Honesty of Kava Vendors

[DirTJerz]

Yes, I also appreciate your heartfelt post, GKE. I have every sympathy for kava farmers whose livelihoods are being threatened by recent revelations. I do think, though, that your opinion that vendors are not selling us spiked kava is far-fetched, unless there is some conspiracy or colossal oversight between Dr. Lebot, Deleted User, and others. Dr. Lebot is at ground zero and has reported no false positives. (But who knows, maybe the real cause of the orange acetone tests is air travel at 40,000 feet or something wild like that.)i

On this forum, I sense that the mood is of hope and patience that things will correct themselves now that everything is out in the open. Nobody wants to boycott certain products just to stick it to Vanuatu, and I think we'll all be thrilled when everything eventually starts testing as noble. Hopefully, accurate testing and awareness will diminish the temptation to spike or mislabel noble kava, because while I can understand the desperation to make a little more money, it is in the farmers' (and all honest parties') best interest to straighten this out as we enter what might be a renaissance for kava in the western world.

I have not interpreted recent conversations as singling out Vanuatu, either. In fact, I think this forum has been very fair, when we could otherwise be emotionally overreacting. After all, this is something we're putting in our bodies on a consistent basis, and of course we're going to err on the side of caution, even if there might be a shred of doubt. I don't think our rational discussions on here (even if they amounted to "bashing") could have much of an effect on an entire economy. And I hope you're not suggesting we continue to buy and consume products that we have every reason to believe are tudei. I am sorry if your business is being affected by misguided farmers or suppliers selling you tudei kava. But if I remember correctly, you have some products that have tested as noble, so I look forward to trying them out soon!

 

[TheKavaSociety]

I spent some time in Niue a few months ago and I spoke with one of the former kava farmers there. The guy was persuaded to grow kava by some agricultural development experts back in the 1990s. They gave him some cuttings and some sort of manual explaining how to grow it. He waited for a couple of years, harvested it, never actually tried it himself (he said he wasn't into "intoxicants") and then sold it via family in New Zealand. So, he had no clue about the cultivar, no proper idea about processing it, never tried it himself and was most probably unaware of any discussions regarding kava safety. So it is possible that he was selling tudei kava containing some aerial parts of the plant. But was he a scammer or an evil person? No. For him growing kava was like growing tomatoes. The only thing he was concerned about was to make sure no pest attacks the plant and that he can ship it safely to New Zealand.

 

[HeadHodge]

@Deleted User, I'm sort of disappointed you didn't reply to my last question.

 

[HeadHodge]

@HeadHodge - Which question? Try post #16, I had a real expert answer that one.

Mine was 18.

 

[HeadHodge]

An example of the problem I have with talking about kava safety:

7 foods that were supposed to be incredibly unhealthy — but are actually anything but
We were warned by "experts" to avoid these edibles at all costs. Turns out the experts were wrong
EVELYN NIEVES, ALTERNET

Full Article Link

 

[HeadHodge]

@HeadHodge - These foods and their "warnings" are not comparable to the kava situation, and none have been implicated as causing sudden, potentially fatal reactions.

This article falls under a classification I call "outrage porn", designed to get people stirred up over nothing. A wise newspaper man once said "Vulgar minds mistake exceptional for important".

 

[HeadHodge]

@Deleted User, thanks for the reply. I was talking about examples of foods that were (or are) advertised as being unsafe or unhealthy for you. Not by this particular author but by the health community at large. Not sure how it went from that to calling them fatal? I suppose if I worked at it, I could even make that point, but that wasn't my original point. What I'm trying to get at is that "scientists" have claimed for years that some foods are bad for you but are now deemed to be good for you (and vice versa). The list you stated above are good examples of some of the foods that I'm talking about. Without going into specific examples of each one (I could if pressed though), I'm simply saying it's wrong to run around like chicken little yelling that certain kava's are good for you and certain others are bad, just because someone says so (hint: his initials are Dr. Lebot), without having a healthy skepticism and open attitude about the possibility that it just might not be true. He is most definitely equipped to make a more informed intelligent viewpoint than us, but it's still only that, a viewpoint. It doesn't necessarily make him right (or wrong).

