Sassafras and History Centuries of Uses

Hymn to Falsification: Supprressing Science, History, Natural Remedies, For Lucre.

2011-10-17T20:08:00.003-04:00

Industry Tests With Self-Serving Results.
A Process of Medical Research.

Hymn to Falsification, Inadequacy.
.

Research, Once it Tilts Itself to Its Advantage,
Hopes that Nobody Checks Later.

Once a conclusion is reached,
.
How can there be fair checks on earlier daft conclusions,
Can sassafras or any herb with healing, insect repellent qualities, survive the drug companies.

Hymn to falsification, inadequate, nonobjective research, and ignoring the human element in any remedy. Do we dare ask what is "right" and if we want to encourage this or that, especially abuse.

We know well that there are remedies for desired outcomes -- the issue is more than "safety", and fast profits, but related behavior encouragement, is that so?

We know there are ancient plants, remedies, that have aided humanity for eons -- there, the issue becomes, in part, corporate suppressing the natural remedy because it cannot be patented

Update: medicinal, insect-repellent plants used in ancient bedding, see http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1208/Archaeologists-find-world-s-oldest-mattress. We also know that sassafras wood repels insects. Does that enter into furniture and cabinet sales? Not yet. Sassafras is a self-renewing resource, but it makes more money to spray.

We know there are scientifically safe ways to suppress implantation of a fertilized egg in the womb -- there, the issue becomes in part, behavioral. Do we want to encourage abusers and little boys to go ahead and force themselves, telling the little girl she just has to take a pill. Until we can control men forcing, the pill for under 17's, or pick your age, only encourages abuse, exploitation.

The FDA approved hormones for children including little ones with menses at 10-11 (or even earlier, enabling conception) to be provided over the counter, when such children may have no concept of appropriate use, and abusers can have a field day with no repercussions. See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/health/policy/sebelius-overrules-fda-on-freer-sale-of-emergency-contraceptives.html?scp=1&sq=FDA%20plan%20B%20Sibelius&st=cse. This is not a matter of scientific safety alone (no long-term testing apparently, on females so young), but of the pressure it adds to an abuser'sper;suasion. No harm, no foul, is that so? But even on scientific grounds, where are the long-term studies on little girls. Provide, providew.

What greater goal to human profiteering than falsification for profit, and misrepresentation and exploitation avenues, in Profit's Name. What remedies did the old wives have for young ones enceinte? Who was burned for daring to upset the Order. Procedures suppressing natural remedies, outside the control of the Institutions. How long? (shall we add, How Long, O Lord, How Long?)

Falsify medical research reports, omit, use faulty procedures. Is that so? Have we reason to trust testing by those with financial gain at stake in the outcome? Have those human shortcuts to a foregone conclusion affected medical research reports enough to warrant retesting.

Sassafras may yet hold cures. Think of your old music appreciation course: There used to be an old ditty for remembering a major musical work's theme, Beethoven. "Bum da bum (buddly um bum). Bum Bum bum bum bum Bum da bum. (buddly um bum) Etc. Bum da bum. Biddly bum bum. Bum da bum.

Now think: "Plagiarize. Buddly um bum. "That's why the good Lord made your eyes." Buddly um bum.

And now yet again, the hymn of medical research reports: "Falsify. Buddly um bum. That's how corp profits aggrandize."

Is that so? Biddly um bum,Bum-da-bum. Research report procedure. Win now, falsify, then duck.

3. Falsification for Profits News:

"Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case."

This, from The New Republic's review 4/7/2011 at page 29, of three books on Palestine and Israel (books by Ilan Pappe who is claimed to be falsifying here), review by Benny Morris entitled The Liar as Hero. See http://www.tnr.com/article/books/magazine/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian

Cheer Patent Expirations. Tax-Funded Public Sector Research to Replace.

2011-03-07T09:37:00.002-05:00

FDA is Cordially Invited
to this Public Sector Research Opportunity.
Sorely needed.

All We Are Saying: is

Give Plants a Chance.

Here: Tax funded public research. An update. Private Sector cannot look after our health without skinning us alive. The private sector wants profits. So it limits its research to areas where profit can be made. That leave other healing routes unexplored -- like your own backyard. Or elsewhere, where healing things grow, in areas yet unbuilt.

Jon goes exploring with his brothers

What if the best healing is in areas where there is little profit -- plants, things in your own backyard -- like sassafras. Of course, with money to be made, private sector people will oppose, and try to duplicate in the blinkin' lab whatever the sassafras does in the wild, yes, in a big expensive lab, then patent and charge for it. But what if the plant itself is better, on its own; and what if the lab tests on it in itself distort what the plant can do if it is not under stress. Exclude plant defenses in analysis.

Time to get the private sector out of controlling research. Government: the Public Sector. Support and fund research into our own backard sassafras so we can leave the private sector alone, at least more of the time. Both have a place. Time to get the private sector and the lobbies out of the driver's seat on our health.

The American People

Cordially Invite

The FDA and Its Mindful Minions

(Excluding the Non-Mindful Ones)

To Reconsider Past Flawed Testing

That Led to

Flawed Conclusions

That Plant Healing

Particularly Sassafras

Is Not Helpful to Humans.

Speaker: NYT

RSVP this post.

This is an invitation, very formal since informal proposals get nowhere, for the FDA under an enlighted administration to look again at sassafras as a possible healing agent, despite past testing that was (we think) flawed. Is that too much to ask? Sassafras is all over the place. Just tell people how to use it and they don't need doctors, sometimes, in some cases; or they just enjoy their root beer more.

New information and supporting information is coming in all the time that our forms of lab testing are just plain wrong. They are geared to the profit market, have no incentive to research for health in other ways, and sell us ailments undreamed of.

Does this make sense to you?

Listen to and experience the side effects of the drugs the salespeople are selling. Is it worth it if you are not in extremis? Faced with that, are you sure of the research that set the lab ahead of what is out there in your own back yard for your affliction du jour. The topic is this: in research, lab folks use the same plants over and over in the lab (they don't use them once, then dump them and harvest some more in nature). Of course, ask your doctor; but if you get a blank look back, you are on your own. So go to the FDA.

Basics for the FDA:

Ask. Please.

Does that overuse of the same plants and their progeny create -- in the plant itself, as a defense against its leaves or stems or roots constantly being hacked off -- a defense in the form of heightened toxins, or whatever, to keep those inhuman humans away. And that in turn distinguishes those over-harvested plants from natural ones with milder toxins in the wild, toxins that could be used by the plant if needed and increased, but dormant otherwise.

Could the sassafras' ability to defend result in its demonization by the FDA -- for that very ability to defend itself. Should we allow second looks, using unharried plants? Yes.

Interesting article affirming how plants under siege (as in labs) increase the very toxins that the lab then condemns: Is that so?

The New York Times says that heightening of defenses is a normal plant response, see NYT Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at D4. See No Face, but Plants Like Life Too.

What is in extremis anyway. That means that you are so bad off you have no choice. Fine. Take the drug. Otherwise you die. Hair loss, muscle weakness, nerve damage, spasms, dizzies, listen to the ads, hands to head. If you are not in extremis, Stop!

If you are not in extremis, can you take some more time to get educated, trust your body, and try milder, less intrusive, forms of healing?

Stakes if you stop.

We here may drop dead tomorrow because we quit the drugs because the side effects of the statin medications were awful and I would rather walk than see the satisfaction of numbers come down, but don't let that deter you. Muscle pain, weak, nerves going amok in the legs, heck -- give me my mobility. Right now, off the medication, I feel fine -- after months and months, that is -- but don't let my demise from high cholesterol (if I do demise from it) deter you. Vet everything for yourself.

America needs tax-funded public sector medical research

Sassafras under stress. Why used stressed plants as a measure of their healing capacity?

Sassafras under stress is not the same as sassafras without stress. Are you? People: different under stress, then when relaxed.

Reconsider health properties of plants. This is an enlightened administration opposed by science-hating profiteers. Is that extreme? Who will research backyard healing, in an era of patents. No-one but the government will do that. Private industry uninterested. No profit? Private industry not interested.

What to think about in food choices.

We do have to eat; but read the article and at least get a little sensitized. Here's an odd thing for the modern objective age: What if, despite no facial expression, a plant withdraws, "feels" pain, etc. The living's desire to save itself is enormous. Chemicals get released to lure in third parties to fight you off; internally, cellular troops are rallied - and the genome musters "defense-related proteins". Plants even move to get away, or nearer. It may even matter if the plant is in the vicinity of a relative (!) See article.

Your choice, your risk.

Profit World.

The profit world will never allow the FDA to show how natural backyard plants and trees can heal us.

Profit driving healthcare? Profits mean propaganda, sales. Inapp. Inappropriate, Inapplicable, Inapproximate.

Go back to the NYT -- we (or our enemies, etc.) justify slavery and genocide on grounds that these beings are not fully human, they don't "behave just as we do." They don't feel the same pain, so it goes, not the same love, etc., as real humans so -- in the old days -- operate on the infant without anesthetic because after all he can't feel pain. Can human love be found in same gender relationships? No? Get rid of them! How to admit new members into our tribe, especially if they differ.

So, to the Sassafras. Lab tests, over time, toxicity in rats already allergic in their way. Will the FDA in this enlightened adminstration reconsider? What healing is there in this ancient plant we discard.

Want out app.

Ailment? Appointment.
Test. Prescription. Insurance?
Goodbye. Thank you. Next?

Side effects? Grisly?
Ailment. Appointment. Prescribe.
New test. Same old. App. *

...............................................................

* Our own GP does take time to talk, But who is selling even our doc on the drug to prescribe? Who trusts the sellers who do their own testing. Side effects in our household have been frightening to us. So we are on a body self-reset. None of their stuff. Who are we when we are not on drugs? Can our bodies recalibrate? Seek quieter, less forceful approaches. Stay tuned.

Drug company patents are expiring. Few new drugs from them in the pipeline. Costs of research skyrocketing. Could this mean a sensible return to balance in health care: see ://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/business/07drug.html?partner=rss&emc=rss/.

Again. Root beer. Real root beer. Review the bans.

Needed: Multi-modal approach. Acu? Chiro? Nutri? Explore.

Furnishings by Sassafras. Solve Bedbugs. Learn from History.

2010-07-30T21:52:00.000-04:00

Learn from History. Sassafras.

Sassafras Repels Bedbugs

Bedbug Infestation Begone!

Dear President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg and Residents Anywhere,

Use sassafras wood for beds and cupboards. Itch and economy problems solved at one swat. Sassafras repels bedbugs. See ://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-sassafras.htm/; and ://www.discoverlife.org/nh/tx/Plantae/Dicotyledoneae/Lauraceae/Sassafras/albidum/

Young sassafras grove

We hear that bedbugs are a problem in New York City, and elsewhere.

How medieval! See their history at ://www.bed-bug.org/

See the fuss, ://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20100729/bed-bugs-biting-all-over-united-states/; ://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/in-the-war-on-bedbugs-a-new-attack-strategy/ ; and ://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/30/mattress.bedbugs.dust.mites/?hpt=C2/

We hear (know first hand!) that the economy is in a hissy fit and Governments balk at doing anything anyone else can get credit for.

Solve both.

Leave them, the nonlegislating legislators at state and fed, and start a new industry:

Furnishings by Sassafras. Cupboards, beds, bureaus, etc.

Sassafras understory, at dusk

The wood is a natural repellent to insects and rodents, see other posts around here, and making a economy crop out of all the sassafras we have in this country makes sense.

Thank you. We have natural resources, resourceful people who want to work, a need for new kinds of jobs. Go. Employment and a good night's sleep. What's not to like.

Sassafras enthusiasts.

Deer And Sassafras In Their Diet. Is the Plant Smarter Than We Think.

2009-08-09T10:54:00.006-04:00

Who eats sassafras, what parts, and what does the sassafras do in return.
Does enhanced toxicity result in labs using the same test plants over and over?

Anthropo-plantism

Here, look at deer and rodents who eat part of the sassafras (for some leaves are toxic, for others, roots are toxic, for others bark is toxic, etc. What does the plant do to defend itself against being totally consumed. This research suggests that some plants become more toxic to the eater, the more it is eaten.

Apply that to the lab setting. Suppose somebody brought in a sassafras shrub, to use as food to test for tumors. Same shrub, over and over, strip off parts to feed to the poor critters in the cages. What does the sassafras do to protect itself? Become even more toxic? And what does that do to the lab results. More tumors than would ordinarily occur. Question Asked But Un-Answered. Yet. Also note in the New York Times, Tuesday October 27, 2009, at D2, article by Nicholas Wade"

"Mice are very prone to cancer; in some strains, 90 percent of them die of tumors. People have stronger defenses against cancer, as is necessary for a long-lived animal; the disease accounts for 23 percent of human mortality. But the mole rat has taken its anticancer defenses even further: it seems not to get the disease at all."

What if they were fed sassafras? The mole rats seem to have a double immune system, says the article. We should study that, instead of why the lab test mice get the tumors so fast.

I. DEER

A. What do deer eat, and why do they eat what they do.

Deer do eat sassafras. If safrole in sassafras is so toxic to mammals, why don't deer get sick.

Sassafras, summer low grove

Herbivores. Deer are classified as Cervidae, which means that they eat vegetation, and, incidentally, also shed their antlers each year. As herbivores, they have "compound stomachs" - see://www.oswego.edu/wscp/DEER.htm/- as do moose, and elk.

The compound stomachs enable the deer to eat woody things - like sassafras in the winter, spring, summer (not fall, when they have to fatten up), for those who do eat it - that other creatures would find indigestible. See http://www.agfc.com/pdfs/free/whatdeereat_bro.pdf/. The stomachs have great scrabble names: learn them. "rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum." See ://www.oswego.edu/wscp/DEER.htm/

The rumen breaks down the browse first. The microflora there start a fermentation process. So, its food cannot exude something that will inhibit the fermentation - act like an antibacterial agent. Is that an issue with some woody things? Yes. Woody things or needles from some evergreens have high essential oil content, and essential oils are difficult to digest (Douglas fir, Juniper). So, deer don't pig out on those, but eat lots of things lightly, when they can.
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Moose Crossing, Quebec

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B. Their stomachs can break the plant components down.

The chemical "building blocks" of the browse: These also are important to the diet. More names here: lignin and cellulose (both hard to digest), hemicellulose, carbohydrates and proteins (easier). Some of those are unfamiliar, but too much of the lignin in the diet, for example, can cause weight loss and death. Some tolerated well, lots not.

So, an animal's diet also reflects what it is able to digest. Go far afield from that, and the animal is in trouble. Nature doesn't need labs to tell us what to eat, necessarily. Would we not limit ourselves to so much root beer a day?

C. They limit what they eat perhaps because of an anti-herbivore defense:

Some plants develop toxins, so that the preferred foods are not necessarily the most nutritious, but the least toxic. Here is the process: http://www.tulane.edu/~ldyer/classes/406/koricheva.pdf/ See also ://www.oswego.edu/wscp/DEER.htm/ again, Good site. Browsing itself can cause the regrowth to be more toxic than the first growth. Deer like tips best. Browsing nips growth in the bud, literally, so helps keep the food supply coming - it the tree gets too high (over 10 feet, say) then the deer can't reach it.

Deer are not just "browsing herbivores", however; they also eat corn and soybeans and acorns and crabapples and other "grazer-browser" foods. They like variety. See ://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/sasalb/all.html/. Animal wisdom.

Deer are like us. Look at the categories of foods they eat. There is a chart at the DEER site showing what they eat as to the following:

Food Categories

1. Preferred (roast chicken)
2. Staple (potatoes)
3. Emergency (tofu)
4. Stuffing (no, not Doritos. This category is what you stuff with when you are starving, so, say gruel and more gruel, like Oliver )
5. Pastime (peanut butter)

So: Deer do eat sassafras.

