The Kava Lounge Part 1 - Nancy J Pollock Discussion - The IKO Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Douglas LaRose (00:00):
Kavasseur and Jimmy Price here.
Take a seat next to us around the Tanoaand let's have a shell and talk kava.
. Yeah, so the idea of theKava Lounge came about.
Jimmy and I here were just kind ofbrainstorming one day, and we, we
thought about the fact that there areno kava podcasts and there are no real
kind of entertaining, easy to digestsources of, of kava information, of,

(00:23):
of which there is plenty out there.
So we came up with the idea of, ofthis podcast, the Kava Lounge, to to
look at the research anthropologicalhistorical, scientific research about
kava and presented in a, in a fun,digestible way that is both informative
and entertaining and hopefully agood guide for your kava journey.

(00:45):
So we're, we're excited to haveyou here and we're gonna be doing
this a couple times a month or so.
And and yeah, so Jimmy right on your.

Jimmy Price (00:54):
I'm just here to support.
Nah, man.
We're, this is gonna be a, a podcastabout, about kava and coming to you from
two extremely invested kava enthusiastswho truly love the plant and want to know
more about it, and are just completelyon board with anything cover related.
So whatever you hear here, you'll, you'lldefinitely see reflected in research

(01:18):
either on platforms or actually in papers.
Cuz we're gonna be talking aboutthe nitty gritty and also the, the
things that affect us from day-to-day.
So it will be an interesting,an interesting time to, to sit
and listen about our favorite

plant.
So for the first paper that we're lookingat here it's titled The Sustainability
of the Kava, trade by Nancy jPollock, and she is an anthropologist.
This, this paper was published inthe Contemporary Pacific Volume
One number two in the year 2009by the University of Hawaii Press.
And this is a, was a veryinteresting paper in my opinion.

(01:53):
Went over.
The, the kind of economic impactsof the kava ban in, in Europe
and in Germany in particular.
And then , the ban among AustralianAborigines in Australia and Northern
Australia, and talked about someof the differences between kava
traditions in different culturesfrom Vanuatu to Tonga to Hawaii.

(02:15):
Yeah, Jimmy did, did you enjoy the.

Hi, Doug.
I did I did enjoy that paper.
It was actually quite good.
It was, it was kind of a, a good recapof all the the research that I've read
in the past in regards to the liverproblems that they've talked about and
goes through all the specific ways thatkava has consumed in different areas.
However, it does talk a lot aboutthe pills and concoctions in the
United States, which we hope that oneday it will be a minority would be.

(02:44):
More talking about the peopledrinking powdered kavas right.
Traditionally be that micronizedinstant or traditional, , I'm still
okay with those as long as, , we don'tgo over into the extract world too far
without knowing where it's coming from.
But I thought this paper was was quitegood and Kind of gives you a, , a look
down into how kava came to people andhow they interpreted it for their own

(03:09):
society, and how it was, different.
Everywhere it landed, there was adifferent iteration of kava and in that
society, so it kind of took differentforms as it landed in different, spots.
But , I thought that,let's see here, . . Well,

well, Jimmy, just really quick yeah.
Since you pointed out youused the word pills, mm-hmm.
, and, and actually that's one thing Iwanted to discuss, , that when I was
sitting down with this paper, you know,taking notes and, and kind of thinking
about Nancy Pollock arguments, onething that jumped out to me is being
a little bit strange, was the factthat whenever she would refer to kava
as it's consumed in theUnited States or Europe.

(03:46):
She would say kava pills.
I don't think she ever mentioned evenonce, aside from the migrants who
moved from the Pacific Islands to NewZealand, to the United States, to Europe.
, she never once mentioned powdered kava.
It was always kava pills.
And the quality of the kava that was inthe kava pills and how, , Lebot had argued
that there needed to be a consistentsource of the kava lactones I thought that

(04:09):
was kind of strange because by 2009, youknow, people were drinking powdered kava.
, I know I was, were, Iwas in graduate school.

Yep.
So it, it was out.
, but it was still very obscure.
It was still not very well known.
2008.
It was still, , , you could talk to anyonein the street and they'd be like, what?
Coffee?
And it, it, nothing.
Right, right.
It still would have no true andtrue understanding back then.
So I, , I get, I get that we didn't reallyhave much of a presence then either.
There wasn't too much of an online thing.

