Hello all, funny to stumble on this discussion on google this morning, especially after speaking to a member here earlier in the day yesterday about this very product.
First, let me give a little back story on myself, I am a student of pharmacology and a lover of all things natural and have been this way for most of my adult life. I respect nature and think that the medicine that grows from the earth is of the highest caliber, and in most cases it is superior as a fresh or dried plant to an extract and especially a synthetic. I do think there come times and places for extracts, such as when attempting to elicit a specific effect or goal, purifying one compound out of a plant for instance can open up new possibilities for medicine and otherwise.
But the facts of the matter remain the same, the indigenous tribes and native cultures found throughout the world are far, far ahead of us when it comes to the safety and utility of a potential medicine, namely the thousands of years of collective experience working with the plants, this is something that even modern day drugs cannot compete with, most only having data that supports the safety of these compounds for the duration of a few months or years. When it comes to kava and other herbs, we have generations upon generations of experiences to look upon for data.
There are other benefits too when it comes to these plants, such as biosynthetic metabolites (the whole kavalactone family as opposed to a single isolated kavalacone is one example), the chemical makeup which is more attuned to a human's biochemistry, and there is always the simple fact that you are supporting a native way of life by working with the herbs when they are as little processed as possible.
Forgive me for the tangent, but I felt it was needed to give a little history of myself and my perspective on plant medicine. I am 100% behind traditional, native, and time tested traditions.
That being said, let me expand upon the kava extract that this topic is about. The extract is not known whether it is noble or not. We purchase our extracts from large manufacturers at this time. We do realize that extracts are inferior, generally in 99% of cases this is true. Perhaps if they were made better, such as small batch hand crafted extracts from noble kava and certified organic herbs, we would not have this issue. Maybe even some spagyric extractions could be had, fermenting, distilling, extracting, and burning/extracting the ashes to create a final product true to the herbs identity could be something nice. However this sort of work requires space and time, not to mention a facility that meets certain FDA regulations. We are unfortunately not at the point yet to begin making our extracts, however I do personally have much experience with plant chemistry, and do intend to do so at some point. Until then however, we are purchasing extracts from larger companies, and even then, only some are making the cut.
I will indeed ask my supplier about this specific kava extract, but I cannot promise anything and would suggest just assuming this comes from generic kava. I know this is not satisfying to hear, but the extract is here more so for the people who do not like drinking kava. It is the same with the other extracts in our shop, such as rhodiola rosea. The extract we have is quite potent, but it seems to be missing some of the dimension that rhodiola rosea root does. On the other hand, the extract does not cause nausea in high doses like the actual root does, so there is indeed a place for it, even if it is inferior to the whole herb. My goal is to help people help themselves. If someone is withdrawing from xanax, the most important thing to them is relief. But if one would rather enjoy some Borugu Kava that shows up yellow in the acetone test and comes from Vanuatu, we have that too (actually will in 2-3 days).
I hope this clears things up, and I am more than happy to contribute to the forum too, I just need to know what the rules are concerning vendors. I could literally talk about botanicals and pharmacology all day.
