Business
Taking The Kava Battle To Europe
Growers push for early lifting of ban
To kava growers in the Pacific, advisers have one simple but pretty urgent message: Start planting now!
The message is directed specifically to the kava producing countries of Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. This follows the visit last month of Dr Joerg Gruenwald, the German scientist that conducted the study proving that kava is a safe and effective prescription drug.
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The Berlin-based botanist has teamed up with the Pacific-based International Kava Executive Committee (IKEC) to publicise the results of his findings, and in turn overturn the decision of some European countries, Germany notably, to ban the drug. The group has given itself a time line of having the kava ban lifted within the next six months or so.
"When Europe opens up, lifts the ban, we've got to be ready to supply the demand," explains Ratu Jo Nawalowalo, a leading Fiji supplier of kava and an executive of IKEC. "We've made that point very clear to the (Fiji) government. Come that day, we have to be ready. Our production supply must be multiplied, boosted to another level where you are supplying the global market rather than just supplying some selected international markets."
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IKEC's optimism stems from elaborate and comprehensive findings of Gruenwald's study as well as support from four kava producing countries. In December last year, Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi visited Germany to lobby for the lifting of the ban. Gruenwald said the Samoan leader's visit was helpful as he was able to meet with the German Chancellor and the health minister. "We all know once a ban is issued, it's not easy to take it back and therefore we need a lot of pressure from a lot of levels," said Gruenwald.
"The political level is very important," he added. In his meeting with Fiji's Laisenia Qarase, the Fijian leader didn't offer to visit Bonn like his Samoan counterpart. But Qarase did promise to direct Fiji missions overseas to assist in getting the kava ban lifted. For its part, IKEC wants to up the "noise" to another level right in Germany and Britain. Committee members will meet in Brussels in late April and early May before they visit Bonn and London to push for the early lifting of the ban.
In addition, preparations have begun for the hosting in Fiji in June of an international symposium on kava where international scientists and researchers will be invited. The University of the South Pacific together with the Fiji School of Medicine and the Fiji Government have promised a hand. Positive signals are also coming from the World Health Organisation, said Gruenwald.
After urgings from IKEC, the world body is now re-analysing its data on kava and the Berlin scientist is adamant the outcome will be positive. "The WHO has a positive policy on herbal medicine noting that 80% of the world population of developing countries depend on herbal medicine and they work with these countries to get better quality and how to use these products. They have developed a monograph, this is a scientific summary of all data on kava, but before it could be published, all these things happened in Germany. So it never got published. "We invited two WHO reps to our meeting in Brussels last August and they said, 'okay we want to work on that issue' and now it is being handled by them.
"But we know the monograph they were compiling was a positive one. They stated kava would be a good and valuable herbal medicine to be used." Why the world body decided to stay mum on the banning of kava despite its positive monograph, nobody could explain. What could be verified though is that the huge and growing kava industry in the Pacific and Europe suffered multi-million dollar losses because of the ban, which was based, according to Gruenwald, on flimsy evidence.
"It's a stupid situation. We had compared in our report the side effects of other drugs in this area, and they are 10, 1000, 10000 times more side effects than kava intakes. Yes, we had two possible interactions of kava and liver problems and these were regarded as allergic reactions. We all know allergic reactions happen to practically everything and that is not the reason to ban a product.
"You can put a label on it that if you are allergic to it, don't take it. So fine, don't take it together with alcohol because it may increase the reaction. But it is not the reason to ban it from the market." Nawalowalo says Fiji lost tens of millions of dollars due to the ban. Together with the losses suffered by kava industries in Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and kava pill manufacturers in Europe, the ban could have cost the global industry much more.