Soapbox Edition

 

[HeadHodge]

@HeadHodge - Understood, but I think you're missing the point. This is not all about safety, this is about the future of kava. This thread was split, so I'll quote my post that was moved and add a few words:
I think we are only one well documented case of liver failure away from a ban. If it happens again - and it easily could - the FDA will take the opportunity. The case (or cases) may be researched, the cause may be found, but at that point it will make little difference. So to me, identifying the actual culprit so we can decide what kava to drink is not the main goal. The main goal is getting a handle on quality control, and ensuring every possible effort is made to prevent other cases from occurring.
If you like drinking tudei, I have no issue with that. This is not about whether or not tudei is actually safe, it is about saving kava. "If we don't follow the advice of leading scientists and self regulate now, and other cases of liver failure surface", we won't need to debate about which kava to drink - we won't have any. They are working now to prove their advice is correct, but they don't recommend waiting for results, they say "drink traditionally prepared noble, avoid tudei". So that's what I encourage everyone to do.
http://www.kavaforums.com/forum/threads/acetone-test-and-flavokawain-b-content.3504/#post-38481

This is why I don't like to see people banging the drum and yelling "No one has proved tudei is harmful!". That's not going to help! If it turns out you were right, at best you can say "I told you so". But if it turns out you were wrong, I might have to ask "What's a good substitute for kava?". To me, it's a matter of risk analysis: discounting the expert advice has no chance of helping the cause, and every chance of hurting it.

Not wanting to know the main culprit of potential health problems and wanting to self-regulate against it, seems like a non-sequitur to me.
If we do follow the advice of "one leading scientist" and a case of liver failure surfaces, where does that get us?

 

[ApéroNoble]

the bottom line is is hepatotoxic, tudei's loaded with it. Noble is not.

 

[HeadHodge]

the bottom line is is hepatotoxic, tudei's loaded with it. Noble is not.

By how much?? And what about blends??

 

[ApéroNoble]

By how much??

enough to cause me more ill effects than alcoholic hangovers from laced noble, enough to stay away, enough to spread the word to those I tell about kava, enough to dedicate time here for hopes of not seeing one more alternative remedy downtrodden by those who'd rather there be no natural remedies, enough to wish not seeing seriously ill folks as I've seen in the past become victims of negligent companies.

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

By how much?? And what about blends??

To me it does not matter how much and the blends because if it is not Noble then you are adding the things that could be hepatoxic.
If you add Tudei to Noble you are adding more FKB to a Noble kava and that brings up the ratio of FKB.
It still is ALL about truth in advertising, it is not hard to say the kava I sell is a blend of Noble and Tudei just like it is not hard for me to say my Hawaiian grown kava is 100% pure Noble, if I add some Isa to that then it would not be 100% pure Noble and there are people that are affected by these blends and in a bad undesired way so they want to know if there kava is 100% pure Noble or if it is Tudei or a blend.
Remember it is a choice that we as kava drinkers have to make and we can not do that very well if there is no truth in advertising or if we did not have a way to test it. Thankfully we do have an approved way of testing, my thoughts are that if the solvent test is good enough for the Vanuatu government then it is good enough for me.
Aloha.

Chris

 

[violet]

Not wanting to know the main culprit of potential health problems and wanting to self-regulate against it, seems like a non-sequitur to me.
If we do follow the advice of "one leading scientist" and a case of liver failure surfaces, where does that get us?

I don't think it's that we don't want to know what the specifics are of something that has the potential to cause significant health issues, I think we currently have enough information to decide that we don't need the specifics to understand the implication they create for the legal status of kava. It doesn't matter how many debates we have about proving the danger or safety of non nobles, none of that will matter if a case of liver damage is connected to kava usage and tudei is available on the market, and it's looking like it could be a very large part of the market at this point. If it's a kava that is supposed to be noble that causes harm and it's adulterated, that makes the kava market dangerous for consumers. It is a huge, preventable risk to kava if distributors in the US and other global markets aren't respecting the CODEX standards for kava, especially if someone gets sick from tudei or an adulterated mix.

I think we also need to keep in mind that the kava researchers are working on research, which usually culminates in publishable results. I am sure there will much more specific information available to us later in time. Another thing is that it isn't just FKB, but there are other constituents as well found in much higher ratios in tudeis than in nobles (IIRC). There are hundreds, probably thousands+ of phytochemicals that we don't know much about or even that they exist. Botanicals don't have the money big pharma does to perform clinical research studies on phytochemicals. But our accumulated knowledge of chemistry can tell us a lot about how chemical structures are metabolized in the body. If we can observe something causing liver damage, there are any number of specific mechanisms by which that can happen and something doesn't have to be spelled out specifically to realize it can be potentially hepatotoxic. If we can see it happen and know how something is metabolized we should be able to know the mechanism of hepatoxicity. With regard to tudei kava, it could well have multiple intermingling factors that would make it unwise/unfit to consume.

 

[ApéroNoble]

Governments don't ban the exportation of natural resources unless there's a very good reason, yet some companies choose noncompliance. Who knows what else is in your kava bought from such places.