White-tailed New York State deer (as opposed to other areas, or the mule deer variety) prefer mountain sassafras. Massachusetts white-tails will eat it but do not prefer it. You can tell whether a deer ate a twig and not a rabbit, because the deer's stubby end will be left raggy, and the rabbit's stubby end will be clean-cut. See ://www.oswego.edu/wscp/DEER.htm

Does mere indigestibility explain why they do not eat more, or is it a search for balance in the enzymes, or is there a natural toxicity as well. Something can be indigestible without being poisonous or toxic.

See your living room in a new way. Plants do supposedly develop defenses against

those who clip or threaten it, see ://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001034.htm/ ;
or eat it, see Madagascar and its plants' anachronistic tactics against birds, that continue even though the birds are extinct, at ://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2275176/.
threats to come, by means of plant gossip (isn't this fun?), see ://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.php?DocID=168/ - passing on early warnings so the fellows downwind can rev up the chemical defenses for the future disaster
or at least reaction to "pain" - urban legend? A little too much anthropoplantism? See ://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum//thread318914/pg1.

You have to love it. Why be a "professional" when you could be a plantsperson.

But none who eat sassafras overdo it on their own, even when starving. It is not a "stuffer" browse.

Even in good times, some animals eat some parts of the sassafras - this one is a leaf guy, that one a twig guy, the other one a root kind of guy, some others, but nobody pigs out. For animals, none seem to eat sassafras so much as to be important. See ://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/sasalb/all.html/ Animal wisdom.

So: The Safrole Connection. We are branching out to deer, because safrole oil overdosed in rats brought on tumors, we are told. http://www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/104.htm/. Do animals just monitor their own intake of diet matter? Why can't we as well?

We wouldn't overdo root beer. Perhaps that is because it does develop a toxicity if it is overdone? Or the animal itself, like us, prefers variety and would never eat nothing but.

Why don't they eat more? It is all around.

Is the deer diet a self-imposed limit because the plant itself has put up more defenses than we realize. Some plants defend against being eaten by becoming more toxic under siege.

We did find that the deer eat evergreens - rhododendron, kinds of needley things. And this idea came up. Scientists know that some plants that are being eaten up, like the needley things in winter when the deer are going at them, will increase in toxicity. The stuff that is not good for the deer gets stronger when the plant is being repeatedly nibbled. They tested by also doing snipping on their own - the woodsmen. Then testing the result. Sure enough. The toxicity increased - a kind of defense against being eaten to death.

See ://www.oswego.edu/wscp/DEER.htm/:

Heavy continuous browsing on plant twigs can retard vegetative growth or even kill the plants. Browsing may also cause subsequent re-growth to contain higher levels of toxic compounds.

Sassafras has another attraction for deer over rodents. The teeth of deer do not keep growing, as do rodent teeth, requiring constant gnawing. No wonder deer are less "fended off" than rodents, if that is so. Deer can eat the softer plants without dental problems. See ://www.americazoo.com/goto/index/mammals/rodentia.htm/ Note the comments on the love-hate relationship between people and rodents. Damage done, but so cute.

So, if the sassafras also defends against being eaten, by becoming "more bad" for the animal that eats it, wouldn't that also be true in the lab.

Has anyone looked into that? Deer like the end shoots, but the more they browse on them, and the plant gets threatened with death by ingestion, the more toxic and indigestible become the shoots. So the deer back off, and the plant can continue up, until it is taller than the browse line. Plant saved.

If plants respond to being nipped back time and again by becoming more toxic, does that happen in the lab where gnome technicians somewhere use the same sassafras plants over and over to get at the safrole oil from which they then overdose the rats? Do they do that? Go back to the same plants? If so, please check the toxicity of the oil. Does it get worse. If so, that would affect lab results. Their safrole is worse than the field safrole. Is that so? Perhaps. Nice theory.

Interesting. I recall some article about attaching electrodes to philodendron, measuring the mellow happy plant leaves, then loudly approaching with shears, clack clack and snip whack! The plant waves went nuts. Philodendron reacts to threat with fear. Is that so?

Would that plant under siege time and again react as did the evergreen - put up an additional defense to being eaten by becoming more toxic than ordinary nature. And wouldn't that skew the test results. The animals were being given a far stronger dose than even a natural strong dose.

If so, that is another reason to toss the testing.

So, of course, noone will look into it. Finding that the plant has outsmarted the FDA may cast doubt on the FDA. It may help establish that we not only give substances that are not in the lab animal's diet, making it sick just because of that: particularly rodents who need to keep gnawing and whose digestion surely reflects its need to gnaw and the juices thereof. We also use plants that defend up.

And our stomachs may not rebel at all. Someone needs to test whether sassafras in the field is the same degree of safrole strength as sassafras in the lab yard. Shouldn't be hard.

Shall we use other than rats?

Shall we test other animals for safrole? That is also silly. No animal eats all of the sassafras. The species we looked up are selective. Even other rodents eat some parts of it, and know better than to eat what doesn't suit it. No animal we find aims for the safrole and eats only that.

Try deer. Deer eat parts of sassafras, some more, some less, but they also have compound stomachs for processing the woodsy things, the forage and the graze. Wide variety. Keep the variety, and the deer is healthy. Overdose on something, provide too much with too little else, and it gets sick and even dies. Surprise. Same as the mice, same as us.

The main event is whether the sassafras itself, in addition to being allelopathic and discouraging other plants from growing around it, is also defensive in getting more toxic the more it is nibbled, or browsed. That is the reaction of some evergreen species - the shoots and needles may well become more toxic the more the plant is under attack. See below. So, the plant defends itself against being eaten to death by becoming more bad for the animal. Have some madeira, m'dear?

So: what follows is the detail from looking this up. Interesting to us, but the point is that we need to test the plants own capabilities and qualities and its own defenses; before we just feed stuff to animals willy nilly.
.

Sassafras. At dusk.

Stress and other living things.

If plants like evergreen varieties and deciduous react to stressors in measurable ways, by becoming more toxic in the case of the shoots being eaten; or the waves from the philodendron under attack; why do we test animals in the worst stress conditions known to man - torture, overcrowding, solitary confinement, rotten diet, and then act surprised when we concoct illness and pathology. We know anxiety and fear bring on illness in us as well as stressed out, tortured lab animals - so does that environment also skew the results.

DETAILS:

1. Natural diets. Pay attention. A natural diet produces a healthy animal. Animals get sick on bad diets, like we do. So should we be surprised when test animals get sick.

2. Defenses, so the animal keeps its diet in balance. Other plants have been found to increase in toxicity under siege, when being nibbled frequently: Does it create in itself more toxicity, than there was before all the nibbling, as a kind of defense to being eaten to death. If so, and if the labs use the same sassafras all the time to snip snip and grind up and inject the oil, are the labs themselves creating more toxicity than out in the field over there.

3. Is there a people connection necessarily. Or is animal testing just another industry perpetuating itself regardless. We questioned whether that means the same bad stuff will result in people, who have different variety needs, digestive systems (that is, one stomach) and teeth (that is, do not keep growing so you don't have to gnaw all the time).

4. We have no idea. The FDA ban on safrole was based on its animal studies on the rats, and supposedly buttressed by human case "reports" - see ://www.answers.com/topic/sassafras/ - in the culinary section there. Read "reports" as just that - Somebody said so. He said that she said that he had halitosis. Gossip, that is; anecdotes, claims from Aunt Hessie who got it from Luke, or from Addie down the lane who never told what was so anyway.

5. Stomachy ruminators. That brought us to how deer, white-tail and mule; and moose; use sassafras. All of these have compound stomachs to break down and ferment forage and grazing products. The stomachs in multiple make it possible to ultimately digest the woodsy things, as well as eat graze, and stay healthy as long as the diet is varied, and not too much of one thing. See details about the deer, their multiple stomachs, which of them prefer sassafras shoots, which will just eat them if they are around, and more that do not seem to eat it at all. FN 1

7. Chewy rodents. And from there we went back to other types of rodents, and all seem to have have simple stomachs. But the rodent digestive makeup includes processing a diet consistent with gnawing - if they don't gnaw, some of their front teeth just keep growing down or down and around. Not pretty. So their stomachs have to tolerate whatever gets in there from the gnawing process. See details about them, this time including rabbits, groundhogs, beavers, squirrels, chipmunks etc. at FN 2. Some eat leaves of sassafras, some cut the branches (beavers, for dams), some eat the fruit, but nobody aims directly for the safrole, apparently.
.

8. Either type - the stomachy ruminators; or the chewy rodents; have serious differences from human makeup, and what diets are good for them. Why should testing on them, when they need to process weird enzymes (is there a Bambi lab?); or saw down their incisors as they eat, be valid as to illness in us, when we don't eat the same things for the same reasons. This makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense is that no wonder we cure so little, and only suppress symptoms.

OTHER ANIMALS, AND SASSAFRAS

Do deer eat more sassafras than rats because the rats, gnawing all the time, would be more of a threat to sassafras survival? Rats would get at the littlest shoots, and nip them right off. That could be. See ://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Sassafras/sassafra.htm/.

Groundhogs: These eat sassafras, but not the whole plant. See ://www.answers.com/topic/sassafras/ Add to our list of sassafras eaters these new ones: black bear, and marsh rabbits. There seems to be no toxicity, aversion.

Rabbit. Very still.

The groundhogs and marsh rabbits also have some teeth that keep on growing, see them at ://www.hoghaven.com/study.html/, but maybe the soft sassafras is not enough to keep the teeth in check, so they do not bother. Click on the topics there.

Groundhogs do not have compound stomachs, as do deer; so they are more made for the tender parts than the woodies. But they hibernate, which makes their systems different from mice, we understand. But they are diffecan but they hibernate. We don't. Rabbits in winter eat the bark, however, and beavers cut the stems.

Do these differences increase or decrease the likelihood that overdosing them reflects something about us.

Is there any animal enough like us to warrant our using their lives for ourselves? Listen to one react to that at ://www.hoghaven.com/sounds/ghs1c.wav/ Shall we test on black bears?

Generalize. Skip what you see before your eyes.

Rats and beavers and rodents, oh, my.

Beavers, chipmunks, squirrels, gophers, porcupines, gerbils, jerboas, and, Alice's favorites, rabbits and dormice. See ://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Rodentia.html/ We know that sassafras developed a defense against rodents - is that because the rodents have to gnaw, so the rodents really endanger the plant year-round? Is that so? These are indeed more like us in that they have single stomachs. But they are hugely different in that they have to keep gnawing not just for food, but to wear their teeth down so the teeth don't keep going.

Which of these mammals is most like us so that animal testing on that animal is relevant? We are neither gnawers nor browsers except on Doritos. So, pick: The compound stomach type, or the dentition going on forever type? Is our testing purely convenience of the tester and the rapid reproduction capability in tiny cages? What if that fact of perpetual tooth growth makes a difference in the animal's reaction to substances fed it for testing.

Sassafras: Three leaf variations, same branch, lower story

How to conclude reasonably, that sassafras is bad for us in usual eating or drinking doses, because it is bad for rats for whom it is toxic anyway and in huge doses; and for deer (in those places where the deer eat it as preferred or tolerated food) but who react adversely any time only one food source is provided. Their diet needs variety, light browse here and graze there. That sounds more like us than the gnawers.

SASSAFRAS: A SURVIVAL POWERHOUSE

Sassafras can tolerate a great deal of encroachment by those eating it, and grows fast. It is useful as one of the first species to show up in abandoned fields, and refreshes depleted soil. Sassafras enriches it right up with its underground runners, lots of branching bushes in the understory, and big leaves.

Choctaw Indian Legend, Sassafras and the Flood. Lifesaver Raft.

2009-07-17T20:49:00.002-04:00

The Flood: Choctaw Legend

How does sassafras attach to Native American creation legends? The picture here is not Mississippi, Choctaw country, but it sets an overall mood.

We know that sassafras was banned after inadequate testing and after thousands of years of use and reference in cultural lore in the Americas, including in religious legend.

Should we not take a second look at the discard pile.

Do go to www://choctawindian.com/, and read the tale aloud to yourself. It is sassafras that saves the life of the last human before the Flood. This is not the creation myth I was looking for from eastern countries, but this flood story may be even better.

The Choctaws are (were?) a matriarchal society, with roots in the Mississippi-Alabama areas, and seeing nature's bounty as symbolic of a mother's love. See www"//choctawindian.com/.

They lost out when the European Patriarchal and conquering cultures arrived.

Their Creation story is at that site. I found elsewhere their Great Flood story, with parallels to our Noah. The flood looks like a tsunami, rather than after a long rain. Read the www.tc.umn.edu/%7Emboucher/mikebouchweb/choctaw/flood1 for Ancient Choctaw Legend.

Sassafras - Seven Bedbugs In One Blow

2009-07-14T15:27:00.001-04:00

Sassafras as Insect Repellent

Uses of Plants: A Matter of Dosage, Extraction, Information

Give a bug enough aspirin and it, too, will expire.

Economic opportunity. Bedbug resurgencies are in the news. See Just Try To Sleep Tight. The Bedbugs are Back at ://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/nyregion/27bugs.html?_r=1/ Our solution is at hand. Put people back to work. Use sassafras wood to make your bed frame. See ://www.woodmagazine.com/materials-guide/lumber/wood-species-3/sassafras/. Here's more: see://www.crabapplehillsfarm.com/chf2001/showrooms/ArkansasSassafras/ArkansasSassafras.shtml/

Sassafras in Summer: three leaf forms, on one branch in understory

Use it in the kitchen, for cupboards. Insecticides have used sassafras oil for years, from early explorer and colonial times, see current use at ://www.diatect.com/kill-bed-bug-ppc.php/. Grow your own. See ://www.kerrysgarden.us/2006/03/01/digging-sassafras-trees/

We already know it repels rodents. Use it for children's cribs.

A multi-purpose plant. How it is used, with what dosage, with what preparation, makes the difference between a good use and a malignant one. Just as with aspirin.

Sassafras and Cholesterol Control? Liver Detox?

2009-07-14T10:40:00.003-04:00

Sassafras and Cholesterol Control?

Sassafras, as a tea, made from de-barked, and minced-pounded, tender roots from the understory level, has long been ingested as a "blood purifier." See ://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/International/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Sassafras.htm/

Sassafras, summer grove, understory emerging

Even that mainstream site is skeptical of the ban on sassafras/safrole (issues of preparation and dosage really) but it gives a sensible overview of the status today of use of sassafras; and how a plant that used to be useful we now handily discard. The site also gives the recipe for making tea, with the sensible precaution to use it only for 4-6 weeks over the course of a year. We can live with that. Now, to get the roots and try it. The site also offers a bibliography. See also ://www.foundationsofherbalism.com/pdf/11.pdf/.

Issue: High bad cholesterol; toxins building up in the liver. Some 17,000 people are waiting for liver transplants, do a search for liver transplants and get that and other stats.

Start with the premise that centuries of use of sassafras as a "blood purifyer" produced enough good results for the practice to become widespread. Then, logic would have it that "purifying blood" - whatever that is, but the term recurs so often in folk remedies and cultures - would be beneficial in purifying blood of its nastier cholesterol elements, and help the liver in that and other filtering actions.

Research in the public interest.

Not to criticize our national Pharma Preservation of Profits cult, but is there not a public interest component in exploring and testing folk remedies to see how and if they work, even though the ingredient cannot be patented. Or do we only test the moneymakers? Wrong question.

Look up, do a search for words like blood purifier sassafras cholesterol. Sassafras is known as a good liver detoxer and general stimulant. See ://www.steaptv.com/2008/05/06/how-to-dandelion-tea-sassafras-tea/.

Liver detox.

Liver detox? What is that? See ://www.liverdoctor.com/index.php?page=liver-detoxification/.

Livers go amok trying to filter out all the bad stuff we eat, drink, are exposed to environmentally that gets inside. Think great big gobs of greasy grimy fatty stuff, greasy grimy fatty stuff, greasy grimy fatty stuff, great big gobs of greasy grimy fatty stuff and me without my spoon. See, if you must, ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBK1RBj1sKo/ and ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaX95ImQcqc&NR=1/

Sassafras, understory close-upThe point is, if we can do little backyard remedies as in the old days, take your tonic in the spring when the little roots are nice, pare them and mash them up, the little things, and add your hot water, and go rock on the porch to health, why not.

