Graphic source: Newsphiles.org
by Heidi Stevenson
12 September 2010
Source: GaiaHealth
It’s almost a done deal. We are about to see herbal preparations disappear, and the ability of herbalists to prescribe them will also be lost.
Big Pharma has almost reached the finish line of its decades-long battle to wipe out all competition. As of 1 April 2011—less than eight months from now—virtually all medicinal herbs will become illegal in the European Union. The approach in the United States is a bit different, but it’s having the same devastating effect. The people have become nothing more than sinks for whatever swill Big Pharma and Agribusiness choose to send our way, and we have no option but to pay whatever rates they want.
Big Pharma and Agribusiness have almost completed their march to take over every aspect of health, from the food we eat to the way we care for ourselves when we’re ill. Have no doubt about it: this takeover will steal what health remains to us.
It Begins Next April Fools Day. In the nastiest April Fool’s Joke of all time, the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products (THMPD) was enacted back on 31 March 2004.(1) It laid down rules and regulations for the use of herbal products that had previously been freely traded.
This directive requires that all herbal preparations must be put through the same kind of procedure as pharmaceuticals. It makes no difference whether a herb has been in common use for thousands of years.
Tags: big pharma, Codex Alimentarius, eu, european union, herbs
People would not *be* in a position where “Big Pharma and Agribusiness” leaves them “no option but to pay whatever rates they want” except for the fact of government. It is governments, each with their many hundreds of agencies – chiefly the FDA in the US – that create this situation. But it is the *enforcers of government* – those who are willing to initiate physical force on others – who really make it possible. Do you think that the numerous legislators, bureaucrats, executives (including Presidents, Prime Ministers, etc) would get out in “the field” and enforce those thousands (?millions?) of laws, directives, mandates, regulations, etc.?! No! It is the government enforcers who are the *real* problem.
There is more that needs to be done in addition to writing letters of complaint to legislators about this newest of their planned interference in the voluntary mutually beneficial interactions of people. Decreasing the numbers of government enforcers is the first step, since politicians and bureaucrats will not themselves eliminate the laws, directives, mandates, regulations, etc. that they have already instituted and plan yet to do the same. The enforcers are the key!
I suggest that readers who agree with the wrongness of this (and other government actions) not voluntarily associate with government enforcers who refuse to get a non-government (and productive) job when the reasons are clearly presented. Strong negative Social Preferencing – withdrawal or refusal of voluntary association with the reasons made public – towards government enforcers who continue in that role after attempts to logically persuade them of their errors (offers of assistance in obtaining new productive jobs is a good idea for those known personally), is the next step. Public identification (photos, names and location) of these continuing government enforcers will enable others to also Socially Preference against them, thereby increasing the social pressure to change their employment, their major interaction behavior. This selective (discriminating) association to exclude those who cause harm is a potentially very powerful method of non-violent action, referred to as ostracism by many down through the ages. It is included in Gene Sharp’s 2nd volume (of 3), “The Politics of Nonviolent Action”, Chapter 4, “The Methods of Social Noncooperation”.
Even in the current very unfree societies (of which the US is a major one), negative Social Preferencing can be effectively used to influence individual social behavior and the actions of the State. http://selfsip.org/focus/protestsnotenough.html
It goes without saying that the sooner large numbers of people make negative Social Preferencing part of their own behavior (together with positive Social Preferencing towards non-government related individuals who do provide value), the sooner the number of government enforcers will noticeably decline. And in the process, it is very likely that self-responsibility – including making one’s own food/herb/etc choices – will achieve the role in human actions that is necessary for a truly liberatous society (in contrast to “libertarian” that has multiple incomplete and/or self-contradictory descriptions and “principles”).
Sickening. ENRAGING!!!!!!