(04:39):
, blue Light Erowid coupleof peace Corps members.
And that's about it for, for kava.
So I, get why it would appearthat way to a researcher.
I guess if this person went backin 2018 and wrote this paper, it
wouldn't, it wouldn't look the same.
It would look a bitdifferent from, from this.
But yeah, it's, it's, that is interesting.

I feel maybe she didn't see the kava king in the, in the Yes.
Cause Cause I remember Kava King.
I was actually, my first forayin, into kava was in 2002.
With, with Kava King, with instant kava.
I, never actually.
Like, I'm one of those few blessedpeople that never had to deal with
the kava pills and thank, thank God,because they really don't do anything

(05:19):
. Jimmy Price: I've taken them, I, I read somewhere on some, somewhere form 'em.
They're like, well, you can makea drink if you take the pills and
break 'em open and put 'em in water.
And I had this yellow powder thatI was trying to mix with water.
They absolutely would not mix with water.
And I was just like, what is what?
I don't even, I don't knowhow it continued to continue.
I like went on drinking kava with someof the things that I went through to
just try to figure it out and likeI ate it off tortilla chips extract

(05:43):
It was like, I drank kava one time thatI'm not even sure was actually kava.
It was more like spent coffee grounds.
, the things we went through to get wherewe are now with the quality of kavas
that we have to, we can, we can enjoy.
We've, we've come a long waysince, especially since the writing
of this paper Nancy Pollock,and , we've, we've certainly.

(06:03):
Gone light years ahead now.
, we have frozen kavas thatare fresh from Hawaii.
We have Vanuatu Kavas that you couldbasically still, feel the heat from the
Vanuatu sun when you get the package.
They're so fresh . So, , it's,it, it is such a different, a
different thing than it used to be.
And it's becoming more open too,and that that's something that.
This paper kind of doesn't, doesn't see,and it is slowly opening up and more

(06:28):
people are getting involved and likethe exporters are wanting to be known.
And that's, that's a good thing.
But yeah.
Well, and I think in addition tothat and it's a really good point.
You bring up the.
The consumer demand for qualitykava has greatly increased.
I think, I think due to, in, in largepart, , our, I don't want to give
ourselves too much credit, but I thinkwe should give credit where credit's due.

(06:50):
Yep.
, starting these different the kava forums,starting the kava lounge on Facebook , The
different people who've done YouTubereviews, , I guess including myself,
like there's been an increased demandfor, for single cultivars, for, , better
quality kava , kava that's, that'sclean and, and doesn't make you sick.
So I think that the, the vendorsare, , responding to that.
And.

(07:11):
, , and, and that the, the pills and the,and the kava king and the kind of, kind
of earlier things that were for salejust nowadays, we would just, , kind
of, , stick our noses up at those thingsif we somebody put it in front of us.
Yogi Tea.
Yogi tea.
Yeah.
Even though, even though Ido like that tea, I, I don't
necessarily like it for the kava.
Yeah,
right.

Exactly.
, it is good.
It's good.
, people like it for theflavor and everything.
But yeah, it's not, it's not for the cala.
Yeah.
Let's see here.
Let's, let's go on to,
mm-hmm.
. Douglas LaRose: Well, let, let me jump in if, if, go ahead.
Yeah.
Cooper, because one of the first thingsthat I, and this is a little bit academic,
but one of the things that jumped outto me was and on the first in the, the
intro section, the first page, she Shemakes the argument that sustainability

(07:53):
of the kava trade is at risk.
This is a quote according to theWorld Commission on Environment and
Development, sustainability refersto the development needs of current
generations that must be met withoutcompromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.
I I, I find that like definitionof sustainability to be a little
bit irrelevant to, to the,to the content of the paper.

(08:17):
Like, I don't know, I don't really see.
How you, , in, in Vanuatu or Fiji orTonga, for that matter, Hawaii for that
matter, like how the sustainabilityof kava production is really,
At, at risk.
I think, I think it's more, Ithink it's more genetic information
being lost due to, due tooverseas and export specificity.

(08:41):
It, it, she talks a littlelater on about that.
But what it, it kind of says to me isthat she's trying to say, don't, , these
specific things are being honed in onwhich, Kind of, you're, you're losing the,
the, the vision of the other parts of it.
I think that's kind ofwhere it's going from.
It's, it's, it's not really wellworded in terms of how it's, what
it, what context that's in andwhere it's, where it's directed to.

(09:03):
But I, I believe that's talking aboutthe, the conservation of genetic
information in, in d n mm-hmm.
, I believe.