It often looks like surrounding vegetation. Takes some looking when it is just taking hold in a woods of other woods.

Beats ICU. Make some bread of it even - see ://www.ingestandimbibe.com/Articles_p/rootbeer_p.html/ And if the testing ever shows toxicity to humans in the doses we use, that, of course, is different.

FDA, you are interested in the proper functioning of all the Cholesterols, Healthy Livers.

Here is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Unhinge from Pharma and profits. Unembed yourself. And sponsor government or other altruistic and well-funded group testing of the ordinary remedies in our back yards.

Offer sensible dosing and preparation information, while continuing to foster regular medical checkups. Sassafras: less toxins than in a beer beer.

Sassafras oil. MDMA, Safrole, As Nature's "Truth Serum"

2009-05-14T05:30:00.024-04:00

Sassafras Oil:
Use as "Truth Serum"

Ecstasy ingredient. MDMA. From safrole.

The Army considered it a possible truth serum,
tested effects on animals, lethal doses, in the 1950's;
then results of all test activity were classified until 1969, released as to effects in 1973

At issue: As a truth serum substance,
what did the Army find as to reliability,
what was it doing with it from the 1950's to 1969,
and why not use it instead of torture.

Use torture when you do not want truth, perhaps.
Use it when you want the answer you want, nothing less.
Like the Inquisition. Or fabricating other "connections" needed for political reasons.

And you will get it, often. Even if false.

For truth, why MDMA? It is the ultimate party, relax and share drug. A natural for disclosure.

Then there was FDA's sudden ban, in the 1960's,
based on anecdotal information, not reasonable testing.

All research had to stop on the "outside".

Was that for political and not scientific reasons?

Fast forward: Did Cheney and the other torture afficinados know of other,
more reliable ways of getting information than torture.
What was the decision-making process to choose.

Did they want "truth" or a "confession" to something untrue.

.

Is this MDMA technique what President Obama referred to when he said that we have other ways of getting at what people know, and we do not need torture. See something like it 4/29/09 at ://www.click2houston.com/politics/19319397/detail.html.

True if you seek truth. False if you are really setting up a story line and need the person to say what you want. Like witch hunts. The Malleus Maleficarum lives. See ://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/; ://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/. Yes, I am a witch. Stop. Stop! Like setting up case for war, see ://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/14/iraq.torture/

Whichever way that political issue goes, meanwhile, here we look at ways to get true information: sassafras derivative, benign; or torture, malignant. What are the factors.

Here is something the Army has known about for decades: MDMA. And we ask what did it do with it? Or the CIA. Which had what is unclear. Did they share? Explore further? Why not?

Interesting to us: there is a long-known capability of the ecstasy drug ingredient, MDMA. This is extracted from safrole or sassafras oil, and it lowers people's defenses, produces euphoria, a state of mind where the person just wants to share. Ecstasy. Would you believe? A way to force disclosures?

Use as a truth serum mechanism. There have been other forays into truth serums (sera? que sera?) see Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics at ://www.cognitiveliberty.org/8jcl/8JCL77.html/. But could the use of truth serums be in itself a kind of torture. See ://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/07/60II/main548221.shtml/ No easy answers. But the kind of drug used, and in what dose and with what effects, could make the difference.

Still, we have the current need of our military/ intelligence community to get reliable disclosures of information from captives. This assumes their instructions are to get truth, and not just words to fill in what is needed to make a story line, forced but false confessions to close the case. For truth, does the Army indeed use, or could they; and can they not substitute, sassafras/ecstasy as a productive alternative to torture. Torture is illegal, immoral and ineffective even in a time-bomb scenario (who has time to waterboard over a hundred times; and still the person may lie). Anything to stop the pain.

Yet is this use of ecstasy really off limits because it was banned by the FDA in the 1960's or so? Or was the ban helpful to the Army/ CIA in keeping its information to itself for decades. A ban for political and not scientific health reasons. Top Secret. If so, it failed. People know and knew what ecstasy produced. If the Army had it, why did they not use it - why go to torture instead? Just because torture is more satisfying to the Cheney-type mesomorphs in charge, preferring muscle? See Fear of Fog, Ectomorphs, Mesomorphs. Whose interest is served by the ban. Intelligence at work? Or lack of. All depends on the purpose for the torture: Truth, bad choice. Get what you want, good choice.
For instant overview, and the politics involved in the handling of MDMA and its speed-of-light ban, 3,4-methylenedioxmethamphetamine, see Substance Abuse, A Comprehensive Textbook, by Charles S. Grob and Russell L. Polond, at http://www.drugtext.org/library/research/mdma/archive/15/default.htm/ at 24 MDMA. FN 2

Sections here:

I. The bad effects of MDMA, at high doses (Army used lethal), problems of adulteration, misuse

II. Potential of MDMA as a "truth serum", everybody relax and togetherness abounds

III. What We Know About Testing So Far: Still learning.
.

a) MDMA as Army Experimental Agent 1475, or EA-1475, or ea1475

b) Testing and Consent Issues: Who was used, if anybody. Human testing? In the gap 20 years?

IV. Good Uses for MDMA - Therapies, No Need for Torture; Other.

V. Was the FDA ban for political, economic even military reasons, but not scientific as to the public's access with reasonable information, dosing

Footnotes. Substantive here. Read especially FN 2, the Grob and Polond text summary.

................................................................................

I. Bad health effects of using MDMA

The bad news comes before the good, so you can compare these kinds of effects of a drug to the bad effects of torture on someone.

MDMA was tested by the US Army in the 1950's, but only on animals, and the results were released in the 1970's (why the delay?) as to those high doses in animals. Declassification only in 1969, says this site, MDMA Drug Information, at Medic8 Drug Information, at ://www.medic8.com/medicines/MDMA.html/ These were "lethal dose" studies, see the Drug Information site. MDMA is also known as Mud, Molly or Madman. Good summary at that long site. Similar topics to our FN 2, the Golb and Polond text. A/k/a Adam for MDMA.

Adverse reactions: See also FN 2, Golb and Polond; and Medic8.

Here is a list from a Philip Wolfson, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs Vol.18/4 1986, his book Meeting at the Edge with Adam: A Man For All Seasons, (Adam is another name for MDMA). He is/was a psychotherapist who believed that using MDMA may open new possibilities for psychotherapy treatment, when used in conjunction with it.

See the quotation and discussion at E for Ecstasy by a Nicholas Saunders, appendices to 1993 book, at ://paranoia.lycaeum.org/mdma/e.for.ecstasy.append/ There, Wolfson is attributed with this list. How much of this is high-dose related?

"(1) Severe and potentially fatal reactions can occur unpredictably on occasions.
(2) Seizures are said to have occurred.
(3) MDMA may reduce resistance to infection.
(4) MDMA causes increase in blood pressure.
(5) A variety of short-term reactions may occur, sometimes persisting or recurring for several months, including anxiety and insomnia. A client's judgment can be interfered with by their heightened sense of excitement under MDMA.
(6) MDMA has no established safety record - the necessary experiments have not been made." (emphasis added)

The government does not list any of those reactions, however - and only shows official concern that there can be adulterants in the mix that can be harmful - otherwise, little reason to ban it except that people like it and "abuse it" - see that at US Dept of Justice, DEA, Drug Information, at //www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/mdma.html/

II. Potential of MDMA as a "Truth Serum" Type Technique

More from Wolfson at the Saunders book site at ://paranoia.lycaeum.org/mdma/e.for.ecstasy.append (yes, this is totem pole hearsay, but you are alerted so you yourself can go vet)
.

Totem Pole Hearsay: This, in the woods in Romania. Brancusi?

"He (Wolfson) says that MDMA is unique because:

"1. It offers a rapid and significant break with people's defence structures.
2. It can facilitate a shift from a state of self-hatred to one of love of self and others.
3. It encourages people to shift from isolation to contact and intimacy and from withholding
to giving.
4. When MDMA has given them a more positive attitude, people find it easier to make decisions."

III. What Have Know About the Testing-Non-Testing So Far

A. Ask the Army. They know.

What we know is from the Saunders site, Grob and Polond at FN 2, the Medic8 site, and others as shown here.

First, the Saunders site. Again we are using wonderful totem-pole hearsay. Do a "find" for that at ://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=ma&vol=appslip/17416&invol=1/. In short, totem pole hearsay is like the old Listerine commercial - he says that she says that he has halitosis.

The report is from a Rick Doblin, president, Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, in the US (the Saunders site is British). Doblin presented this as part of his dissertation at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, see ://www.maps.org/staff.html/.

"1. Report of US Army tests on MDMA, from Rick Doblin president of the Multi-disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in the U.S.

"In the 1950's, MDMA was one of the analogs of MDA that were given to animals by the U.S. army at the Edgwood Arsenal, which was then investigating drugs for use in chemical warfare. There is no evidence in the public domain to indicate that MDMA, which was code named EA-1475 (Experimental Agent 1475), was ever given to humans or was tried as a truth serum." (emphasis supplied)

Discussion:

Well, why not give it to humans or try it as a truth serum? It looks like the Army did. This was before the ban. Are you kidding us? That's what the Army does - force information from people. Why don't we believe that the Army just left it alone.

Here is Point A. There is Point B. Connect the dots.

If MDMA was not followed up, perhaps it was just too soft to satisfy military people. Use a nice gurney and a quiet room to get reliable information? No, we are the Army. We like blood. Screams. Punish, and personally, even if it is against self-interest. And takes 138 times to get something. Or more, or less.

Tentative conclusion:

Apparently we still have a tool available in MDMA, from sassafras; that remains largely untested, because either the Army will not do it out of honor; or they have done it and have found it extremely effective, so it must be kept Top Secret.

Yet, here it is on the internet. We see as ordinary people following dots that safrole/MDMA appears to have great potential in fostering reliable disclosures because that is what the substance does - from the old hospitality drink of Native Americans, see Sassafras and History, International and Historical Uses, to today - MDMA fosters trust, openness, togetherness, fuzzy feelings. It has been considered as a "truth serum" before. See ://www.psychonaut.com/index.php?option=com_jd-wiki&Itemid=&id=mdma/

That Psychonaut site notes that the Army in the 1950's MDMA was found "unsuitable" for the purpose, a truth serum. And never (they say) tested people. Just overdosed animals.

And the Army never released its results on the animals until 1973 - twenty years later. See the Medic8 site.

Declassification until 1969, and still not released for a further 4 years? Does this raise any questions, class? The sites at Psychonaut and Medic8 note the effect of the drug, to promote, in sum, "togetherness." Are we to believe that the Army only looked for lethal side effects possibly, and so they released those results only and very late in 1973? That they never tested out its truth-forcing? When that is their job?

B. Testing worries.

Who were the test subjects? If there were any during the 20 years between the "study" and the release of results, heh heh. Did the people know they were being tested. Was consent freely given, and in writing as required by the Geneva Convention, see ://academic.udayton.edu/health/05bioethics/01taylors.htm. What happened to them, the people tested, if any were. Military testing: see ://www.humanrights-geneva.info/US-A-long-and-disturbing-history,2972/
.

And are the side and after affects really more benign than in torture. If not, say so. Look at FN 2 and Medic8 for more on side effects. At this point, however, it looks like with proper dosing, bad side effects could well be avoided. We know what dosing gets used in these kinds of tests, we think. Geared to produce the worst.

What do various sites say, and, yes, they do speak: See the effects the drug produces, and the responses - horrors - it works, or just might.

MDMA.net:

"The heightened emotional responsiveness, lowering of defensive barriers, openness and sense of closeness to others induced by MDMA can promote an honesty of self-disclosure that might be manipulated for malign ends. Fortunately, this hasn't yet happened on an organised scale." ://www.mdma.net/

This quotation is from a site exploring the history and uses of MDMA. Note the boy scout reluctance to use it because it could be used "for malignant ends." Effectiveness as a truth serum: This is still open.

Army testing. Back to that. What is wrong here. See again the brief overview of the experiments at MDMA at ://www.mdma.net/. Short, but detailed: A helpful place for summary as well.

Everybody knows that the Army looked at it as a truth serum, but nobody knows what they saw. Just that suddenly, after the Army testing in the fifties, the bans came in the sixties and seventies. Look at FN 2 for the pressures on the scientists.
.
Meanwhile, shall we spike the UN punch? For a little togetherness?
.

IV. Why Has MDMA Been Ignored.
It seems to do what it says - people just love to open up with it

Maddow, Olbermann, all the talkies who do more than just churn opinions, you have high priced explorers on the roster. I am a little old lady in sneakers and putting stuff together that looks interesting. Join in.
.

So far, we are told that truth serums are not foolproof, and someone still can mislead a questioner when in the twilight, see Sassafras Tree, Natural Pragmatism, Truth Serum Idea. No more reliable than torture, say. And we know you may have to do that 138 times to get what you want, if you ever do, and by then the ticking bomb is boom. Was MDMA included in those overviews of drugs?

Back of old medicine cabinet. What is inside? Dare we look?

Have we really looked in the cupboard, to see what there is other than torture? Turn it around!

No. Nobody has tested MDMA for its use as a truth serum, on the public record that we see so far. Is the lack of research because the FDA has banned it? Then lift the ban, or narrow it. We can't touch that. Do we believe that would stop the Army.

All the ban does is stop research, and regular people from checking the scientific bases for the bans, and whether less restrictive alternatives are scientifically supported here. FN 1.

V. Good uses for MDMA, possibly.

Treatments. Benign recreation.
A matter of dose, like alcohol

And, of course, avoid Torture.

MDMA widely spread among psychotherapists in the 50's-60's ff. As ecstasy, it became known as a psychedelic hug drug - "Adam" for a shortcut name. FN 1. That was an era of using drugs in therapies, and much of that may well have been a fad and later debunked; but a spin-off for disclosure purposes surely can be explored.

See this google book (copy and paste the address, long as it is) Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin, The Science of Amphetamines, 2006, by Prof. Leslie Iversen, Ph.D., Dept. of Pharmacology, Oxford Univ., at Section 8.1, page 149-150 ff, Chemistry and history.

The site is a long URL - copy and paste at ://books.google.com/books?id=CkAaAZRLfOcC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=sassafras+tree+truth+serum&source=bl&ots=U1tVm1MsFj&sig=eRioOVlwhjv2tTs2rHSIAkmmvy4&hl=en&ei=xeMLSqaFLOKntgfw1OH0Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPA149,M1/.

That book is reviewed in 2006 at ://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125622.200/

If so, it is all the more damning that we did not choose to use it over torture.

Discussion:

As a culture, is this true: That we prefer research into, the process of, and application of torture, that is, punishment; to using something that might be pleasurable to get the job done, and done more reliably: MDMA. Is all that is pleasure, sinful? Are we still stuck in that?
.

Sin and Pleasure: The Contemplation

V. Ban for Cultural and Political Reasons, not Scientific

That is what it looks like, after all this time looking at the angles. MDMA is a safrole, or sassafras oil, extract long used and long-banned as a psychedelic, pleasurable. And look at the outcry against researching its good uses, and promoting torture instead by opposing investigating, challenging the use of torture. See FN 1 for the non-merits of the ban on safrole; and FN 2 for assessments of the grounding of the ban. Note that no rat, even though allergic in the sense of being in an allelopathic relationship with sassafras, got tumors when doses were used like those humans would, proportional. Don't let that idea out.

So, we don't and won't use this potential resource if we need to get information from people, as apparently we do need, if research were allowed to continue on it. The reason sassafras is not researched is 1) the ban, cultural rather than scientific, see FN 1; and 2) value judgments, that if it works, it might be used for malign ends.

If we aren't already malign in using torture, who is?

................................................................................

