Warning. LONG Post ahead....
Kava's future is very close to my heart, so I have a lot to say.
Firstly, It's amazing how many people on this forum are right on target about kava's barriers to entry and it's exaggerated consumption numbers according to the DEA.
In the 90's our friends were the largest growers and suppliers of kava in Hawaii back in the hey days when kava was a 2 Billion dollar a year industry.
A prediction of Kava's future is that we have our work cut out based on what happened to this giant industry.
Imagine the horror of having 80 acres of planted kava and having to turn them into the ground with your tractor because the world stopped consuming kava within days when the bust happened. It was the sudden death of an entire industry. I know this because I purchased some of the machines from that colossal operation, fixed them up, got them back into shape, and grew kava in the exact same spot as that comapany. We even took over their warehouse, the exact spot where they processed kava. To give you an idea, they supplied Merck 2 containers of kava Powder worth $60k per container, EACH month, in the 90's!
Most people have no idea of how successful kava was in France, Germany and parts of Europe
Try going to pubmed.gov and type in kava and watch the incredible amount of clinical research which pops up.
Or go to the US patent office and look for kava patents and you'll be amazed that even L'oreal has patents on kava for hair products, along with so many other companies who were gearing up for Kava's Global explosion in 2003.
My friend, who had the 80 acres was already en route to planting another 400 acres.
Why?
Because there are stories of French companies who were buying entire "Islands Worth" of kava. The story goes that when those companies started getting desperate they started buying aerial parts to be made into extracts (with alcohol mostly).
The locals simply did not understand why people would buy waste.
As we all know, the result was disastrous.
Without any prediction, or warnings, they took kava out of the world market in a heartbeat. There is a "follow the money" theory as well, one which says that big pharma could not control this ancient "traditional" root's rise in popularity (although they did manage to make synthetic kava.)
So ,coming back to the thread's topic, what can we predict?
I can honestly say, all we can do is aspire. Aspire to create purity in kava products and never dance with those things which will lead to another kava bust or deter kava from climbing out of it's dubious reputation.
Adil's personal example to illustrate this point.
- - I'll never forget sitting in front of the Liquor Commision of Hawaii, sweating, as 14 people grilled me (think of those Gangster movies where guys with RICO charges are being bombarded with questions from all sides about their money laundering efforts).
"Why do you want the alcohol permit? Where will you store it? Draw us a picture of the warehouse where it will be stored" etc etc etc!
And sure enough, because I wanted to make the most awesome Grain Alcohol Kava Root Tincture on the planet, I was able to convince them because my research showed that Hawaiian Kava made an awesome tincture. And we had all kinds of strengths at the office back then (2006-2007).
So, Liquor License in pocket, big smile on my face, I set out to make a ton of extract because I knew that the Head buyer at Whole Foods and mostly ANY Health Food store would carry something that is already sold in their aisles. (note - Our solvent Free Kava extract is looked upon with "huh? - just a paste, no pill? - Under the tongue, what?" by the stores who I have approached. No one carries it yet.)
Then, my buddy Ed Johnston, who wrote the Hawaiian 'Awa book with Jerry Konanui (both these men are legends in my eyes) shared a research paper which proved (to a lesser degree) the inherent dangers of alcohol extraction where kava was concerned. Alcohol was extracting the kavalactones just fine, but also pulling out the alkaloids, like FlavoKavain B, a real liver cell killer.
*Sigh*
So much work to develop the right strength of our new tincture which was definitely stronger than anything in the market, passing the "RICO" committee's anxiousness about giving me a liquor permit, and this being the FIRST project I ever undertook; failure was a hard pill to swallow.
Yes, it was failure because I literally flushed all the versions of the tincture down the toilet.
I was not about to market any version of kava which was damaging.
Kava needed a push up in the right direction, not someone to keep bringing it down.
Truth is, you'll still find many people making alcohol tinctures and people love them because they are used to them.
A new clinical paper is due to be released soon by Chenggou Xing of the University of Minnesota. He was awarded a $500,000 Grant to research kava by the National Institute of Health. I believe this was the first time the HIH ever awarded kava research money. You have to remember that the FDA just put out a flash warning after the Germany incident in 2002. A warning which is still outdated but necessary because as Steve put it, the new Vanuatu Conference is still working with guidelines for kava production and export. SO it's the wild wild west where kava is concerned.
Andway Chengguo and his team's research shows that solvent based extracts are indeed, harmful.
I know this because we were approached to supply some of the kava and our extract for his research about two years ago.
So my prediction is that kava is going to get much bigger BUT with this growth comes a responsibility.
Personally, I have always felt an ethical obligation to the farmers who perfected kava over 3000 years. Remember, there is no seed, no flowers. Only people drinking a somatically mutated strain (a green stemmed plant sometimes popped up a single black stem, which when planted gives you a black stemmed awa plant with a possibly altered kavalactone profile)
Imagine that!
But for kava vendors in general, there is a responsibility to the public. TO their health and safety.
People who buy kava are stressed and daring.
They are brave because society at large does not exactly encourage kava use under it's umbrella. There's a FDA warning out on it for God's sake.
SO good for you, for taking a chance, keeping an open dialogue about kava going, and researching it for yourself. In the end, it's your education about kava, which ones are safe, and which aren't, which will determine what you purchase, and eventually this will lead to what producers put into the market place.
That's my prediction.
Adil Ghiasi's 2 cents~
Is whether to look into one study and take it at face value. Unfortunately, the public has taken headlines at face value and come to the conclusion that kava is unsafe as a whole.