What is Isa?

[kastom_lif]

Thanks for weighing in, Judd. I've drunk my share of isa as well. To me, it's like the tequila of kavas. One shell and you're probably still OK. Six shells and you're on the floor.

I like noble kavas because I can drink all afternoon long without going to a bad place. But yet, I also like heavy kavas after dark because I can take a strong dose and "listen" to it. Aside from FKB issues, isa just has too narrow of a margin of error when you drink too much.

 

[Bula Kava House]

Thanks for weighing in, Judd. I've drunk my share of isa as well. To me, it's like the tequila of kavas. One shell and you're probably still OK. Six shells and you're on the floor.

I like noble kavas because I can drink all afternoon long without going to a bad place. But yet, I also like heavy kavas after dark because I can take a strong dose and "listen" to it. Aside from FKB issues, isa just has too narrow of a margin of error when you drink too much.

I feel ya. Have you had Hawaiian Isa, or just the Isa growing in Vanuatu? I feel like the Hawaiian growing conditions must have chilled it out a bit, because even multiple shells of what we used to serve were just fine. Not even any next day effects.

I don't really consider FKB a problem with any kava. Even in those kava cultivars that are relatively heavy with the stuff, the content is still insignificant. A kava user probably ingests more FKB by taking micronized npble than they do from traditionally preparing Isa.

 

[kastom_lif]

Only pure isa I've had was Kava by Rex. 100% Hawaiian grown. It was pretty brutal stuff. Hey at least he never claimed it to be other than isa. Even threw in a free bracelet.

Have also had Nakamal at Home's "Koniak". No idea where it came from. Tasted similar.

 

[ThePiper]

I've had known tudei kavas before like chiefs jungle but I never had isa. I would be curious to try a high quality one as a one time thing. Some heavy kavas feel almost as rough as tudei to me (but not quite) however the side effects still don't last as long as tudei.

 

[Kavashua]

Trying Isa intrigues me also. I've looked at both sides of the argument and even though it may have no traditional usage as a recreational drink there might be times that it would be my choice to drink

 

[kasa_balavu]

Douglas agrees (as per his posts on this forum) that tudei kava has a greater chance of causing negative side-effects than noble kava.

We all know that the authorities in the US, Australia, UK, EU, and elsewhere monitor adverse effects reports. More reports = more scrutiny = high chance of them taking action against kava. The import of kava has been banned in the UK since 2002 and yet they only became strict about enforcing the ban in 2015. Why?

I respect the very American libertarian view on personal freedom and the natural instinct to fight back against the man who tries to tell you what you should and shouldn't put in your mouth, but surely this is something we should be pragmatic about?

Is tudei/Isa so wonderful that you'd risk losing access to *all* kava just to have some Isa?

Douglas and Yee have claimed that the scientists are pushing a political agenda. This is false, but what if it wasn't? I've never heard anyone say that tudei/Isa is better than noble kava, so why are they so unwilling to sacrifice it on the altar of worldwide free access to good noble kava?

It's a thoroughly selfish position to hold.

Douglas spent a few weeks in the Solomon Islands a few years ago. He knows the state in which Pacific Island farmers live... perpetually below the poverty line. Fiji had category 5 cyclone Winston. Vanuatu had drought, the devastation of cyclone Pam, and now have to evacuate Ambae because of a volcano. The country is in dire need of money. One just needs a few minutes of googling to see how many years Vanuatu has been fighting for access to the EU market for their kava. If in fact this was entirely political and the EU said "give us a scapegoat and we'll give you access", why wouldn't you throw tudei/isa to the floor and stomp on it for good measure? These people live in tin shacks in the face of annual tropical cyclones, and you're actively working against them for what?!! So you can say "nobody tells me what I can and can't put in my stomach!!"? FUCK YOU!!
/* Takes deep breath */

I'm sorry but this makes me very angry. One would think that an anthropologist would care a bit more about people.

Please respect the needs and wishes of the people of the Pacific Islands who grow kava. Please drink noble kava and reward businesses that trade exclusively in noble kava. If you must have tudei/Isa, please do so quietly. There's no need to promote that stuff online. Encouraging noobs to drink tudei kava risks damaging the entire industry and that would severely hurt a million people in the Pacific Islands.

If you know a farmer, talk to them. Any farmer who's been in the game long enough has been in a situation where a market disappeared from under them and they were left with fields of worthless crops after months or years of toil. This happened to my parents on Taveuni island when the EU banned kava and the market crashed. So many were hurt by that, and it'd be a damned shame if the same were to happen just because a few people insisted on some cultivar of kava that is really no better than any good noble kava.

I beg you all, please get some perspective.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Fun Fact: Before all the hubbub about noble and tudei, we served Hawaiian Isa at the kava bar in Portland. Literally hundreds of people drank it weekly. It didn't make an appreciably greater number of customers sick than any noble kava that we served. It was actually quite popular.