FN 1 History. Ecstasy spread to yuppies in the '80's. Intense rapturous delight! More! The DEA banned it, even from medical use, over objections of those who sought a less restrictive control, see the Iversen book at 151. But addiction and finding brain damage - how was that done. Again, it was in those rats who are allergic anyway - yet, it was enough to ban it all as to humans.

And that was so even though there were no tumors even in the rats at dosage levels like humans would use, proportional. Nonetheless, look what happened.

A judge ordered it to be available by prescription and for research, not banned; but the DEA put it on the full ban list anyway. Iversen at page 152. Where is the science, and where is the culture. Guess.

The ban, however, just curtailed the research - attitudes of the recreationally minded did not change. The controversy over the ban was free advertising.

Idea - The government will not foster unfixed testing (they use huge doses on rats already allergic to it, so no wonder the rats get tumored)

because sassafras grows in our back yards, and
we might make what we want ourselves, and then
what profit would the Manufacturers and the lobbyists and Pharma make.

Today, that argument gets bigger: This is a recession, so we can't have people doing for themselves and putting other people out of work. They need to buy. And the ultimate argument: ban it because sassafras is an ingredient in ecstasy, and we can't have that, either. A cultural reason.

Guard your pies, pickles, children's stories and vanilla, mmmmmm. And lawns.

The safrole extract needed for ecstasy is also in "nutmeg... dill, parsley seed, crocus (such a pretty yard. You say you are having a lawn party?), saffron, vanilla bean, and calamus." Also the above-ground woody part of another tree, the Ocotea pretiosa. See the Speed, Ecstasy, Ritalin book above.
.
For Ocotea pretiosa, see ://www.spiritgarden.co.uk/cart/index.pl/catid_5/proid_108/_/_/BrazilianSassafras/OcoteaPretiosa

Brer Rabbit?

He loves calamus. Calamus is in The List there, of substances with safrole. It was/is a common digestive with nice side effects. See it at mealtime at Uncle Remus Tales, Translations: Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy; and, same site, Calamus Root Side Note.

.......................................................................
FN 2. Grob and Polond textbook section on MDMA, looks like chapter 24 there.

Topics on MDMA include:

History,
Epidemiology,
Potential Treatment Applications, but before beneficial-purpose testing could be done, it was banned - on the most restrictive Schedule 1. Even smoking and drinking decreased while subjects in earlier studies were using ecstasy in controlled settings.

On to Adverse Clinical Effects, not seen in healthy, occasional, moderate users; but in excess - as with liguor, we suppose. Also there are issues of amateur "manufacture" and purity and quality of what is marketed. Like the stills of white lightning? Also issues of pre-exisiting medical vulnerabilities. Long section on the bad effects and on whom and when and why.

Then on to Neurotoxicity. No link necessarily. Lab animals show effects of serotonin change, but not lasting. Extending animal results to human has been inconclusive. Go read the whole thing. Too detailed for here.

Then the zinger in the field - political and economic agendas invading the scientific arena. There are pressures on the scientists to ally their findings with conventional "expectations."

Science vs. politics. When will science prevail. Obama? Your turn.

Sassafras Elixir Recipes. Tea - from history. Indian, Colonial, European, Virginia.

2009-03-28T08:39:00.007-04:00

First Aid, Cures and Enjoyment

Sassafras Recipes for One and All

From History

As we find them. Posts to continue.

I. Recipes from the old days

Note that if you would like a little sweetener with your sassafras, or to help the medicine go down, avoid high fructose corn syrup. It is marketed freely, despite enough findings of likely mercury to ban it, if the FDA were consistent. See ://www.celsias.com/article/hfcs/; see also ://www.highfructosecornsyrup.org/2009/02/sweetness-and-blight-why-is-fda.html/. Apparently it meets some standard of "natural" - see ://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/feb/04/is-mercury-lurking-in-high-fructose-corn-syrup/ - whereas safrole does not? But the FDA refuses to define "natural" - leading to the inconsistency. See ://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Natural-will-remain-undefined-says-FDA

.

Sassafras tea.*
...............................................................................................

* A layman's disclaimer Arguments against: see http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/PPI/UnconventionalTherapies/SassafrasTea.htm/ All hinges on whether that 1960's testing on rats (leading to the 1975 ban) who are themselves averse to sassafras and would never eat it, is valid as an indicator of cancer in people. Debaters, start your root beer. And note other sources that say the amount of carcinogen in sassafras is 1/14 of that in beer. See://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/Canada/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Sassafras.htm/ Why doesn't the FDA ban beer? Let's test the rats for beer the same way that sassafras was tested, except that is cruel. Idea is, see why we need testing to be consistent and reasonable? FN 1

.............................................................................................

Modern recipes: see ://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080608171520AAKjFKG/ = scroll down past the usual overview to someone's comment that describes uses in Virginia.

Use the root, not the leaves. The root has an outer bark on it, and you take that off and wash the root well. Get 3-4 roots that are 4-6 inches long. Chop in small pieces . Boil a gallon of water and drop in the pieces. Boil 15-20 minutes, or longer for stronger. Good also with honey.

For using the leaves: Boil water and pour over leaves and let steep for 20 minutes. Use 1 tsp dried leaves to 1 cup water. Strain out the leaves before drinking.

Here is somebody's video - for watching. Note everybody smelling the root every chance they get. Visit ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxp0Nm-1qOc

Sassafras country. Around the reservoir.Note that in the video (no sound available) the people use a simple potato peeler to peel off the dark outside of the root, and use roots about a middle finger in diameter.

Not as big as a thumb. They cut that into fingerlengths or less, and then pound them a bit with a meat tenderizer pounder until they are flatter and somewhat pulpy. Then they add the boiling water to make the tea. That makes sense. Speeds up the infusion if the root bits are softened down first. And they do keep smelling it all the time. Have to get some.

This sassafras tea recipe uses a grater as well as a vegetable peeler, and explains about layers of the bark on the roots. Use spring roots, scrub and peel the outside darkest part, and use the under color. Leaves are best picked in August, it says, and the file loses flavor over time, so keep going back to grind new ones for your gumbo. When does fostering hospitality become a party. A natural party. Also an issue for alcohol. All in the dose, like anything else. See ://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/sassafrass

Sassafras has been used for healing many diseases. Here, Spanish soldiers had become sick, and a French survivor of a Spanish attack on French Huguenots told of this Indian cure:

Dig up sassafras root. Cut it in small pieces. Put as much as needed into water. Leave the root in the water until it takes on a good color. The patient then drinks it at breakfast and supper, without regard to quantity.

This, from the Indians, noted in "A Role for Sassafras in the Search for the Lost Colony," by Philip F. McMullan, Jr.at ://www.lost-colony.com/Philpaper.pdf/ Lost Colony at 21. The Lost Colony treatise refers to another treatis, from 1574, by a Spanish Doctor Nicolas Monardes, on the uses of sassafras "Joyfull newes out of the new founde worlde." The Joyfull Newes was published in London in 1596. We are trying to find it. We are looking for the translation by John Frampton, who was an English merchant who spent much time in Spain. This Monardes information is at page 31 of Lost Colony.

II. A Look to the Past

Get the flavor of the early uses in these fair use quotes, from Voyages of the English nation to America, Richard Hakluyt (very early, but what year? see://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924024759395/cu31924024759395_djvu.txt

moreouer, they told vs, 

that the vertue of that tree was, to heale any other disease : the 

tree is in their language called Ameda or Hanneda, this is 

thought to be the Sassafras tree. Our Captaine presently caused 

some of that drink to be made for his men to drink of it, but 

there was none durst tast of it, except one or two, who 

ventured the drinking of it, only to tast and proue it : the other 

seeing that did the like, and presently recouered their health 

and were deliuered of that sickenes, and what other disease 

soeuer, in such sorte, that there were some had bene diseased 

and troubled with the French Pockes foure or fiue 

remedy yeres, and with this drinke were cleane healed. 

.igainst the After this medicine was found and proued to be true 

French Pocks *

We cannot find how to designate this page, so do a "find" for sassafras at that full text site, and it appears at about the first 25% spot on the sliding scroll har to the right of the text page.

We found the full text of another treatise, Plants and Plant Science in Latin America, at http://www.archive.org/stream/plantsandplantsc033403mbp/plantsandplantsc033403mbp_djvu.txt/ Do a "fiind" for sassafras, and each instance of it will be highlighted in the text. Find distilling the essential oil,

a Frenche man that had bene 
in those partes shewed me a pece of yt, and tolde me marvells 
of the vertues thereof, and howe many and variable diseases 
were healed with the water which was made of it, and I judged 
that, which nowe I doe finde to be true and have seene by 
experience. He tolde me that the Frenchemen which had bene 
in the Florida, at the time when they came into those partes had 
bene sicke the moste of them of grevous and variable diseases, 
and that the Indians did shewe them this tree, and the manner 
howe they shoulde vse yt, &c ; so they did, and were healed of 
many evillsj which surely bringeth admiration that one onely 
remedy shoulde worke so variable and marvelous effectes. The 
name of this tree, as the Indyans terme yt, is called Pauame, 
and the Frenchemen called it Sassafras. To be brefe, the 
Doctor Monardus bestoweth eleven leaves in describinge the 
sovereinties and excellent properties thereof.

That looks like the circumstance of the use of the tea, above. People also ate for days nothing but a porridge of sassafras leaves.

much as in foure dayes wee had done against the same : 
we lodged vpon an Hand, where wee had nothing in the world to 
eate but pottage of Sassafras leaues, the like whereof for a meate 
was neuer used before as I thinke

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III. Sassafras for health and well-being:

For us, it takes a society to give any credence to benefiting people other than through drugs manufactured and bottled. One with some success in this area is the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, James. S. Gordon, M.D. The Center collects, researches, gets the word out about choices, by Organizing It. Letter to editor, NYT 5/26/2009 page D4. See ://www.cmbm.org/

Have to see if that group has researched sassafras.

At one time, the sassafras was considered the miracle tree. All we need is dosing and preparation information. And Stimulus Payments for a new industry backed by sound research on reasonable dosing and preparation. Does a form of simple universal health care consist in a Sassafras in Every Yard?

Sassafras is indigenous to North America, and introduced to Europe by early explorers, in about 1584. The story of the earlly colonies and explorers, especially as they found sassafras uses of the Indians, and tried to track the fate of a lost colony in Virginia, is at the Lost Colony site, above. It describes the saga of a "lost" Virginia colony, that had disappeared - all 116 souls - by the time help returned from England.

Enjoy the full histories and description - especially of the fragrance of the sassafras when the Indians engaged in the annual burn-back of the lower growths in the forests. Wafted with a sweet arome even out to the ships. Sassafras, like anything else, can be abused by excessive use, see page 22.

The explorers found them "effective and safe" when not in excess. even healing scurvy and other mariners; ailments from long shipboarding. So again we are not at a ban of sassafras, but dosing information and preparation, as with anything else. Do you chew seventeen teabags in an hour for six hours? Probably not. If you did, and long enough, probably you too would get a tumor somewhere.

IV. SLOAN-KETTERING. Let's get it straight from the horse's mouth.

Are you detached enough from Pharma to fund testing of sassafras without using rats? Or other allelopathic animals, if indeed you have to use animals at all.

The Horse's Mouth

We ask because we think that venerable Sloan-Kettering surely would support finding out if the test animals are in an allelopathic relationship to the substance being tested, before drawing conclusions of those poor critters get tumors. See ://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11790.cfm?Disclaimer_Redirect=%2Fmskcc%2Fhtml%2F69363.cfm/

We find nothing on questioning which animals are used for what substances. Surely there is someone out there who delved into why we use rodents for plant and drug testing without first finding out for sure if that substance is part of their normal diet. The idea of extrapolating as we do makes anybody sick.

And while you are at it, SK, please test beer against sassafras tea. Thanks. Start with the good Dr. Duke at ://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/Canada/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Sassafras.htm/
...............................................................................
FN 1 Dr. Duke has ideas. Ask Sloan Kettering to check it out.

Beer More Carcinogenic Than Sassafras Tea?

Sassafras and the American Slave Tradition. Our Own History

2009-03-21T21:13:00.001-04:00

The Wisdom of the Folk Remedy

Not To Be Disregarded.

What trace elements in the natural cure or use

cannot be replicated in the laboratory substitute, if any

Folk remedies. FN 1

Oven in the woods.How t retrieve the past

.
Use and pass on the lore, because the materials are at hand, no extra cost, and there are enough experience, anecdotes, recipes, to make it reasonably safe. There is no alternative where there is no money. Who to trust? The healer, the old ways.

Hear Slave Narratives at The Gutenberg Project, at ://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/1/4/2/11422/11422.htm. Do a "find" for sassafras, and see this: Charlie Vaden, then age 72, lived in Green Grove, Arkansas, and was interviewed as part of the project about slave and black lore. Scroll up to the beginning of the entries related to him. Farmer. He remembers uses for garlic as a poultice for neuralgia, and this: "Sassafras is a good tea, a good blood purifier in the spring of the year." At another entry, from A Folk History of Slavery, after a whipping, slaves used sassafras as medicine. See http://www.fullbooks.com/Slave-Narratives-A-Folk-History-of-Slaveryx14332.html: "We used snake root, hohound weed, life everlastin' weed, horse mint an' sassafras as medicine."

Gumbo file and slave cooking - see Slavery in America at ://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history /hs_es_cuisine.htm/. A stew of vegetables, crawfish, chicken, pork. "The stew is thickened with powder from sassafras leaves." Find that section by a "find" for sassafras. The term gumbo comes from African roots, :kngombo, or ochingombo.

During the Civil War, the blockades of the southern ports, people (not just slaves) "brewed a decoction of blackberry leaves and sassafras roots to take the place of tea." See Slavery: Islamic and Christian Perspectives, a bit of lore in an overall site looking with a new eye at our interpretations of ourselves, at ://www.al-islam.org/slavery/12.htm/

A search for "slavery" and "sassafras" turns up uses for sassafras in dyes, and liquor.

Then there is Daddy Jack, from the Uncle Remus tradition, there bundling sassafras roots when the little boy comes to find Uncle Remus. See the Gutenberg Project at ://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26429 / Do the "find" for sassafras to get to it. A normal part of everyday life. Sassafras.

Now maligned and its possibilities cut off.

...............................................
FN 1 Do a search for Pharma and natural remedies and see all the sites where there is no testing result available because noone will or can pay for the testing where there is no profit to the substance in marketing.

Still, the history of sassafras and other herbs leads to the conclusion that keys are there. Not miracles, but perhaps keys to why they worked so long for so many. The well-to-do may well continue with their modern pills, but also let the poor as well as others who prefer the natural to the pill, have the information needed to use those substances safely.

Dese Doses Do Good. Dose Doses Do Bad. So, Inform About Da Dose. A family Bronx slant for Sassafras.

2009-03-21T07:08:00.016-04:00

Have You Ever Seen a Foodstuff
A Foodstuff, A Foodstuff.

Have you ever seen a foodstuff
That couldn't make you sick.

Take this dose and that dose,
Take this dose and that dose.

Have you ever seen a foodstuff
That couldn't make you sick.

Sassafras, fall color for some

If the topic of reviews on the initial 1970's -1970's sassafras testing on rodents is new to you, see the overview, and the results, at ://www.planetherbs.com/theory/notes-on-herb-drug-and-herb-herb-contraindications.html/.

It explains why we want a recount.If safrole oil is the problem, safrole is also in mace, nutmeg, basil, black pepper, rosemary, dill, black tea, dang gui, tamarind, cinnamon, witch hazel, and Asian wild ginger, see this list at Planet Herbs. And a cup of sassafras tea is 1/14 (one-fourteenth) as carcinogenic as a cup of beer. Also Planet Herbs. Good reason to re-look.

