Herb Soapbox

Well, I just finished watching Current T.V.'s excellent Vanguard. The episode was entitled, "The Oxycontin Express." Watching it, you realize two things: 1) Nothing good ever came out of any Bush administration anywhere, and 2) that with the damage being done by legal drugs, specifically painkillers, the FDAs reasoning for barring herbs to practitioners makes even less sense than ever.
Horrifyingly, eleven people per day in the state of Florida drop dead from overdose on painkillers, mostly oxycodone, an artificial form of heroin. Yet, oxycodone is not banned; not only is it not banned, but it's actively pushed in literally hundreds of "pain management" mills in Florida, most of them in Broward County. Yet, with only a handful of deaths attributed to it, ma huang (Herba Ephedra) is banned for use.
I should point out that I do support the banning of ephedra from supplements and other forms of snake oil. Manufacturers of these supplements are abusing a substance in a way never intended. Contraindications for ma huang in the Chinese medical literature clearly state that dose and duration of it should be limited, as it has a tendency to plunder yin if taken too long. However, as was observed a long time ago, Americans have a tendency to take any kind of hokum-in-a-bottle and ingest it, if it promises happiness, a slender figure, and health. Knowing this, supplement makers will go ahead and abuse medicinals like ma huang, and chen pi (Pericarpium citri reticulatae), if they can make a buck on it. The net result is to make life hard for those of us who have studied these herbs and use them in the way that they're supposed to be used. As a weight loss supplement, ma huang is a terrible idea. As a medicinal, in the right situations, it works almost miraculously. The fact that supplement makers are systematically putting more and more of the Chinese pharmaecopia out of reach is outrageous.
More outrageous is the fact that pain management mills in Florida, the Pusher State, can dispense tons of painkillers, hooking thousands of their fellow countrymen, destroying lives, and that they can do so legally. The problem goes beyond Florida, as well. As was pointed out on Vanguard, the impact is felt as far away as Ohio, as more and more citizens make the pilgrimage to Florida to get their OxyContin fix. In Greenup County, Kentucky, 90 percent, that's 90 percent, of people in jail now are in due to oxycodone related crime; either trafficking in it, stealing to pay for it, or theft of it. There isn't a family in the county (and, I'm betting, the state) that hasn't been negatively affected by oxycodone and its use and abuse. Yet, the FDA has chosen to ban ephedra (and will probably ban other herbs as they become the next season's brand of supplement snake oil) rather than oxycodone and other painkillers.
I should also take this opportunity to point out to all medical doctors who say that we in acupuncture are quacks to take a good look at your colleagues down in God's Waiting Room, and at the damage they're doing. If it waddles like a duck, and makes a distinct sound like a duck...
As an acupuncturist that works in a harm reduction clinic, I should also point out that I have a lot of patients coming to me for pain. Most of them are addicts trying to get their lives together. Usually, they come to me for help with pain because they themselves are afraid of oxycodone, and have explicitly told me so. If former heroin users are afraid to go near it, then everyone else should be terrified of the stuff.