This is one of the things I have not liked about the noble only marketplace push. Noble kava does have side effects. It does cause nausea for many people, heavy use of heavy kava can cause next day drowsiness/lethargy. We've had lots of discussions of people reporting increased depression after heavy kava usage. All the while noble kava vendors are claiming that only tudei causes side effects. When I started early on, I could rarely finish a session because the nausea was so bad. What was the solution everyone gave me? Only drink noble kava. It was frustrating because I already was.

 

[verticity]

Douglas agrees (as per his posts on this forum) that tudei kava has a greater chance of causing negative side-effects than noble kava.

We all know that the authorities in the US, Australia, UK, EU, and elsewhere monitor adverse effects reports. More reports = more scrutiny = high chance of them taking action against kava. The import of kava has been banned in the UK since 2002 and yet they only became strict about enforcing the ban in 2015. Why?

I respect the very American libertarian view on personal freedom and the natural instinct to fight back against the man who tries to tell you what you should and shouldn't put in your mouth, but surely this is something we should be pragmatic about?

Is tudei/Isa so wonderful that you'd risk losing access to *all* kava just to have some Isa?

Douglas and Yee have claimed that the scientists are pushing a political agenda. This is false, but what if it wasn't? I've never heard anyone say that tudei/Isa is better than noble kava, so why are they so unwilling to sacrifice it on the altar of worldwide free access to good noble kava?

It's a thoroughly selfish position to hold.

Douglas spent a few weeks in the Solomon Islands a few years ago. He knows the state in which Pacific Island farmers live... perpetually below the poverty line. Fiji had category 5 cyclone Winston. Vanuatu had drought, the devastation of cyclone Pam, and now have to evacuate Ambae because of a volcano. The country is in dire need of money. One just needs a few minutes of googling to see how many years Vanuatu has been fighting for access to the EU market for their kava. If in fact this was entirely political and the EU said "give us a scapegoat and we'll give you access", why wouldn't you throw tudei/isa to the floor and stomp on it for good measure? These people live in tin shacks in the face of annual tropical cyclones, and you're actively working against them for what?!! So you can say "nobody tells me what I can and can't put in my stomach!!"? FUCK YOU!!
/* Takes deep breath */

I'm sorry but this makes me very angry. One would think that an anthropologist would care a bit more about people.

Please respect the needs and wishes of the people of the Pacific Islands who grow kava. Please drink noble kava and reward businesses that trade exclusively in noble kava. If you must have tudei/Isa, please do so quietly. There's no need to promote that stuff online. Encouraging noobs to drink tudei kava risks damaging the entire industry and that would severely hurt a million people in the Pacific Islands.

If you know a farmer, talk to them. Any farmer who's been in the game long enough has been in a situation where a market disappeared from under them and they were left with fields of worthless crops after months or years of toil. This happened to my parents on Taveuni island when the EU banned kava and the market crashed. So many were hurt by that, and it'd be a damned shame if the same were to happen just because a few people insisted on some cultivar of kava that is really no better than any good noble kava.

I beg you all, please get some perspective.

Very well stated Mr. k.b. !

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Douglas agrees (as per his posts on this forum) that tudei kava has a greater chance of causing negative side-effects than noble kava.

We all know that the authorities in the US, Australia, UK, EU, and elsewhere monitor adverse effects reports. More reports = more scrutiny = high chance of them taking action against kava. The import of kava has been banned in the UK since 2002 and yet they only became strict about enforcing the ban in 2015. Why?

I respect the very American libertarian view on personal freedom and the natural instinct to fight back against the man who tries to tell you what you should and shouldn't put in your mouth, but surely this is something we should be pragmatic about?

Is tudei/Isa so wonderful that you'd risk losing access to *all* kava just to have some Isa?

Douglas and Yee have claimed that the scientists are pushing a political agenda. This is false, but what if it wasn't? I've never heard anyone say that tudei/Isa is better than noble kava, so why are they so unwilling to sacrifice it on the altar of worldwide free access to good noble kava?

It's a thoroughly selfish position to hold.

Douglas spent a few weeks in the Solomon Islands a few years ago. He knows the state in which Pacific Island farmers live... perpetually below the poverty line. Fiji had category 5 cyclone Winston. Vanuatu had drought, the devastation of cyclone Pam, and now have to evacuate Ambae because of a volcano. The country is in dire need of money. One just needs a few minutes of googling to see how many years Vanuatu has been fighting for access to the EU market for their kava. If in fact this was entirely political and the EU said "give us a scapegoat and we'll give you access", why wouldn't you throw tudei/isa to the floor and stomp on it for good measure? These people live in tin shacks in the face of annual tropical cyclones, and you're actively working against them for what?!! So you can say "nobody tells me what I can and can't put in my stomach!!"? FUCK YOU!!
/* Takes deep breath */

I'm sorry but this makes me very angry. One would think that an anthropologist would care a bit more about people.