History tells of many uses of sassafras parts (leaf, root, bark) and in various doses and preparations. Use this part for that remedy, that part for that other one. Safrole, the oil from the bark, seems to be the main issue for claims of carcinogenic qualities, but that came from rat testing, and it appears that rats are naturally averse to safrole. Is that a reasonable test to apply to humans? FN 1

And can the safrole issue, if there really is one, be approached with dosing information - as we do with alcohol and cigarettes. If there is that connection, and it is only claimed - nothing like the cause and effect we already have with the booze and tobacco.

The historic uses include, as summary:

healing,
hospitality (a nice relaxer, think happy thoughts) - take too much and maybe you hallucinate, or use it toward that end with something else.
flavoring,
aromas,
digestion issues, flatulence
an emetic - take too much and you get vomiting
even for family planning - take too much at the wrong time, and you may not have wanted that result. An abortifacient. Or maybe you did. What did Great-Granny do? Or even Eve - she had those first two, then waited until they were grown before having her third. How did she do that? See other essential oils that are characterized as abortifacients at ://www.essentialoils.co.za/abortifacient-oils.htm/ A matter of degree, and the objective.

No, stay away, says drugs.com. Sassafras produces vomiting, hallucinations, etc. ://www.drugs.com/npp/sassafras.html. Obviously the total ban desription at that site is false, because we use file in cooking, and file gumbo, ground sassafras, is delicious as a thickening agent. Dose control.

Why not just inform and warn about what does is needed for what purpose. Improper dosing of anything makes you sick. Alcohol, cigarettes, sugar.

Here is why, so far, we think

Sassafras grows all over. It is too accessible, too cheap, no profit to industry. So is it really industry pressure to preserve its own profits, combined with cultural issues (the family planning, the relaxer-nice thoughts part) that drive the FDA?

Nobody likes to admit an error. So say there is new information, and then you don't have to. Can we move beyond that and just review the testing done here, the test animals and their relationship to the substance.

Then, if other species are used, with reasonable doses (again, anything will make anybody sick if taken in unreasonable quentities), then the issue becomes this:

Sassafras Police - Watching Your Woods

Does warning and information about dosing suffice. Why a total ban? Have we no heads? If quantity is a problem in case someone wants to make another substance out of it, put it behnd the counter, like Sudafed. Big deal.

Avoid the sloppy generalizing. Separate out the uses of leaves from uses of root and bark.

......................................................

FN 1. Monitor the FDA testing.

If it is true, as other posts offered here with specific site references suggest,

that rodents were used in the testing; and
that huge and constant ingestion of the substance was forced on the rodents with the predictable result of sickness and death; and, in addition,
that rodents (including rats, mice, beavers) have a naturally allelopathic relationship to sassafras - the plant makes them sick as a defensive mechanism of the plant itself against being eaten, as for beaver dams, for example); and
that the testing method was influenced by industry who sought broader use of patentable and profitable lab substances, not the everywhere sassafras, and
that the FDA assumes (there is legislation creating that assumption, of sorts) that any carcinogenic property as to rodents, even in that allelopathic relationship to the plant being tested, means danger to humans; and
that the FDA then fully bans the substance, while permitting similarly health-endangering substances such as alcohol and cigarettes to be marketed with usual warnings as to dosage and ordinary use at table ir in bottle continuing uninterrupted; and
nobody tests the testing done in the first place; and
our root beer tastes bad; then

On what ground is the drug industry site so positive about its statements about safrole as carcinogenic, dangerous.

We want that recount. Maybe the FDA is right; the ill effect is repeated in test animals that are not rodents. We prefer no animal testing, but if that is what we have, at least steer clear of the rodents with sassafras. . And maybe the safrole hype is hype.

Sassafras and Guantanamo; Retest Safrole and Apply, If Applicable

2009-03-20T17:13:00.002-04:00

Sassafras. The hospitality tea.

The feel-good root-beer component, just from the bark of the sassafras tree, not an additive, not a "drug," part of a food. And available all over America at one time, and even now.

Consider its ancient hospitality use: Native Americans, others, see the history of the uses of sassafras, at this site. Yet, even a site that says it explains "dangers" never finds any, all is hearsay, there has been no testing as is done when Pharma is seeking a patent (can't patent the sassafras). So what is the problem?

You read it. The title has no bearing on the content, at Lifescript.com - ://www.lifescript.com/Health/Alternative-Therapies/Herbs/The_Dangers_Of_Sassafras.aspx?trans=1&du=1&gclid=COrd7-O0spkCFQu-GgodUz6y7w&ef_id=1350:3:c_6077ee56874670969761bdf470921909_2540435225:TIGaiEo-KR4AAB-JJuMAAAAS:20090320210705/

Sassafras, waiting for the sunrise? Sketch, gift to us, by Hermann Dahl, now deceased, can find no trace of family

The site otherwise gives a good history of its traditional uses. Are these folks on Pharma's payroll?

Cultural use: facilitation.

Invite the stranger in your home, offer hearth and food, and the last thing you need is someone getting up in the night and beating everyone to death and making off with your possessions. The colonials - here is a brew that makes you feel good. It may not cure, but you feel better. Sassafras tea. In great demand.

Now: We have at Guantanamo a number of people who hate us, as anyone with an ideological difference and experience of torture would.

If safrole is not really carcinogenic to people - that is the important point.

Sassafras Remedies - A Pharmacology List

2009-03-20T16:44:00.005-04:00

Step Right Up

We do need serious testing on this plant, leaves, roots, bark, all used in different ways historically.

Does someone know if the FDA has withdrawn its concern for safrole? Here is a site that touts its uses with no mention of anything carcinogenic - for rats or anything else - and that is a surprise.

Visit ://dotcrawler.com/natural-herbs.html. Find uses such as for:

stimulant
diaphoretic (?)
alterative (?)
add "qualacum of sarsaparilla" and treat your rheumatism
distill the bark for soaps and a yellow dye (so no ingesting)
the young shoots are used for beer (these would be the ones that the rats are allelopathic toward, so the plant defends itself?)
the "pith variety" has mucilant in it and is used as an emulcent
catarrhal infection
syphilis
pain of periods
dental disinfectant

There.

Now: On to testosterone. Reports that the roots contain testosterone are mixed: see ://www.planbecovillage.org/native-plants.php/ Scroll down. They describe the way the plant spreads - those underground runners - as 'suckering'.

Sassafras: single leaf node form at the upper story level

Add uses:

mosquito repellent (great now that we seem to lost our bats).
Use the shoots to make a drink, and add yeast for carbonation - root beer (we knew that one)
add some sassafras to your moonshine.
antidiarrheal
measles
chew the roots for bad breath
poultice for wounds
eyewash for sore eyes

Sassafras. A sight for sore eyes?

And finally, sassafras for family planning. See ://www.drugs.com/npp/sassafras.html. Is that the real reason, a cultural one, for treating sassafras differently from other matters where we are merely warned and informed? Impatience with abortifacience? Abortifacient. Do you dare say it. Might reasonable, intelligent, moral people want information? Who decides?

Sassafras - International, Historical Uses; Industry Opportunity

2007-04-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

Safrole is also consumed in China, Chinese Sassafras

Sassafras has a revered place in many cultures.

Hospitality: In 1884, Ellen Emerson of Boston published a work of myths of "aborigines" (the term as used), from Hindustan, America, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and China.* See the role of sassafras for hospitality world-wide. See also ://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/3base/safrole.plants/fafopo/sassafras_oil.html

Long history: from the Cretacean Period

Good uses: It once was seen as Plague cure: see "The Tree With Red Mittens," in the Missouri Conservationist at mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2000/02/50. See how it was used in early Virginia at nps.gov/archive/fora/hariotpart3. It is a tonic, a pick-me-up, an essential for tasty root beer, sarsaparilla, tea and more. See henriettesherbal.com/archives/best/1996/sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla from sassafras

Native Americans and Westerns thrived on it. Its age gives it a venerable place in evolution. See Joseph McCabe, 1910-1920, at arthurwendover.com/arthurs/science/evolution.

Other effects useful to some, deplored by others: Safrole has been known to cause abortion. With appropriate dosage, can it be a natural birth control method, and private? As with any ingestible, its effect depends on dosage. See thedance.com/herbs/sassafras. Safrole is used as an abortifacient for heifers, so its capacity in that function is no news here.

And yet: Safrole is banned, with all its good uses,
While other substances such as aspartame are not,
Even though a more direct impact on disease or ill effect seems clear.
Is ban then required, or could we simply limit the use?
Is it worse than, example, aspartame?
Aspartame reviews.

There are studies against safrole's use: as here,
Sassafras Carcinogen factors, at fax.libs.uga.edu/E98xR3xE5x1884/1f/indian_myths.txt at p. 141; and beta.blogger.com/bs.uga.edu/E98xR3xE5x1884/1f/indian_myths at p. 565.

For more on sassafras used for hospitality and rural cures, and edibles, see recipes for candy, jelly, tea. Here are recipes for sassafras tea, mead, "quarreling," and candy: www.southernhumorists.com/sassafras. A good chew will improve your breath. Yes, yours, says Wildman Steve at econetwork.net/%7Ewildmansteve/Plants.Folder/Sassafras.

A promoter of file gumbo, describes it in: generalhorticulture.tamu.edu/prof/Recipes/File-Sassafras/file.
..................................................................................
* Photo, see China Road Ways

Sassafras in Georgia - Moravians and Clipper Ships

2007-04-12T08:28:00.006-04:00

Sassafras from Georgia
to Europe in The Great Clipper Ships.

Transporting Sassafras to Make People's Fortunes

The Moravians in Georgia depended on sassafras for health. They made a beer from it, to their great benefit. Where they could not drink the water, or where legs and feet became swollen, the brew was the thing. See the historic account at ://www.fullbooks.com/The-Moravians-in-Georgia-1735-1740-by2.html/ "Palatable and healthful." Is that our root beer, or the old, good kind? Here is a preliminary draft paper on uses of plants from the new world, including sassafras, not sure of the subsequent status of the research - see ://wfr.eduhistory/Events/Moravians/papers/wilsonconferencedraft.doc/

Early missionaries arrived and promptly arranged for trade in sassafras, see Our Todays and Yesterdays, at ://www.glynngen.com/mdc/oty/page1.htm/ , at text page 8 - scroll down. The trade in sassafras was also important for the Spaniards arriving - they also believed in its great medicinal value and gathered the root for tea-making. Perhaps the tea's benefits derived from boiling the water, but vast quantities of the roots were sent to Spain for use - sounds like there is more to it than boiling water. See the glynngen site.

The Indians called what is now Cumberland Island, Georgia, "Missoe" meaning sassafras. The Spanish named it San Pedro. After the English took over the Spanish control of the island in 1686 or so, the English took back to England several prominant Indians for show. An Englishman, Cumberland, gave one of the elder Indians a gold watch. The Indian asked, upon return, if the island could be renamed for the Englishman who gave him the gold watch - ergo, Cumberland. See page 59 of the glynngen site.

Dr. Samuel Nunez, who escaped with his family from the Inquisition in Lisbon, settled among the English in Georgia, and lists sassafras among the remedies he used to purify the blood. See Harvard Medical Alumni article from 1961 by a Dr. Weinstein, at ://underthemagnoliatree.net/Samuel_Nunez.html/.

On we go. How can we devalue sassafras so? The island of St. Simons also is known for its sassafras, among a wide variety of trees there. Page 114, below the 1806 entries, glynngen.

Once established, the sassafras spreads by its underground runners. Cut it down, use it up, and it grows right back again. It can grow so densely that strong measures are required in rebuttal. Difficult to cultivate intentionally. Runners in all directions from the big trees' roots. Then shoot up everywhere, each seeking sun. Turn your head away for one season, and watch out. Mow it back. Go, Don.

Transplanting is difficult. Like people, we do better with connectors.

Sassafras then protects its turf. It puts off chemicals that discourage other plants from competing in its range. No others allowed in its shadow. Like us, keep out the competition.

This allelopathy- the built-in rejector - is a highly developed defense as to those who would eat it. The allelopathic chemicals keep the rodent-beavers from eating the whole tree. They will only eat the twigs, leaving the tree free to produce for another year. Look up other allelopathic defenses - using chemicals to repel. All part of nature. See davesgarden.com/terms/go for more species that do this, and a good definition. As to beavers, their dams go up, the trees live for another season, beavers and dams happy.

Fast forward to the FDA: ignoring allelopathy, and usinge rodents as a baseline for whether people would get cancer from sassafras, when rodents are naturally averse? On that basis, take away all safrole.

File is ok - so go make your own.
See home-made file gumbo powder at www.nolacuisine.com/2005/08/16/file-powder.

Was a relative of the sassafras found in Tutankhamen's tomb? Looking for that reference.We see that essential oils were found in trace, but that sassafras seems to be native to the Americas. Safrole is an essential oil, used in fragrances, but not for Tut.

Tutankhamen, Roadside Pub Teaser, Poland

Drive past this Tut for a mile or so and find the second one, with the sign to the pub.

..............................................

Interest broadening now to nettles:

Nettle tea is good,

Read about nettle tea and other herbal remedies
At forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/herbal/msg0815470719656.html?18.

Restoring hair loss? If it does that cure,

Does that make steepy nettle tea a drug
So that the FDA can ban it, too,
Big Merck Attack.

If you also want your rootbeer back, see www.assateague.com/sass. --Sassafras leaves, uses.

What Did Sassafras Do To Deserve the Ban

2007-04-11T11:27:00.003-04:00

What Did Sassafras Do to Deserve the Ban

Less Carcinogenic,
Or at least,
No More Than
Your Common Kitchen Herbs and Spices

And less carcinogenic than beer beer.

Bans: Why do some substances simply get placed behind the counter, like sudafed, while others, like sassafras, get banned entirely? www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070320191048.

Sassafras is not unique.

Food substances do have high-dose problems.
Safrole, even the darling of pumpkin pie and eggnot, nutmeg.
See www.erowid.org/plants/nutmeg/nutmeg_info3 for plant doses.

But people have been sensible and benefiting anyway for years from access to plant materials.

Sassafras remedies may show promise - see www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/104

........................................................
Summary of the ban:
Safrole in sassafras was banned (the 60's),
See www.roundrockjournal.com for a photo and rootbeer blog.
The FDA labeling this food
As an "additive" instead of a food,
So it could regulate it through the back door.
Get it both ways -
Label it as a "drug" if it claims cures,
Because supposedly only a drug can claim a cure;
And so it could regulate even more.
Next thing: chicken soup a drug.

Find a label back again - the Label Wars.
Highly selective, lobby-sycophants.
For sycophant, see dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/01/04.

Squelch info so corps can continue making cash
On their concocted -raising prescriptions, if any?
.....................................................................................
* Counter argument: See some notes on the contraindications of herbs at www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley%20contraindications."Within Sassafras there is a chemical called safrole. Safrole is a very common plant chemical, found in Mace, Nutmeg, basil, black pepper, Rosemary, Dill, Black tea, Dang Gui, Tamarind, Cinnamon, witch hazel, Asian wild ginger, and many other plants.

"Someone did a study demonstrating that this substance was carcinogenic in rats. Dr. James Duke reports that even if this same carcinogenicity were applicable to humans, a cup of sassafras tea would be 1/14 as carcinogenic as a cup of beer."

One Person's Morality? Another's Choice. Choose Safrole? Beats Pork Fat.

2007-04-09T12:50:00.002-04:00

Who labeled sassafras worse than pork fat?

Eat your pork fat and have a good time. But don't touch the root beer.

The cultural choices we make.

Pork fat rules. We hear.

But an educated dose of safrole is out. Who says? What were the real reasons for banning safrole from our root beer, our hospitality teas.

"WARNING
Use of sassafras oil has caused abortion in pregnant women Research in the 1960's showed that safrole, a principal constituent of oil of sassafras, caused liver cancer in mice, and the US Food and Drug Administration outlawed the sale of flavorings (including oil of sassafras) containing it. Today's rootbeer is made with synthetic flavorings or oil of sassafras from which the safrole has been removed. Apparently filè powder does not contain enough safrole to be dangerous, and it is available commercially."

