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<DIV>Greetings All,</DIV>
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<DIV>I'm curious to hear more about the intentions of this research, what will the findings ultimately be used to accomplish? </DIV>
<DIV>http://www.drugabuse.gov/whatsnew/meetings/psychoactivemtgsumm.html</DIV>
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<DIV>Increasing our knowlegde and understanding of how plants work on human beings is a benevolent enough goal, although I would direct participating researchers to give at least a cursory scan to Jim Duke's now fairly old work on synergy and his "silver bullet vs. the shotgun shell" argument against the active ingredient principle. </DIV>
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<DIV>I'm curious because, conspiracy theorist that I tend to be or at least sporting a healthy distrust of government as any average participant in a democracy ought to do, I was immediately concerned that such research generated by among only three principals, the Office of Drug Abuse, would be used to further what I fear is a discredit-and-ban approach to herbal medicine being increasing adopted under an adminitration with rather blatant, well documented, direct ties to the pharmaceutical industry, for example Bush ties to Eli Lily (maker of Prozac) or Rumsfeld's ties to G.R. Searles. I could be wrong, but as an illustration of my point a ban on kava in Great Britain occuring simultaneously to British researchers exposing the suicidal tendencies of long-term Prozac users seemed to me to be orchestrated from behind political scenes. There seems a not-so-hidden agenda seeking to restrict access to and prohibit use of what N. Culpepper called "The People's Medicine," namely the plants, in a political environment which aside from herbal products, seems to want to unregulate all trade. Granted, with McKenna listed as a participant in the workshop in question I am sort of willing to concede that this may be an attempt to truly understand in a non-biased way. I would honestly appreciate hearing some thoughts about this because I'm a free thinker and would like to know the facts before I make up my mind. </DIV>
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<DIV>In regard to this discredit-and-ban tactic, I can't help pointing out also that government prohibition of dangerous drugs never works, as was most famously illustrated by killer alcohol, a widely available psychoactive natural plant product. </DIV>
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<DIV>In regard to how this topic may affect conservation of plants, I would argue that once a plant is labeled as a widely available psychotropic drug and government forces move in to restrict or curtail supplies, generally Monsanto ends up with a contract for huge amounts of Round-Up as is the case of Plan Columbia efforts to reduce production of coca. In my own neck of the woods, local sherrifs, trying to eradicate Datura stromonium after teenagers were found to be messing with this admittedly very dangerous plant, sprayed copious amounts of Round Up until they ran out of money and gave up on a futile effort to control an extremely abundant self-seeding weed. I do not know the conservation status of any plants that happened to get in the way of these raining Round Up, if-you-can't-regulate-it-kill-everything approaches to drug abuse control.</DIV>
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<DIV>I'm not a scientist and do not take scietific data as the last word on any subject so, take what I'm saying with a grain of salt all you scientists out there. I would guess though that there are serveral people lurking in the sidelines with a similar, though perhaps -- perhaps -- ill-informed distrust of such government-sponsored scientific initiatives. So if anyone has 2 cents to add to my dollar I'd like to hear it.</DIV>
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<DIV>Best regards,</DIV>
<DIV>Jennifer Chesworth</DIV></BODY></HTML>