Please respect the needs and wishes of the people of the Pacific Islands who grow kava. Please drink noble kava and reward businesses that trade exclusively in noble kava. If you must have tudei/Isa, please do so quietly. There's no need to promote that stuff online. Encouraging noobs to drink tudei kava risks damaging the entire industry and that would severely hurt a million people in the Pacific Islands.

If you know a farmer, talk to them. Any farmer who's been in the game long enough has been in a situation where a market disappeared from under them and they were left with fields of worthless crops after months or years of toil. This happened to my parents on Taveuni island when the EU banned kava and the market crashed. So many were hurt by that, and it'd be a damned shame if the same were to happen just because a few people insisted on some cultivar of kava that is really no better than any good noble kava.

I beg you all, please get some perspective.

.
This is great, you said all that needed to be said, this is the best comment yet and I also think everyone should read this. I think you should post it on the Awa Development Council's website (https://www.facebook.com/groups/38483306187/) and on Kava reddit so more people can see. Great job!
The thing that gets me is that Yee is supposed to be about the culture of Hawaiian awa yet he promotes Isa and kavasseur is not telling everyone around the world wide web that Isa is a Hawaiian tudei kava but Isa is not Hawaiian and Hawaii never had tudei kava in there tradition.
Thanks again for saying what needed to be said. Aloha.

Chris

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

At least @kasa_balavu 's take on it here, seems to acknowledge that anti-tudei movement does appear to be more of a necessary sacrifice, to hopefully preserve the legal sale of kava globally, than it is a movement born out hard data showing tudei/isa to be a sure fire way to cause organ damage or death. The health/fear mongering approach works well to get the job done, but is much less honest and involves some lying by omission. I've personally backed off that approach and have become more honest about what is actually known, experienced, measured and proven about tudei. Though this might appear to put me in a "pro-tudei" camp, it has not, it's just honesty and balance that is needed for the sake of any readers who may be somewhat uninformed and are quickly overwhelmed and groomed into a more fear-mongering stance.

The line that I do still tow, after all these years, is basically what Kasa Balavu stated: is it worth risking the loss of all kava, just to save tudei from being sacrificed, even if perhaps unfairly so? The answer must be a resounding 'NO' if you need or enjoy kava and buy it off the internet. Yes, there could be a better way for this to have happened, but it's just not the way it played out.

In fact, if honesty, education and more science about tudei were available from the start, perhaps there would have never been an issue that required a sacrificial lamb in the first place. Then there could have been a distinct and separate market in place for those poor farmers to make even more money.

Also, for anyone who isn't aware, you need not even leave Vanuatu before you already begin to find people that disapprove of the anti-tudei movement. I'm assuming that it must be a money based, ease-of-access issue or something.

Random sloppy stream of consciousness thought: If you fearmonger people into believing a bad experience with kava must equal that they've been 'poisoned' by tudei, even though it wasn't tudei, they've just been indoctrinated into quickly assuming a negative experience means someone sold them tudei and that they've been harmed by it(which i've seen happen) and then they, and likely others, who read it decide to not buy that kava again or from that vendor again...and similarly, if a vendor is shamed for not being anti-tudei enough(which i've seen happen) and it affects their sales or hypothetically even their whole business............wouldn't that too, in some small way, be taking money out of the hands of the poor kava farmers? And it will have been facilitated by overly dramatic, overly dogmatic stance on tudei.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

@sɥɐʞɐs : I agree concerning "fear-mongering", but the fact is, the harshest statement I have ever made is here: First Time Kava Drinkers Beware!

In this article I specifically state:"Though two day kava may have potential toxicity it has not been specifically tied to long term health issues (other than dermopathy and nausea), nor has noble kava. So bear in mind my concern is effects, not safety."

The accusations of fear-mongering are, like the rest of the attacks, total fabrications. My emphasis has always been on effects, not safety.

That is very good but the fact is people are thinking tudei is proven dangerous. Threads have been popping up a lot where the drinker is concerned about their health because they SUSPECT they have been drinking tudei. They are under the impression noble kava does not have side effects.

Using tudei/ISA as a sacrificial lamb is not likely going to be a winning strategy. Both plants are of similar chemical makeup. The DEA could easily pick the component they find to be potentially dangerous and schedule it resulting in all kava being banned. That's what they attempted with K@.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

@sɥɐʞɐs : I agree concerning "fear-mongering", but the fact is, the harshest statement I have ever made is here: First Time Kava Drinkers Beware!