Maybe that knowledge must be kept under wraps.
Why? If it has been used so in history,
Provide information on the brew
So people need not rely on others to act.
A backyard solution for those who seek?
Their business then. Why not now?

Rationale: Maybe an overdose will cause illness.
It made rats sick.
But of course. Rats are averse to it - naturally.
Correlate with people?

Even where overdose is harmful,
Why ban? Why not provide information on the brew?
A plant misunderstood -
Its safrole, sassafras oil, banned by the FDA
But based on 20-day testing on rats.
Please tell the FDA
So it will tailor its testing methods
To the needs and inclinations of the testees.
That rules in everything else, so also here.
Just free the poor rats from sassafras.
They will sicken from sassafras every time.*

Granted, it is a plant with a downside if abused.
Like tobacco, or cough medicines.
It can be more than a pick-me up:
See www.chow.com/stories/10129; "Your Sassafras Has Been Neutered."
Is not the conclusion to regulate it, not ban.

It does take regulation;
Here is how to keep its stands of new shoots at bay:
Head right in and mow once in a while.
Go, Don.
Because the sassafras, like all of us, gets wild.
Huge overdose brings harm, expectedly.

Just set proper dosage and use labels for people,
And release the ban.
If cigarettes are sold with warnings, **
Why not lowly sassafras in root beer, too?
See www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley for Notes on Herb Contraindications.

To lift the ban, we need to conform here:
Need lobbyists for sassafras.

Need to promise career enhancements to them,
And look the other way when the FDA people own stock
In the enterprises they regulate, like Pharma,
If the FDA will just lift the ban.
That's how it is done.

Sad part.
Because there is a ban,
And government agencies must be acting
In the public interest, ha (see Sassafras Tree).

And that cup of sassafras is 1/14 as carcinogenic
As cup of beer. The Duke study. Dr. James Duke.

People will believe the ban is justified
Just because it is out there,
And not ask for backup information.
See www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2000/02/50. for The Tree With Red Mittens.
The two-lobed leaves in fall look just like that.

Accommodating. Sassafras. Promethean. Shape-Changer. The Gift; The Leaf Fits the Need.

2007-02-15T12:32:00.002-05:00

The Gift of Danger and Life-Giving.

The Shape-Changer.

Sassafras -

What Moral for Authority

1. Promethean.

Prometheus, punished in the ancient world by the gods for giving fire to mankind.

See ://www.gradesaver.com/mythology/study-guide/section3/.

Then, find Raven, in the tales of the Indians, in the North American northwest.

He stole a ball of fire, a bright ball,

From the Sky Chief

And gave it to Humanity.

See ://www.adherents.com/lit/Na/Na_417.html.

2. The Shape-Changer.

Among the Celts, see Fintan, the Salmon of Wisdom, Celtic Mythology://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/browse/D3.HTM/ He flew above Noah's Ark, changed himself into a hawk to fly above the waters, then into a fish to swim in them. He ate the gods magic hazelnuts, got their wisdom, but was himself caught and eaten, and his eater got all the knowledge. Go, Finn MacCool, who then became a seer.

More Shape-changer. Do a "find" for shape-changer,

And scroll down to Salish.

So, Edgar Allen Poe's Raven is like a "Salish Prometheus."

Prometheus - another part of the globe.

3. The Sassafras

Also a gift, also dangerous is misused.
Multiple lobes on leaves at the lower stories fade away

To become one boring single-shape, no lobes, at the top.

It is the need to maximize light exposure below

That leads to the creativity.

Those who already have it, at the top, relax, and become (yawn) borrring.

Sassafras: Leaves, lobes. Understory.
.
This site is dedicated to the Sassafras. Sunseeker.
Shape-changer.
To find it, look for one set of leaf groupings below, in the understory.

Then look around for the big trees - another, a single type of leaf, forming the canopy, above.
The lower shrubby, thickety parts

Grow leaves in three shapes, all on the same twig - One lobe, two lobe (like a mitten),

And three-lobe, all kind of irregular.

Each geared to maximize exposure to light,

Or the ability to fit in a small space, whatever is needed.

Those that make it, become the big trees.

The canopy.
And the big trees at the canopy level revert to boring.
The canopy sports but one kind of leaf.

A single lobe, up there.

The irony is that the conformist leaf dominates --

The plant reverts to singlemindedness

When the more creative work of survival is done below.

And it is the least intereseting - no lobes at all.

The single dull leaf. Like people?

After time, sure.

The next generation is far less interesting

Than the one that made it to the top originally.
See the push from the top to conform-

Tries to make everyone alike in obedience to the needs of the canopy.

Intolerant of the diverse upstarts who keep pressing upwards.

Then the diverse upstarts, once they establish themselves in the canopy,

Themselves revert to what the big trees do when they get there:

Conform, in their own interest.

The under 30's become AARP.

The common colors of the country club vs. the dazzle of the streets.

Home on the Sassafras Range, North America,

2007-01-30T11:30:00.003-05:00

Sassafras

Its Whereabouts

Do we appreciate the bounty. The place of sassafras in households.
/

Read in Uncle Remus: "When the little boy next visited Uncle Remus, the old man was engaged in the somewhat tedious operation of making shoe pegs. Daddy Jack was assorting a bundle of sassafras roots...."

See Chapter XXXI, "Nights With Uncle Remus," at ://www.archive.org/stream/nightswithuncler00harr/nightswithuncler00harr_djvu.txt/

I. MARYLAND AND DELAWARE. You can find sassafras in Maryland and Delaware - Kent County, Sassafras River, Chesapeake Bay area. Go to this site for the Chesapeake Bay area, Sassafras River: kentcounty.com/paddling/sassafras. There is a lovely photo there.

The Sassafras River begins in Delaware (we used to live in Middletown, DE, not far) and is the boundary between Delaware and Maryland on the Eastern Shore. See sassafrasriver.org for details on the Sassafras River as boundary. Stand up, Delaware. Why do they say the Sassafras is in Maryland when it is the boundary with Delaware? Or is it not the boundary?

Here is the recreation:

Sea-kayaking on the Sassafras. See seakayak.ws/kayak/kayak.nsf/NavigationList/NT00001D72. For any of these sites, use the home page first, then the rest only as needed to be sure you are at the intended place.

Fine fishing. See bigfishtackle.com/articles/fishing/freshwater/steve_vonbrandt_007.

Yachting. See sasryc.org/home/index. Marinas, marinas. The yacht club flag at that site shows the outline-silhouette of the river.

VIP's peopled the sassafras area. The Cecil County, Maryland, website says that John Smith was there. See Cecil County and John Smith at cecil.org/about/history. The Toghwagh Indians lived beside the Sassafras and were there first. Parts of it were sites for the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, railroading, steamboating and other transportation history. William Paca was from there, and he signed the Declaration of Independence.

George Washington ordered army-related requisitions and troop movements around the Sassafras as well. See memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw [continue with these if you need to :@field%28DOCID+@lit%28dg007451%29%29]. There was a Sassafras Town according to the 1790 census. See mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/refserv/bulldog/ [go on with these if needed bull03/bull17-03/html/bull17-03] Scroll down to the designation of "S" on a map, and see its full name as provided.

George? Last seen spinning in his grave at the denigration of the sassafras by the Fool and Dither Administration banning safrole in the 1960's (see Sassafras Tree, while owning stock in what they permit, and going just as fast as their little feet will take them to jobs there after the FDA. Oh, George. Oh, George.
........................................................................................................................................

MISSOURI
There is a children's book set at Sassafras Springs, Missouri, tha tlays out a great project for anyone, anywhere. In seven days, find Seven Wonders in your own home town. This was the task set for Eben, and if he did it, he could go visit relatives in Colorado. Look up "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs."

We may start on that right here in Avon, Connecticut. The wonders would be the stories of all the varied people in my own neighborhood, and how they got here. We may be one of the most culturally integrated sections of town.
..........................................................................................................................................
GEORGIA AND THE MORAVIANS

Immigrants found valuable uses for sassafras. See worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/northamerican/TheMoraviansinGeorgia/chap3. for the story of people from this area of Poland who immigrated to Georgia. There are other references to a strong beer and the uses of it, but the term "sassafras" is not stated at those. Just click on "edit;" and "find on this page;" and type in "beer" at the bottom and see what comes up.

Gads - the Moravians are spinning also. Look out, FDA, who banned sassafras' safrole in the 1960's (the point emerging is that regulation on dose is appropriate, not ban). Here is a picture of sassafras leaves, with their own thumbs up, in case the FDA misses the point. See forums.arborday.org/forum/viewtopic. Then, if that does not do it, go on to php?t=2011&sid=5fd5d10fb825eba343dbf2116539d499 if you need to, to find sassafras and the thumbs up.

The Moravians are a protestant faith and here is their website: www.moravian.org/. I like their home page - it summarizes their beliefs as follows, a fair use quote:

"In essentials, unity.
In non-essentials, liberty.
In all things, love."

What each of us thinks is "essential," however. -- "aye, there's the rub." See davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/william-shakespeare-3. on Hamlet for that one.

Side frolic on moral decisions: by what authority does anyone come within the the span of another's outspread arms and fingertips, and big feet, to make moral decisions for that other person? a la da Vinci circle Vitruvian man . Morality by location, location, location. If there are consequences, each of us bears our own.
.

SOUTH CAROLINA

There is also Sassafras Mountain in South Carolina

....................................

FN 1 Why is it "considered" unsafe." So many sites say that, without going into the flawed testing - using rats, and huge overdoses; when rats themselves are averse to it - allelopathic. The site goes on to say that there is little "scientific" evidence for its benefits - but fails to say that Pharma customarily only pays for testing on substances from its labs that it can patent, profit from. No patents on mother nature. And the "dangers" are only "potential" as based on the rat testing. Noone knows much about it, or is looking, see ://www.lifescript.com/Health/Alternative-Therapies/Herbs/The_Dangers_Of_Sassafras.aspx/ Is "Blue Shield" and its "claims" neutral? However, the site also says it is a good diuretic.

See also Sassafras Tree, Natural Pragmatism, Allelopathy: Vetting the Concept Gap in the Lab. There seems to be no factoring in of that element. that rats and rodents are averse to sassafras in the first place - use mice and rats anyway.

Rodent repellent: Go ahead. Use safrole oil to repel rodents. It works. See http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/mg/handbook/MGH11.pdf/ So why use rodents to test sassafras and human health? More on the testing issue at ://www.planetherbs.com/theory/notes-on-herb-drug-and-herb-herb-contraindications.html

Habeas Herbus. How to persuade the unpersuadable: Try Non-Eloquence.

2007-01-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

CLOSING ARGUMENTS

Your Honor, evidence here clearly shows
That Appellant-Petitioner, seated
In the Garden to my left, with deep roots
In History, Culture, Healing and Tea,
Root beer and other sundry useful use,

Was wrongly found guilty of cancerous
Predilections in humans; only rats.
And those rodents (filing their own action,
The Habeas Mousus * before this Court)
Have systems that by nature see safrole
As pesticide. Of course, it's whiskers up.
We also learned that safrole will dissolve
In alcohol, not water. Runs right through!

With this the only stated ban basis
For safrole, its carcinogenic side,
There is no demonstration of cancer
In humans; with usual warnings and
Inform on doses, handling, regulate
For purity, but let our safrole go.
If someone uses it wrong and throws up,
Commonplace! See unregulated hootch.
If someone dies from overuse, that's like
Our fostered ciggyboos. Industry rich.

There may indeed be reason for control
If we, as claimed, can make from it a part
Of ecstasy; and if its qualities
In birth control may mean bad overdose
For those unlearned in safety in its use.
But airplane glue can also be misused,
And education is the answer here.
Who has the right to judge morals out there?
We watch our own - let others do the same.

Habeas herbus. Ancient writ. Backbone
Of justice and due process for root beer
And reinstatement of true frothy head,
Respectfully request that the judgment
Against safrole be reversed; a free herb.

.................................................................................
* Habeas corpus definition at answers.com/topic/habeas-corpus; history at habeascorpus.net/asp.

Technorati

2007-01-02T12:14:00.000-05:00

Study the dose; not ban the use

2006-11-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

An undiluted teaspoon of the safrole, or sassafras oil, can indeed produce ill effects, including an account of collapse. In proper doses, however, it relieves numerous ills. Here is an early account of its benefits: Title -"SASSAFRAS
JOYFUL NEWES OUT OF THE NEWE FOUNDE WORLDE!"See botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sassaf20.

Go to ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com/html/gosnold.htm, and do a "find" for "sassafras." Much of the information in this post stems from that site.

Sassafras was the only North American spice, used in Cajun and Creole cooking - file powder in gumbos. Its safrole is damaging to the liver in huge amounts; and it is an ingredient in ecstasy, the site says. Good for joint pain, rashes and gout still. Good root beer needs it. Not needed for syphilis any more - with penicillin.

It was seen in the 17th century as a wonder drug, people paying high prices for it, sassafras found first in Florida, Indians taught the French, French taught the Spanish, and it cured many diseases: lameness, stomach pains, breast pains, toothache, possibly kidney stones ("stone breaker" says the site, but I believe from other sources that referred to the Latin-Roman notes that sassafras could break rocks?) gout, joint pain, "foule handes," constipation, "windiness," "provoked the flow urine," gout, and make the barren women fertile. It also cured the Poxe - syphilis. Fair use quote on that:

" It was a disease of the New World and it hammered Europe, just as the Old World diseases were pounding away at the Americas. In the first years of the European outbreaks (late 1490’s) it was a quick and fatal infection. Then the selfish bug and European man adapted ever so slightly and it became a slow ten year dance of death. But a cure was found: take the steeped water of the Sassafras root for a ‘greate tyme’. It was new and expensive; and the cure came from the very source of the misery: America! And what a market there was in Europe. Three shillings for a pound of the wood (~$25 today) and much more for the roots. A single ship could bring back tons. And it worked!

Or maybe it didn’t. The combination of low life expectancy in the 17^th century (less than 45 years) and the apparent remission of syphilis while it silently hid in the body, liquefying the vital organs, between waves of outward eruptions, made Sassafras, or any drug for that matter, look like a cure."

Allelopathy - Sassafras, Natural Defense. Against rats. Are you a rat?

2006-11-27T09:09:00.001-05:00

Sassafras is bad for rats. Are you a rat?

Sassafras has never been tested on humans, says this site, "Your Sassafras Has Been Neutered," at chow.com/stories/10129. The FDA ban in the 1960's was based on rodents who came up with liver cancer after massive doses. But rodents and sassafras are in an allelopathic relationship, see below, with the sassafras defending itself against being decimated by little and big rodents.

There may be good reason for regulation, as chow.com and other sites
"Allelopathy" - nature's exclusionism. What grows well with what, and around whom. What creatures eat what from plants, as part of the overall food chain.
As to plants, Sassafras has this on its stay-away chart for other trees: The terpenoids, whatever those are, make elms, silvermaples and boxelder throw up.

See more on allelopathy at sustland.umn.edu/implement/trees_turf. Safrole is listed as one of the allelopathic substances, useful for keeping competitors at bay. An allelopathic substance is a plant-strengthener.
Uses include buckets, furniture, soap, perfumes, tea, soup-thickener, restoring used-up soil, repelling rats and bedbugs
Allelopathy as an internal plant strengthener. Sassafras vs elm, sassafras wins.

It is an important and telling part of the food chain for woodchucks and deer eating leaves, beavers staying with the stems. Rodents and leaves and stems.(note - not bark or trunk, where the safrole is - the rodents stay away from that in the first place, so why use them for carcinogenic testing as to people?

Just because something is natural does not mean it is safe for all uses anywhere, but it probably is safer than synthetic, says this site:

natural probably less deleterious than synthetic allochemicals

Toxicology Forum: Good long discussion at that site of natural allelochemicals. I also see alleopathic and allopathic. What is allelopathic and when may depend on the time of year that the substance is harvested. Why not use them instead of chemical weed controllers?

