that our bodily health is connected to our spiritual health. Many rituals practices aim to connect the two. Yoga, meditation, fasting, and dietary restrictions are all practices that overlap the categories of religion and medicine. They are all used regularly in metaphysical practice to produce a spiritual experience within the body. Many religions, especially the esoteric groups such as Yogis and Sufis, combine the above practices with plant drugs to produce an altered state of consciousness which is consistently described as spiritual. Nevertheless, our government has decided that the use of herbal drugs other than alcohol is not a valid religious practice. Those who attempt free exercise of a religion that ritually uses powerful plant sacraments are considered criminals and are often given sentences exceeding those of rapists or murderers. This is especially repugnant when the zero deaths caused by cannabis (with millions of regular users in the U.S.A., many who regard it as spiritually uplifting) are compared to the 100,000 yearly hospital deaths caused by prescription drugs.
Where does Chinese Medicine come into all of this? The legalized practice of Chinese Medicine in the United States is an important acknowledgement that a completely different medical paradigm, including a completely different pharmacy, deserves to exist as a separate system which people are free to choose and use.
In Oregon, for example, a prospective acupuncture patient does not need approval from a doctor before making an appointment, nor does the acupuncturist have to work under the supervision of an M.D. In the 1970s, many in the AMA wanted acupuncture to be classified and regulated as a form of surgery. Can you imagine how much a session would cost if it were considered surgery?
Additionally, in Oregon, a Licensed Acupuncturist has a legally protected right to use substances from the Oriental Materia Medica as found in used in approved Chinese Medicine schools. These substances include ephedra, hemp seeds, and in theory the opiate-rich skins of poppy pods. Don't get too excited-I don't have access to poppy pods due to the FDA/DEA. However, I do have access to ephedra and for a while longer, hemp seeds. I plan to keep them in my extensive pharmacy as long as legally possible.
Hemp seeds are recently undergoing a challenge. Attorney General John Ashcroft has recently made all hemp foods, including hemp seeds, illegal, as they contain minute traces of THC, one of the most active chemicals in cannabis. He didn't outlaw poppy seeds, which contain minute traces of opiates.
Here's the catch: Cannabis is a Schedule I Narcotic, meaning it has no recognized medicinal use. However, Chinese Medicine not only recognizes hemp seeds as having medicinal use, but also has used cannabis flowers to relieve pain and induce spiritual trances for thousands of years. Since the government has recognized Chinese Medicine as a valid medical tradition, it can't accurately claim that cannabis has no recognized medical use. Taoism is a valid religious tradition and doesn't need governmental recognition to be "freely exercised" in the United States. However, Taoism has a long tradition of herbal alchemy, including the use of currently banned plant drugs, such as the combination of hemp and ginseng (probably extracted into rice wine!), which is said to help one see into the future. The earliest Chinese Materia Medica, the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, attributed to Shen Nong, the "Divine Farmer," wrote of hemp flowers and fruit: "If taken over a long term, it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body."
These are all relatively extreme examples, and I don't mean to promote self-prescribing opium or cannabis, as it's good to consult with a qualified medical practitioner or two to see if there is an underlying cause to the pain that should be addressed, not suppressed.
Most metaphysical disciplines are also described as esoteric, or hidden, traditions. From occult banishing rituals to Eastern sexual meditations and herbal alchemy, the metaphysical community is a diverse group of people with many secretive practices that have been the subject of severe repression by conservative religious and governmental groups for centuries. This repression is not over yet-it lives on in the banning of herbal medicines and psychoactive plant sacraments. The War on Drugs is a War on Herbs. Opium, cannabis, "magic mushrooms" and other lesser-known plant entheogens make up the bulk of the illegal drug trade, which only exists due to their illegal status. One of the unspoken truths is that a large percentage of people in prison for doing drugs are cannabis users, and a large percentage of them were self-medicating, providing cannabis to others who chose to self-medicate or used cannabis as a part of a personal spiritual practice. This is a continuation of the Inquisition which sought to outlaw and destroy the non-Christian metaphysical and medical communities of the Middle Ages by burning women and men who had herbal and spiritual knowledge outside the Catholic Church's jurisdiction at the stake.
This is why the knowledge of herbal medicine and the free access to a wide variety of herbs and natural substances is one of the most important political areas for modern esoteric practitioners. We're striving to learn, practice, record, and pass on esoteric and metaphysical knowledge. Herbal Medicine and Taoist practices are areas I have learned and seek to make available to people on the Internet through AncientWay.com. Together, we can promote this as a living medical and spiritual tradition that can serve as a precedent to secure legal protection for other metaphysical disciplines and lifestyles.
The plants which have become illegal are some of the most powerful and dangerous herbal medicines. Use of them requires a type of self-awareness and responsibility which is deemed rare by the government. However, Chinese Medicine offers many practices and plants which can be used safely and legally to improve one's health, state of mind, and energy level. Many of these techniques are free or inexpensive. The more desirable tonic herbs are costlier, but generally cost less per dose than a mocha or cocktail. Next month I'll go over my Taoist Top Ten herbs and practices that have metaphysical and spiritual benefits.
If you have any comments or questions about this article, please e-mail Kevin at AncientWay dotcom.
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Kevin O'Neil,
Licensed Practitioner of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine
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Kevin O'Neil, Licensed Acupuncturist, began his Chinese Medicine training in Chinatown, Victoria, B.C. at the International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, with Henry Lu, Ph.D. .
After one year, Kevin transferred to the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine in Portland, where he spent 3 years completing his Master's Degree of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
Upon graduation, Kevin went to China and interned in the HeiLongJiang Chinese Medicine University Hospital, before moving to Tainan, Taiwan to continue his studies of Chinese Medicine, language, and culture.
Upon 'repatriation,' he chose to embrace the Taoist tradition of living in the mountains where the pace of life is more relaxed and the air is clean and clear. Finding Klamath Falls, Oregon to suit these characteristics, Kevin opened his clinic there in Spring, 1999.
Ancient Way Acupuncture & Herbs, Inc.
Medical/Dental Building
905 Main St #409
Klamath Falls, OR 97601
541-884-6377
www.ancientway.com |
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