Study the dose; not ban the use

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?

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?)

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

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

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

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

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."