Entering the Green Pharmacy

Entering the Green Pharmacy

If you're reading this book, you probably know what an herb is . . . or do you? The term herb should be easy to define, but actually, it's surprisingly difficult.

The classic botanical definition is that an herb is a nonwoody plant that dies down to its roots each winter. Clearly, this definition was concocted by botanists in a cold climate, specifically that of northern Europe. According to this definition, there are no herbs in the Amazonian rain forest, one of the world's most botanically diverse, herb-rich habitats, because there is no winter.

The classic definition also excludes woody trees and shrubs, including ginkgo and hawthorn, two of the biggest-selling medicinal "herbs" in Europe. That's why some people prefer the term botanicals (and botanical medicine): It includes trees and shrubs as well as herbs.

Using a broader definition, some people consider an herb to be simply a useful plant. The big problem with this definition is that in one very important sense, all green plants are useful, even those that are not food and have no place in medicine or commerce. All green plants perform photosynthesis, combining sunlight, carbon dioxide and water and releasing the oxygen we all breathe. I'd say that's pretty useful.

For the purposes of The Green Pharmacy, I define an herb simply as a medicinal plant. It can be woody or nonwoody, from a cold climate or a tropical one. It can be a wild or tame food, a weed, a culinary spice or whatever. It doesn't even have to be green. Plenty of barks, roots and plant parts that are not green are medicinal and therefore part of the Green Pharmacy. And there are a lot of medicinal mushrooms out there that are not green and that do deserve more attention than they'll get in this book.

The Green Pharmacy Challenge

Most Americans believe that we have the best health-care system in the world--at least that's what all the doctors and government health experts keep trying to tell us. But anyone who has ever gotten the run-around from a doctor or had to deal with a health insurance company knows that if what we have is the best, then the best still leaves a lot to be desired.

Most Americans assume that the pharmaceuticals their doctors prescribe are unquestionably better than the herbal medicines that few doctors and relatively few Americans know much about. It delights me to no end that this picture is changing rapidly.

I've been a botanist specializing in medicinal plants for most of my 30-year career, and I've personally seen medicinal herbs successfully treat conditions that high-tech pharmaceuticals could not touch.

The reason herbs are not more popular in the United States is that the drug companies can't patent them. The drug companies make their money by pulling the medicinally active molecules out of herbs and then tinkering with them a little until they're chemically unique. The companies can then patent their new molecules, give them brand names and sell them back to us for a lot more money than their original herbal sources cost.

Herbs Are Good Medicine

Of course, the drug companies always say that their unique molecules are better, stronger, more targeted and safer than herbs. I'll readily agree that they are stronger. In fact, they're often too strong and have bad side effects that their herbal precursors might not have.

As for pharmaceuticals being better, that's sometimes hard to say. In some studies, herbal products clearly perform better. Ginger, for example, has been shown to be superior to pharmaceutical dimenhydrinate (Dramamine) as a preventive therapy for motion sickness.

I'm not saying that pharmaceuticals are bad. I am saying that we need more research that tests herbs against pharmaceutical drugs. Until that happens, we simply won't know which is better. That leads me to the rather shocking conclusion that Americans are not necessarily getting the best medicine. The Green Pharmacy with its herbal therapies may, in many cases, prove to be more economical, more effective and safer--all with fewer side effects--than the pharmaceuticals.

Our challenge is to transcend the assumptions that are made by doctors, the advertising and promotion of the drug companies and the narrow and restrictive drug approval process used by the U.S. government. Our challenge is to think green--not the mercenary, monetary green of the pharmaceutical firms but the cleansing, empowering green of chlorophyll, the green that feeds, fuels, oxygenates and medicates our planet.

Economics drives the pharmaceutical companies, but what drives the Green Pharmacy and the green lifestyle in general is ecology, the idea that we're connected to everything else on the planet and that we all thrive or fall together.