Consider - if a plant changes its chemistry when under stress, why couldn't poor rats increase the carcinogenity of what they eat when the substance is already allelopathic as to them, and be sure to get those tumors?

Still, what connection to people here? Stress environment skews test results?

This site, Pharmacology studies, limitation of use section, says,"...safrole and other allylbenzenes that may be mutagenic or carcinogenic (in animals), may be of limited concern for human consumption and would not cause one to avoid a herb altogether."

Could sassafras have saved Jamestown? Raleigh's Patent vs. Bartholomew

2006-11-25T19:44:00.001-05:00

Sassafras is part of our deepest American heritage. And disputes surrounding who gets to profit from beneficial substances arose even in the 1600's.

Bartholomew Gosnold, see answers.com/topic/bartholomew-gosnold, was an early explorer and commanded prospecting expeditions in 1602 ff -- Cape Cod, areas south through Virginia. See mykennebunks.com/gosnold. His discoveries of sassafras and descriptions of its market and uses are at historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6617. Also see this site - a splendid, full account -- at ancientgreece-earlyamerica.com/html/gosnold. He was looking for the "Refugio" that Verrazano, see win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/verrazzano, found - Narragansett Bay -- in 1524, and colonize it or start trade. He wrote to his father - see letter at etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1006. Martha's Vineyard is named for his deceased infant daughter.

Sassafras, autumn's red mitten

Gosnold needed a profit because the operation was expensive, and looked for treasure to bring back to England - gold best, but furs and sassafras would do. Sassafras at the time was a "wonder drug" in Europe. See mykennebunks.com/gosnold; and its link to the botanical qualities of sassafras at botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/sassaf20. The Concord was a 30 ton bark, see likeness of Captain Cook's bark, the Endeavor, at yachtsdownunder.com/hms_endeavour.

On board as it left Falmouth on March 22, 1602, were these people: Gosnold; the captain, Gilbert; the lawyer, Archer; the chaplain, Brereton; the ship-master (possibly also part or all owner); and three others named Tucker, crewman Hill and Meriton. Tucker's name is on the shoals called Tucker's Terror at Monomoy; Archer puts Hill's name on a little island called Hill's Hap (means Hill's luck) It is the modern Penikes. Beyond it is another island with a hill that Archer names Hap's Hill - ("for that I hope much hap may be expected of it"). "So in fast succession the punning: Hills Hap, Haps Hill, and the hope of much hap. Archer’s hope on the far away hill can only be sassafras, cedar, or gold."
Brereton and Archer both wrote their own accounts: Brereton at __________, Archer at etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1005.

At Archer's account, do a "find" for sassafras in Archer's account for all the uses of sassafras. Brereton says it was Meriton who found the first sassafras.

Sir Walter Raleigh, of Pocahontas and Jamestown fame, see luminarium.org/renlit/ralegh, held the patent (not clear what that meant) on American products. It seems to be a monopoly on sassafras (he calls it sarsephraze) marketing. He was bothered that his patent was to be poached by Gosnold, and the price depressed by the new cargo, so he blocked free market pricing and ultimately the issue was resolved by his getting part of the cargo. At any of these sites, do a find for sassafras - This product is part of our heritage.

.........................................
Here are fair-use excerpts to show some flavor of the expedition, and not enough to spoil going to the full site. Usually these things are so dry that excerpts are appropriate to put actual names and the humanity back in. Toward the end is the reference to perhaps Jamestown could have survived until spring if the sassafras market could have made a difference.

How they did it:
"The English crew buckles down to hard work. They start to collect the return cargo of sassafras. . They re-keel the shallop and build a flat bottomed shuttle boat, a punt, to ferry men and supplies across the pond to their island redoubt. They clear the area where they will build their ‘little house and fort’. One of the crew gorges himself on ‘the bellies of dogfish, a very delicious meat’, to the point of a severe bellyache. He is cured in twelve hours with the New World wonder drug: the powder of sassafras."

*****
Assistance from the indigenous people:
"The Indians leave four of their men to help the English. Brereton relates how they help collect sassafras even though he thinks one of them is a spy. He also tells how the Indians strike a fire. He plays with words while doing so:
“…with a flat emerie stone (wherewith Glaziers cut glass and Cutlers glaze blades)…”
Glaziers cut while Cutlers glaze. This homey style of writing wasn’t lost on the English readers of the day."

"Thus they continued with us three days, every night retiring themselves to the furthermost part of our Island two or three miles from our fort: but the fourth day they returned to the main, pointing five or six times to the Sun, and once to the main, which we understood, that within five or six days they would come from the main to us again: but being in their canoes a little from the shore, they made huge cries & shouts of joy unto us; and we with our trumpet and cornet, and casting up our caps into the air, made them the best farewell we could: yet six or seven of them remain with us behind, bearing us company every day into the woods, and helped us to cut and carry our Sassafras, and some of them lay aboard our ship."

*****

"Ralegh complains that the sassafras market (or sarsephraze as Ralegh writes it) is about to plummet from 10 to 20 shillings per pound ($70 to $140 today) to 8 to 10 shillings ($56 to $70) per pound. Other sources claim that sassafras was only 3 to 8 shillings ($20 to $56) per pound on the market, not anywhere near Ralegh’s inflated prices. This raises the question of whether or not the sassafras market was indeed in trouble or just Ralegh’s self promotion to Cecil. Ralegh continues in the letter that his enterprise in America will be overthrown if unauthorized people poach on his patent."
*****
[Historian questions on why Jamestown failed, did the obstructions to the sassafras market - Mr. Raleigh? -contribute, and could the sassafras market have made the difference:
"A study of the mysterious sassafras market in England has yet to be undertaken. What alternate plans could the settlers have used to survive until Spring?"
*****
"Hazelnut trees, Cherry trees, the leaf, bark and bigness not differing from ours in England, but the stalk bears the blossoms or fruit at the end thereof, like a cluster of Grapes, forty or fifty in a bunch; Sassafras trees great plenty all the Island ove, a tree of high price and profit; also diverse other fruit trees, some of them with strange barks, of an Orange colour, in feeling soft and smooth like Velvet:"
*****
*****
"But after our bark [Concord] had taken in so much Sassafras, Cedar, Furs, Skins, and other commodities, as were thought convenient; some of our company that had promised captain Gosnold to stay, having nothing but a saving voyage in their minds (NOTE 28), made our company of inhabitants (which was small enough before) much smaller; so as captain Gosnold seeing his whole strength to consist but of twelve men, and they but meanly provided (NOTE 29) , determined to return for England, leaving this Island (which he called Elizabeths Island (NOTE 30) with as many true sorrowful eyes, as were before desirous to see it. So the 18 of June (NOTE 31) , being Friday, we weighed, and with indifferent fair wind and weather came to anchor the 23 of July , being also Friday (in all, bare five weeks) before Exmouth."

Sassafras Lives Despite Them : The Rob Roy of the Herb World

2006-11-16T08:23:00.000-05:00

Scots Brigands Behaving Brigandishly.

About the ban of sassafras, tea, root beer:
A good news is that people persevere.
Here is an overview of usage now
In Kentucky. Scroll down for safrole here,
www.wku.edu/folkstudies/kentuckyfolkweb/KYFolklife_Medicine. foKentucky Folk Medicine,
Like Rob Roy buried here in Scotland's hills.*

The line beneath the crest at the gravesite
At Balquhidder Kirk proclaims the Clan:
"MacGregor despite them." See www.clangregor.org/history-kill. For all the years
The English tried to stamp out that Clan's name,
Forbid its use on pain of death, it lived.
And with the sassafras, keep asking why
Its ban does not extend to poppy seed,
Or nutmeg, or the other spices that,
If grossly misapplied, cause something bad.
See www.totse.com/en/drugs/psychedelics/165181 foe Sassafras despite all.
The ways to use it are available.
I just miss root beer of the '50's.

Here is a site about the sassafras
See www.jagaimo.com/bistro/rootbeerfaq, about Root Beer FAQ.
And this one tells you how to make root beer. See www.stoutbillys.com/stout/infonsf/Library/0FF30A5F for Stoutbilly's Information Library, Root Beer.
The age of sassafras - at beginning.
Sites now document its age; and its role
In healing, refreshment, and reproduction or not.
See ontariotrees.com/mondaygarden/article.php?id=153>.
Yet ill effect on rats - behind the ban. FN1
The sassafras as mythic link: whose tales?
See www.archaeolink.com/choctaw_indians for an Native American Cultures Website.
A tree so old. Befriend it? Look around.
The tea still sold, but safrole free.* Check why? FN 1.
See www.glenbrookfarm.com/herbs/sassafras for Tea for sale; and www.sassafrastea.com/history for Hermie Kerner's Sassafras Tea<.

.............................................................................
* See Scotland Road Ways; and YouTube at YouTube at Rob Roy's Grave. History at Rob Roy History; Trossachs area, including Balquhidder, at Trossachs.

How the ratty deed was done. Spooky Tales from the Lab - Sassafras Testing

2006-11-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

Rats.
Spooky Tales From the Depths of the Lab:

The rat* keeled over, dining on safrole.
This points out gaps in the literature:
See www.foodreference.com/html/artsassafras.
Why FDA would use the rat, to test
A substance that repels the rat itself,
Is boggling. Have we no brains for thought?
Of course the rat will kick the bucket with
Ingestion of safrole - it's its make-up.
See also Thanksgiving Dinner Post.
Second thought: which members of the FDA
Benefited financially, by barring safrole, this natural
Competition to its investment entities.

This site has ideas why the effect on rats is not relevant to people, in this site on herb contraindications --
www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley%20contraindications.

Ramble: There are many sites that just reference effect on "animals," without differentiating between those who are allelopathically related or not -- see post for 11/17/06 for allelopathic business. Tea seems to be still ok because is "natural," and the more safrole you use, the higher degree of liver irritation. See www.familymedicinenews.org/archives/1999/2247(FM). That is part of Family Medicine News.

To the Root Beer/ Sarsaparilla - White With Foam. Why are the colas still with us?

2006-11-12T18:47:00.000-05:00

For me, it is the foam. That is an American birthright wrongfully stolen by the FDA, if it is so that there is no connection between the rats, this particular substance of safrole, and human cancer. Site agreeing thas safrole contributes mightily to our foam: www.foodreference.com/html/frootbeer.

Was the safrole ban really necessary? Apparently the FDA only used "reports" of the effects of safrole on people, and not testing. See site at Sassafras Tree: The Tangled Roots of Groups, and discussion there. Say it isn't so, FDA. Your credibility is on the line, thinks the Safrole Fan Club (SFC), recording secretary reporting.

Read about Sioux City Sarsaparilla, Chicago's Canfield's Sarsaparilla, and Pepsi, at www.interestingideas.com/ii/rb. Isn't coke recommended as a toilet cleaner? See urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_coca_cola. And as grout cleaner? See members.tripod.com/~Barefoot_Lass/cola. And we worry about sassafras??

All agree there is a long history for sassafras here - see root beer history at tn.essortment.com/historyrootbeer_rhnc.And you can brew your own, to a degree (safrole?) See greydragon.org/library/brewing_root_beer.

Now, here's an oddity. This is a question and answer site, and one of the questions is whether root beer causes cancer. There is no answer. Go to www.root-beer.org/questions. for the Encyclopedia Rootanica on the issue of whether root beer causes cancer. Leave off the question if you are not prepared to answer it, please. FDA is clear that safrole is such a human carcinogen that it is banned - gasp. See later posts.

The safrole fan clubs do invite the FDA to lay out its 1960's testing procedures, and its conclusions whether rats are intrinsically averse to safrole so of course rats would get tumors, and what else was used to make a connection to people. Thank you.
......................................................................................................................................................

Six of one: SIX OF ONE, HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER -- Look up "The Dictionary of Cliches" by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985) at alibris.com/. Don't stop there. See www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/627. for the half dozen.

Folklore Knows: Sassafras Gives. Government takes away.

2006-11-12T09:21:00.001-05:00

Rural people and others with access to herbs are going to use them according to the traditional way or as "advertised." See continuing uses of traditional medicines, and some hazards at www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/00036587. The sensible and common good solution, even if not equally Pharma-financially profitable, is research and education as to dosages and preparations, not ban.

Sassafras: edible delectable for some, including us with info

Our government gives mixed messages. The sassafras is desirable for wildlife and should be fostered, See species-specific management at fwie.fw.vt.edu/rhgiles/SpeciesSSM/Crows. Scroll down to the "increasing a population (birds)" section, but don't dare use that tree for something useful.

We are still waiting for a correlation between humans getting cancer and the sassafras. See the National Occupational Survey at www.cdc.gov.mill1.sjlibrary.org/noes/noes4/siocsyns.that shows how many occupational workers are exposed to "chemical agents" annually. For sassafras-related workers, the total is 1680 or so -- with no indication if there is any disease correlation at all.

FDA Ban logic: If A Fellow Chews the Pew, All Wood Must Be Barred.

2006-11-05T17:05:00.000-05:00

This fellow on the left, biting the pew.*
If some misuse, must all be deprived?
Do we take out the wood for fear of chew?

This is a call for regulating dose,
Not total ban; how much bad in root beer.
Can adults manage info, and then choose.
For safrole, roots and twigs are out, but leaves
Can be the stuff of orgies. Eat away.
Only in file gumbo, not root beer.

See the account of the ban at www.drugdigest.org/DD/DVH/HerbsWho/0,3923,552413Sassafras,00.

If total ban not justified, because
Dosage problems are really not likely
Given diet components as the norm,
Stop Groups with power of definition
Behaving badly, expanding their sphere.
Label to fit the legislation, or
Theology to be imposed on all;
Legislate to fit the label desired,
With common good second, after power.

Simple informal support group: Sudden
Requirement, new "professional" leader.
Imposing screening, just to share with friends.
In similar line of work. A network.
No reason to suspect pathology?
Then "screening" is intrusive. LeaderKing.
The box is drawn. Now, put people in it.

The ban on sassafras followed this track:
The FDA banned safrole, 1960's.

"1961 - A scientific committee appointed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare finds that safrole, a natural component of sassafras, is a weak hepatic (liver) carcinogen. Immediate action is taken under authority of the Delaney Clause to stop the use of safrole and oil of sassafras in root beer, sarsaparilla and other beverages and foods." See FDA ban at ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/pesticides/pest-5.cfm.

There are some sites that say it is an herb
And not food "additive." With tests suspect
In terms of application to people.
Sassafras, Safrole and Rootbeer (section of larger essay).
Traditional approaches are in siege
Against the profits of an industry,
So this site, by a Ph.D., is trumped
By any M.D. who is pulling rank.
And rank is at the root of argument
When money changes hands. And so to bed.
The point is whether total ban goes on.
Scroll down to "sassafras" as cited there.

More history on banning sassafras ban:
Find article on Sassafras, Safrole and Rootbeer (section of larger essay)
at www.itmonline.org/arts/asarum. This one notes that the high doses were overwhelming, causing the accumulation resulting in the cancers.

Poor caged creatures, overwhelmed with dose.
Too bad they can't sue.
People otherwise might
Make safrole into solids, and spoon it.
...........................................................

* Our photo from Grote Kerk, Haarlem, The Netherlands. See Netherlands Roadways.

The cooking show. Chippewa Native Americans and Sassafras Teas

2006-11-05T11:34:00.000-05:00

Broth and herbs in beverages were preferred. Add the leaves or twigs to the boiled water, then drink. See www.native-languages.org/chippewa.

See also Wildman Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean, Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants, Hearst Books, New York, 1994, page 220. Try this for it: www.econetwork.net/~wildmansteve/Books.Folder.

Traditional health applications; and witch-burnings

2006-11-04T08:35:00.000-05:00

A review of shows that sassafras has had some effectiveness in improvement in rheumatism, arthritis, gout, eczema, psoriasis, defeating head lice, as a rat and other rodent repellent, as a spring tonic for cleaning the blood, against syphilis, removing ill effects of tobacco, and helping heal post-parturition problems. Overall site with some of the listed sassafras uses: stylepace.org/organic-herbs/sassafras-synonyms-laurus-albida-natural-herbs-for-panic-attack-anxiety.