In this article I specifically state:"Though two day kava may have potential toxicity it has not been specifically tied to long term health issues (other than dermopathy and nausea), nor has noble kava. So bear in mind my concern is effects, not safety."

The accusations of fear-mongering are, like the rest of the attacks, total fabrications. My emphasis has always been on effects, not safety.

I don't believe I mentioned any names. Though I did state that I, myself, used to point to health concerns, regarding FK-B studies or Pipermethystine, others used to as well, to sway against tudei.

The possibility of fairly unpleasant but benign effects can't really be all that people are so fervent about. Even if statements from leaders of the movement don't outright make the worst claims, the viewer just needs to be lead in a direction and the nature of human avoidance from harm and side-choosing will take over and they will snowball themselves further in that direction.

Are we going to say now that this is actually a war on DHM and not tudei? Would that be more accurate? Maybe it is.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

The problem starts when someone takes these random sticks, moulded roots, false kava, tudei kava, kava stalks and extracts the shit out of them with acetone, ethanol, CO2 and then promotes it to random people, many of whom might also be taking other drugs and extracts. And for as long as such products are available, one has to be extra careful about the quality of the plant material.

Exactly. With the available evidence, it appears that this scenario is actually the real problem. Using whole tudei or perhaps any whole kava plant, leaves and stems, making solvent extractions out of them, selling them as over the counter herbal remedies, to poly drug users, alcoholics, regular people on other medications or simply to some people who have naturally weakened livers for whatever reason, appears to be the way kava can harm you.

I don't even see wild cards like Doug or Jonathan Yee promoting anything close to that. Though I could easily see Yee being in support of making various kinds of extracts.

So, if it's becoming more common to accept that the real problem is tudei aerial extracts, likely combined with the consumers other drug habits, why is there such a huge focus, almost entirely against drinking a traditional kava beverage made from only tudei roots and not against the "real" problem? (proper labeling & adulteration aspects not considered, as EVERYONE agrees on that)

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Your prediction that this "strategy" (which it is not, by the way) would not succeed is a bit late. This is the route the South Pacific has chosen, standards have been set, the German ban has been lifted, and kava commerce is thriving.

Concerning the DEA and kava vs K@, these two botanicals are drastically different in both history and legal status. Kava has been an approved Dietary Supplement for many years, even throughout the German ban. K@ is not and has never been legal to sell for human consumption.

Commerce is only thriving to Germany if you are a pharmaceutical company. Kava is being sold as a pet supplement or for other non consumption purposes in the UK. The US government is not going to care about the standards of the south Pacific if kava is ever targeted for ban.

I only mentioned K@ as an example. If any part of tudei kava is declared dangerous, they can ban that component and ban noble kava in the process unless it is something not contained in noble kava.

 

[kasa_balavu]

Commerce is only thriving to Germany if you are a pharmaceutical company.

The poor farmers on Levuka, Eua, Tanna, Savai'i and all the other kava-growing Oceanic islands don't care who buys their kava, so long as there's a market that pays well. The opening up of the German market as a result of the good work of Matthais Schmidt, Vincent Lebot, Ed Johnston, Chris Allen + other kava growers, and of course Pacific Island government officials is a wonderful thing for the industry.

The medicinal kava users in Germany can get help for their anxiety using standardized extracts procured from the islands following better quality control than ever before. Recreational users are missing out for now but there's hope that standardisation will lead to greater market access and eventually full market access. That's what we should all be working towards.

I completely understand that a grower with a field of Isa wants to be able to sell his crop.
I completely understand why the big middlemen and wholesalers fight for tudei kava. It costs them money and resources to have to test their kava, to throw away tudei they buy by mistake, and to find noble sources.

What I don't understand are why a handful of kava users would fight so hard for this stuff when there is noble kava of equal and better effects available. It doesn't make sense except as a "you're not the boss of me!" reaction.

They're pushing isa/tudei not because they want to give you the best kava, but because it's easier to grow and because going noble-only takes a wee bit more work and will cost them money in the very short term.

There are a dozen noble kava cultivars you've never even tried. Try those! Tell your vendor that the people of Vanuatu deem this kava unsuitable for daily consumption, so why aren't they selling us these other cultivars? All we get are Borogu, Borongoru, Melomelo, and blends of mystery kava. We're missing out on so many:

Asiyai, Biyaj, Palimet, Miela, Olitao, Kelai, Ge wiswisket, Ge gusug, Silese, Melmel, Sese, Urukara, Bir Sul, Bir Kar, Palarasul, Palasa, Poivota, Pia, Ahouia, Leay, Amon, Puariki, Pualiu, Naga miwok, Ge vemea.

I for one would love to try some Naga miwok. A cultivar with such a cool name has got to be good! Forget Isa!