Have you been dealing comfrey, sonny?

The natural food trade should take a lead in exposing the hypocritical regulation of herbal medicine, says Craig Sams

A bust in Denver: “Okay, kid, put your hands up against the wall. Spread your legs while we pat you down.” Two cops search a young man’s clothing.

“Nothing here but a couple of marijuana joints … Wait a minute, what’s this? It looks like comfrey tea bags. Get the handcuffs – let’s take this one down to the station.”

A bust in London: “Okay, kid, put your hands up against the wall. Spread your legs while we pat you down.” Two cops search a young man’s clothing. 

“Nothing here but a couple of comfrey tea bags … Wait a minute, what’s this? It looks like a couple of marijuana joints. Get the handcuffs – let’s take this one down to the station.”

Depending on where you are in the Western world of free and democratic nations, your choice of therapeutic herbs can either put you in the slammer or be purchased legally.

Charlotte Mitchell, who almost singlehandedly rescued the Soil Association from bankruptcy and oblivion back in 1991, has suffered the ever-increasing impact of multiple sclerosis. The NHS refused to authorize the use of Sativex (a marijuana extract made by a drug company in Kent) for her, so she has to fork out £100 a week for this medicine in order to be legal. She could buy dope from a street dealer in Edinburgh for a fraction of the cost, with all the risks of dealing with criminals, but she sticks to the legitimate stuff. The NHS, too busy enriching the peddlers of statins, antidepressants, hydrogenated fat margarines and other crappy drugs, won’t allow Sativex for patients in England or Scotland. All her working life Charlotte paid her NI contributions, but when her time of need came, she got two fingers and now has to pay out of her savings for the only medication that effectively eases the pain of MS.

Meanwhile, it’s all kicking off in the US. Not only do 20 states allow medical use of marijuana for all sorts of conditions, but two of them, Colorado and Washington, have decided to allow it for recreational use, too. However, comfrey is still prohibited in the US and all sorts of herbs are now prohibited or strictly regulated in the UK. How on earth are we going to deal with the hypocrisy of a situation where people can go to jail for peddling herbs like comfrey and slippery elm while we empty out our prisons of people who were sent down for dealing in herbs like marijuana?

This is not the only paradox in our society that needs resolving now that progress is beginning to happen. What about speed?

The pot paradox
‘Speed kills’ – this slogan arose in the sixties as people realized that amphetamines were a terrible drug with progressively degenerate consequences. Yet our rulers encourage its use. Today we force school kids to take speed if they have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It slows them down. But it also makes them fat for the rest of their lives, with all the health problems that come with obesity. The US Army gives its soldiers amphetamines, antidepressants and sedatives to keep them going in battle conditions. Then they come home and struggle with addiction – a third of addicted ex-soldiers die of overdoses or suicide. More soldiers kill themselves than are killed by enemy forces – one in five suicides in the US are ex-Army. In US states where medical marijuana was legalized, the overall suicide rate dropped by 10% or more. It’s not just that marijuana cheers people up. It also lowers consumption of alcohol, a well known depressant and significant factor in suicides.

Is it time for the natural foods trade to lead the charge for marijuana legalization in the UK? Legalization of marijuana would help to clear away all the other hypocritical regulation of herbal medicines and strike a powerful blow for the right of all human beings to own their bodies and make informed decisions about what medications they take. As someone who hasn’t been to a doctor for 49 years, but who has also had recourse to use therapeutic herbs from time to time that have kept me happy and healthy, I’d welcome the chance to live my life without the nagging fear of being imprisoned for not being a burden on the NHS.

By Craig Sams

Organic food pioneer and polemicist
Craig Sams is Britain’s best known natural food pioneer. He is the founder of Green & Blacks, a former Soil Association chairman and the author of The Little Food Book.

Health Food & Natural Food

When Robin Bines launched Natural Product News he helped bridge a long-standing gulf between the ‘health food’ and the ‘natural food’ worlds.  The divide was artificial in a way, more of a generation gap than a difference of ideology.

The health food trade had its roots in the vegetarianism and pacificism of the 1930s.  It sought, unsuccessfully, to change the world by logical argument and thoughtful articles. Wholemeal bread was its iconic food.  George Bernard Shaw was a principal advocate.  

The natural foods movement sprang up in the late 60s, its roots in macrobiotics and the hippie idea of creating an alternative society rather than arguing for change in a society that seemed hopelessly doomed.  Brown Rice was its iconic food.  Georges Ohsawa was a principal advocate.

The health food trade show was called Helfex and was put on by the Health Food Manufacturers Association.  Our company, Harmony Foods, was the first natural foods company to exhibit their wares at this show.  We wore jackets made out of hessian brown rice bags and had long hair.  We had pictures of brown rice fields in Italy as a backdrop on the stand and focussed on our brown rice, along with miso, tamari, tahini, hiziki seaweed, millet, buckwheat and other unfamiliar foods such as umeboshi plums.  We’d paid for our stand but we stuck out like a sore thumb.  The hot product of the day was ‘Quintessence’ – a herbal tonic that had the endorsement of Barbara Cartland, the romantic novelist who was also the poster girl for the health food trade and a passionate advocate of the benefits of honey.  We were carrying the natural foods banner, which dismissed honey and brown sugar as no better than white sugar.

When Barbara Cartland was walked around the show she would pose in front of each stand with the proud smiling owners…until she got to ours.  Her minders firmly grasped her elbow and marched her past – no danger of her being photographed in the presence of a bunch of hippies.    The Soil Association had a similar problem at the time.  Before she died, Mary Langman confided in me that Lady Eve Balfour had been strongly advised to distance herself from us hippies who were selling organic food. They feared it would undermine the credibility of the Soil Association at a time when luminaries such as Lord Kitchener were tabling motions in the House of Lords calling for more research into organic food production.    We were creating an alternative world rather than trying to change an established system.

In early 1970 our salesman Stan Stunning and Gregory and I went to the University of Sussex to give a talk about macrobiotics to some students there who wanted natural foods in the canteen.  One of them was Peter Deadman, who soon teamed up with Robin Bines to found Infinity Foods in Brighton.  A lot of other natural foods enterprises emerged in the next few years.

In 1973 we formed the Natural Foods Union with other pioneering retailers and wholesalers and set out the principles that distinguished us from the health foods shops.  Not long after, Maurice Hanssen would invite me to speak at seminars where I would explain to health food retailers what this natural foods stuff was all about and explaining that they could get aboard without having to buy bulk and pack it down if they bought our Harmony Foods prepacks. I remember the owner of Sunshine Health foods speaking out, saying that he was delighted that Harmony Foods and others were taking the health food trade back to its pre-war roots when food rather than pills and potions was its stock in trade. 

As time passed by the health food shops stocked more and more grains and beans and seeds and other natural foods products and the natural foods stores started to stock more vitamins, supplements, honey and tonics.   This changing and merging of retail concepts was reflected in the Natural Products Show that sought to embrace all aspects of our trade.

The rest is history – Natural Products News reflected this new paradigm and the boundaries between natural foods and organic foods, which had always been somewhat artificial, have largely dissolved