America gets panic attacks. Britain warns but does not ban. www.users.globalnet.co.uk/%7Enodice/new/magazine/opinionifa/safetyifa.

We killed off so many healers during the Inquisition on the continent, and witch persecutions here, no wonder it is like starting from scratch using plant bases now. www.summerlands.com/crossroads/remembrance/burning.

Herbs have been suspect for a long time, and put under suspicion by those without the knack. See Slovak Traditional Herbal Medicine, see www.sazp.sk/parabow/parabow2/traditions/topics/herbs. People dealing in herb collecting and use for healing in the old days,: they were characters known as "volchvi," or "korenityci," and were often women who had a strong feel for the mystical. These were later connected with the devil or allied with other dark powers.

It gets worse. "The "Hochnothepeinliches Halsgericht" Act of Charles V is referred to here, at buscasitios.com/index.php/Regional/Europe/Slovakia/Localities/Levoca; and is said to permit punishments for herb use. In Levoca, Slovakia, one"witch" is said to have been burned to death 1717 and yet she was not asked what she used the herb for.

Red and white sassafras, fad use

2006-11-04T08:05:00.001-05:00

white sassafras

Sassafras in the fall. Three types of leaves at the understory to catch all the light possible, at the top levels of big trees, all become the single lobe. More on the leaf lobes at Joy of Equivocating, Lessons of the Sassafras post

For now, how is sassafras used - and should be used again. Any substance should be ingested with caution. For contraindications of herb use, see www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley%20contraindications. This is by an herbalist.

That site says there are red and white sassafras , with the red now rare.

Red sassafras, but if it is rare, we won't say where. Is that appropriate?

Roots and bark are blood tonics - site refers to a book on American Indian medicine, and that Europeans were more interested in sassafras than tobacco. Further notations follow:

Scope of Sassafras. Summarizing bits from Bentley site, and little quotes here, fair use: Sassafras became a big fad - bigger than tobacco. It was used for "viral, fungal, bacterial infections, cancers, and occasionally arthritis,where purifying blood is helpful."
Safrole is found also in "mace, nutmeg, basil, black pepper,rosemary, dill, black tea, tamarind, cinnamon, witch hazel, Asian wild ginger. And more."
A cup of beer is said to be 14 times as carcinogenic as a cup of sassafras tea. Sassafras had been a big economic source in poor areas, now not permitted.
It is one of the "metabolites" in safrole that brings on rat cancer with huge doses, but that not be the same in people who don't make the same metabolite.

Do read the whole thing.

Education about proper dose as the better approach to misdosing.

2006-11-02T08:03:00.001-05:00

Herbs may benefit some disorders, but also can adversely affect other organ functioning. Best to find an MD you trust and be sure your use of herbs fits your situation and othe drugs you may be taking. No sense in triggering something worse than what you've got. See www.geocities.com/mamablondie/herbs, for info on herbs and the liver.

Use of herbs means dosage, handling, purity, amount, all that.

See more on sassafras at www.bhikku.net/archives/03/apr03. Overview on the word itself, where it is from, its word in other languages, description of the shrub understory form, the sassafras laurel and ague-tree, discovery by Spaniards in 1528, medicinal use, saloop - hot drink, powdered "salep" and later sassafras, and milk and sugar, popular in London. Arabic uses, derivations: short sample here -

Dogstones and other language interests. In other languages, it is salep (France), salép (Spain), Pg. salepo, a. Turkish salep, a. Arabic thaleb (pronounced in some parts saleb), taken to be a shortening of khasyu 'th-thalab orchis (lit. ‘fox's testicles’; cf. the Eng. name ‘DOGSTONES’.)] Saloop is a nutritive meal, starch, or jelly made from the dried tubers of various orchidaceous plants, chiefly those of the genus Orchis; formerly also used as a drug. See dogstones. For more on the orchis family, go to www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/o/orchid13.

Columbus, Saloop, and the Sassafras

2006-11-02T08:02:00.006-05:00

More stars for sassafras. 1-4-9-2.
Columbus' sailors inhaled the perfume
Wafting from shores nearby. Said yes to land.
See Mother Earth and Sassafras at www.motherearthnews.com/Natural_Health/1983_July_August/Mother_s_Herb_Garden__Sassafras. Here is a rough summary:

Medicinal uses: Native Americans had used sassafras for possibly thousands of years, as a medicinal herb. Europeans took up the use - shipping cargoes of leaves for poultices and teas. The bark could be shipped and steeped in boiling water. Use one ounce bark to one pint water. Take it with some wine as long as needed to reduce a fever (or fall asleep). It was used for rheumatisk, inflamed eyes, ease women's female conditions - menstrual and birth pain - for gout, dropsy, scurvy, skin problems, even dropsy. It also disinfects - and was used in dental surgery. People believed it purified blood, and controlled excess mucous -- it was believed to cure venereal disease

Autumn red sassafras. The red mitten on the way.

Dose: How much oil of safrole to use? One to five drops in boiled water. More could be dangeous - "One teaspoon of the pure oil is enough to cause vomiting, dilated pupils, stupor, spontaneous abortion, collapse . . .and even death!"

Nonetheless, is became a flavoring, and covered the opium taste when opium was given to children to quiet them in the nineteenth century.

Cooking uses: Dry and powder up the leaves, and you get file for Creole cooking. It thickens and adds taste to soups and sttews. Steep the bark and add milk and sugar and get a fine drink called saloop. This was sold on street corners in England through the early 20th century.

In more recent times, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1960 conducted tests on the chemical constituent safrole which showed that massive amounts fed to rats caused liver cancer in the rodents. This prompted a ban on sales of sassafras tea . . .although not, it

might be remarked, on nutmeg, pepper, star anise, or ordinary China tea, all of which contain the substance. Safrole is practically insoluble in water, however, which may help to account for sassafras tea's long history of evidently safe use."

The wood - a natural rodent repellent - also useful

2006-11-02T08:02:00.005-05:00

I have no idea where fair use begins and ends, and copyright traps abound -
Have to take out all the quotations? Citing not enough?
The wood has many uses - and sassafras was used to help defeat illness -
See Thomas Hariot's Brief and True Report on sassafras in Virginia at history.acusd.edu/gen/classes/civ/hariot.

On "winauk" from the West Indies. Good smell, cures many diseases, better than other wood:"For the description, manner of using, and manifold virtues of it, I refer you to the book of Monardus, translated and entitled in English, The Joyful News from the West Indies."

It also had its fans, says Hariot,
For syphilis, but bad press brought it down.
In Shakespeare's time, a tea from the roots became a craze until somebody said the Indians used it to treat syphilis. For Shakespeare's time and sassafras, see www.walknet.net/boyd.

Sir Francis Drake in 1586 landed at Roanoke, VA, and heard tales of colonists surviving by eating sassafras soup. He brought back perhaps the first shipment
Reported it, citing many uses. See beta.blogger.com/1586. Francis Drakelanding at Roanoke Virginia="" Plant Trivia Timeline.

In 1823, the sassafras
Was glorified by London magazine:
A delicacy is the tea, with milk and sugar,
Sold in a Salopian house on the south side of Fleet Street.

Definition, Salopian (from Shropshire; or from Shrewsbury School)

Then, a splendid essay on the oleaginous qualities of the sassafras tea. Do read it. Essay, Elia, London Magazine 1823.

From Wildman Steve, more on woods edibles.
Stalking the Wild Dandelion: A Guide to Edible Plants.
He notes the sassafras has three shaped leaves
And all the three can spring from the same twig -
An oval, mitten-shape, and three-lobe there.

The sassafras regenerates quickly.
It grows up fast after a fire, and keeps
Other plant growth in tow (takes it over?) The sassafras.
File, as in the gumbo, came to us
From cooking of the Choctaw Indians.
Sassafras in evolution, Joseph McCabe, 1910-1920.

To Romans, it was known for breaking rocks:
Myths and Myth Breakers, Sassafras, rockbreaker

Now: Why is it all banned, you FDA?

Sassafras even gets religion. Wildman Steve also says that the sassafras figures in creation stories both Flemish and Persian - east and west agree? Now I am looking that up, but have not found it yet. I hope to find the sassafras in Eden. There is a site about trees in creation stories.

The FDA decision has its detractors, on grounds that any rat will get sick from huge amounts of anything, especially something given exclusively and not part of its natural diet - see FDA Supplement Warnings Misleading (alternative medicine site). See also Ban, a NaturalCures website. Take your choice. Fine pictures at Sassafras, natural uses. You can always smoke. Just a warning on the package there.

Saxifrage, a Sassifras Cousin: Maligned as Roman Roadbreaker

2006-11-02T08:02:00.001-05:00

Also said to have been used by the Romans for the treatment of kidney stones. Saxifrage, low plant (related to but not same as sassafras tree)(sale overall laurel family) ; but that apparently has been debunked. Not a rock breaker after all. It just likes the rock crevices, but did not make the crevice itself.

Statutes; Ethnobotany; Cultural reasons for Ban, not Health (abortion?)

2006-11-02T08:01:00.004-05:00

FDA at 21 CFR 189.180

1. The ban on sassifras is found at 21 Code of Federal Regulations 189.180 [21 CFR 189.180] FDA Ban 21 CFR 189.180. Excerpt: "(b) Food containing any added safrole, oil of sassafras, isosafrole, or dihydrosafrole, as such, or food containing any safrole, oil of sassafras, isosafrole, or dihydrosafrole, e.g., sassafras bark, which is intended solely or primarily as a vehicle for imparting such substances to another food, e.g., sassafras tea, is deemed to be adulterated in violation of the act based upon an order published in the Federal Register of December 3, 1960 (25 FR 12412)."
..........................................................................................................................................................
So, boiled water is fine as a "food" in itself, but to add flavoring adulterates the water and makes tea, so teas are an adulterated food subject to FDA rule. (?)
...........................................................................................................................................................
2. The specification of extracts of sassafrole that have removed the safrole are acceptable for use in food is at 21 CFR 172.580. The extract is called a "food additive." Excerpt:

"The food additive safrole-free extract of sassafras may be safely used in accordance with the following prescribed conditions:

"(a) The additive is the aqueous extract obtained from the root bark of the plant Sassafras albidum (Nuttall) Nees (Fam. Lauraceae).

"(b) It is obtained by extracting the bark with dilute alcohol, first concentrating the alcoholic solution by vacuum distillation, then diluting the concentrate with water and discarding the oily fraction.

"(c) The purified aqueous extract is safrole-free.

"(d) It is used as a flavoring in food.

Lists, Comments, Herb Bans and Restrictions lists the ban at Title 121. Not there that I could see.
.......................................................................................................................................................
Goldilocks mystery.

Why the overkill on sassafras, the underkill on cigarettes, and just right on other things.

Why does profit come to mind, and intruding on other people's business because you can, so there. I found a new profession category looking all this up: Ethnobotany.

At Medical Botany, Herbal Use, Multi-Cultural sassafras is listed in the module for "dangerous drugs", and the discussion is there: in summary, most things are dangerous if used wrong.

Lots are worse than sassafras.

Discuss in your Blue Book: An objectively unnecessary prohibition of an ingestible food or drink is a tactic, a victory goal for an advocate of a cultural position, and not necessarily a health measure. There are too many inconsistencies with other matters not banned, and worse in effect.

How to tell? Ask, before accepting any governmental agency ban on anything, who benefits, who gains control of another, whose industry or pocketbook is enriched, whose choices are lessened, whose position is advanced.

Why does the abortion capacity come to mind. A dose can indeed be used as an abortifacient.* FDA prefers back alley operators? What transcripts of deliberations are available? Roe v. Wade did not give legal protection to acts in this area until 1973, and the safrole ban was in the 1960's. Roe v. Wade.

Here is a large cut-and-pasted quote from the site below:

"Medicinal Action and Uses---Aromatic, stimulant, diaphoretic, alterative. It is rarely given alone, but is often combined with guaiacum or sarsaparilla in chronic rheumatism, syphilis, and skin diseases.

"The oil is said to relieve the pain caused by menstrual obstructions, and pain following parturition, in doses of 5 to 10 drops on sugar, the same dose having been found useful in gleet and gonorrhoea.

"Safrol is found to be slowly absorbed from the alimentary canal, escaping through the lungs unaltered, and through the kidneys oxidized into piperonalic acid.

"A teaspoonful of the oil produced vomiting, dilated pupils, stupor and collapse in a young man.

"It is used as a local application for wens and for rheumatic pains, and it has been praised as a dental disinfectant.

"Its use has caused abortion in several cases. [this effect is repeated in numerous sites, including Floridata.* What would a search of the FDA records show as to this element? What were the arguments, information? Roe v. Wade decided in 1973 to protect some rights in this area Roe v. Wade.

"Dr. Shelby of Huntsville stated that it would both prevent and remove the injurious effects of tobacco.

"A lotion of rose-water or distilled water, with Sassafras Pith, filtered after standing for four hours, is recommended for the eyes.

"---Dosage---Of fluid extract, 1/2 to 1 drachm. Of Sassafras bark, 1 to 2 drachms. Of oil of Sassafras, 1 to 5 drops. Mucilage, U.S.P., 4 drachms.

Medicinal pros and cons.
................................................................
* "WARNING
Use of sassafras oil has caused abortion in pregnant women. Research in the 1960's showed that safrole, a principal constituent of oil of sassafras, caused liver cancer in mice, and the US Food and Drug Administration outlawed the sale of flavorings (including oil of sassafras) containing it. Today's rootbeer is made with synthetic flavorings or oil of sassafras from which the safrole has been removed. Apparently filè powder does not contain enough safrole to be dangerous, and it is available commercially."

The enemy of sensible plant use is patents. Monopoly in Pharma. Another ban a-borning: Wyeth pushing FDA to ban plant extracts for treatments

2006-11-02T08:01:00.003-05:00

Sassafras and its ban (sassafras safrole can't be patented) and the estrogen issue - same issue with Wyeth-Big-Pharma and use of horse urine instead of natural plant extracts? See post at Sassafras Tree. Those sites can go in either blog.

For all this, the argument is not that plants are better than lab chemicals - plants have big downsides. See Herbal Misconceptions at www.tinajuanfitness.info/articles/art091598.

The position here is to approach the topic with equal testing, and information and doses, not arbitrary and self-serving bans on the plant sources. Monopoly in Pharma. Acting badly.

Sites for Comparative Rodent Carcinogens We Eat All The Time

2006-11-02T08:01:00.001-05:00

Natural carcinogens as to rodents are all over the plant world - else the little scooting ones would eat everything up themselves। Here is the toxicology forum site:
see www. toxforum.org/1.4 Gold.pdf.

The ban itself - Code of Federal Regs issue

2006-11-02T07:58:00.000-05:00

The ban was based on a "weak" liver carcinogen - but no reference to that in people. This must refer to the testing, done on the rats who are naturally averse.

"1961 - A scientific committee appointed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare finds that safrole, a natural component of sassafras, is a weak hepatic (liver) carcinogen. Immediate action is taken under authority of the Delaney Clause to stop the use of safrole and oil of sassafras in root beer, sarsaparilla and other beverages and foods."

See CRS Report at ncseonline।org/nle/crsreports/pesticides/pest-5।cfm.Last event in that chronology was 1995, and no reviews of the safrole issue shown further.

The role of patentability in FDA approvals

2006-10-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

We read that the FDA is changing its rules for the Deciders - removing some of the economic incentive for them to find favorably in matters that benefit them financially.

Need additional step: foster the same degree of testing for natural substances that cannot be patented. Then compare results - the natural, or the lab recreated "identical."

Links

2004-12-15T01:10:00.000-05:00

References to third-party websites here are in word form, not blue links. See issues raised at www.bitlaw.com. If you are interested, see also www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.

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