Yeah.
And she does, yeah, she does definitelywhen she discusses the different
geographic context, discuss thedifferent, , numbers of cultivars mm-hmm.
and the fact that, , if, if, ifKama, if Kava is commercialized
to a very, at a very high level,there could be huge demands from
the market that cause , kava to be.

(09:33):
Era . Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, or or just kind of likelike standardized to the point
where when you buy a kava, you'rebasically only gonna get borogu
I think she actually refers toborogu as being one of the, the
kavas that was in high demandby the pharmaceutical companies

and, yeah.
Yep.
That's exactly right.
And, and that's after theyfigured out what was right.
, because this is 2008.
Understanding.
And before that, they were just like,give us the strongest you can find.
And and I think it touches onthe two day, and she even talks
about how Fiji was trying to banthe import of Tu kava, right?

(10:15):
Because it was too strong,because it was two today.
And so , it's, it's interestingin the whole dynamic there.

You know, another thing at the very end of that intro she, she talks
about three fronts that she's gonna, inthe paper examine kava on the first being
the customary trait of kava which is, , inreference to, , the, the Pacific region.
The second.
Is the exports of export of kavafor customary usage by migrants.

(10:44):
So that's a lot of people movingto New Zealand, I think is,
is a real and new Caledonia.
Mm-hmm.
are really prescient examplesof that where you have a lot of
people from Vanuatu and Fiji that,that move there and import kava.
And then the third frontis exports for pharma.
But within those threefronts, I don't really see us.

(11:04):
Like, I don't, yeah, I don't see.
The American, , theKavasseur and the Jimmy Price.
, it's not in there.
The Kava lounge.
Yeah.
I don't see that reflected in anythree of those fronts, so that I

don't think we were even a thing, so Yeah, that's true.
Good point.
And so we weren't around and then that,I don't think that reflected and there
wasn't this overarching , curiositytowards this information regarding kava.
So , you kind of sparked off that,that different category that could
have been added to that paper hadthey written this in 20 18, 20 19,

(11:37):
but It's, yeah, I definitely thinkthat, she would go back and add that
I think that that would be a very, veryimportant part of the entire picture
of kava cuz I mean, there's tons ofpeople that drink kava at home, not
at the kava bar, but just at home.
And they don't, I mean, we,we have so many lurkers that
never sign up for an account.
And , the, these people drink kava andthey do it at their sink or they do it

(12:02):
wherever or their aloe ball, whereverthey happen to happen to be . But , it's
changed and there are a, a bunch ofpeople that, that do use it for some
pretty specific Medicinal qualities.
, we, we have, you and I have, havehistory with a person who's blind, who
uses it for the socket pain that he has
And then, , there's just so many uniqueuse cases for it that that I believe

(12:27):
that would be included in this paper too.
And , it's just, They don't know about it.
And that's, that's why we're here, . Yeah,

absolutely.
And, and those people, those peopleat home and people listening to this
who, who drink kava by themselves.
, when you look at some of thesepapers, you read about how kava is
traditionally consumed and, and groupsand circles, , sometimes in very highly
ritualized.
And, and
traditional Tonga and Fiji and Vanuatu.

(12:53):
But , there's nothing wrongwith drinking Kava alone.
I've been doing it for,for 20 years, , same.
And, and it's helped me out a lot.
And , it's, it's an evolving thing,so, , there's no right or wrong way
to drink kava unless, unless you'remixing it with chemicals and Right.
, stuff
I wanted in the backgroundsection, which is kind of the
introduction to the differentcultural analysis and the Pacific.

(13:15):
She, says something that's, thatreally kind of stood out to me
as being a really cool point.
, and this is a quote, theclose association between
kava consumption and rituals.
Honoring the ancestral gods is maintainedin Vanuatu, Fiji, in several Polynesian
societies, while more recent secularuse represents a democratization
of kava with its usage in kavabars in Vanuatu, Tonga and Pohnpei.

(13:40):
What, what I thought was interestingabout that is, it, it shows that even in
these countries, that are the heartlandof kava or, or where kava come from,
, kava went from being something that was.
Very, very ritualistic and sacred.
And, , kind of only existing for thatpurpose to be in something that's
more social and, and more secular thatyou can, , drink with your friends

(14:04):
and drink with your buddies, drinkat home with your family or whatever.
And, and I don't thinkthat was always the case.
So it's important for us to alwaysremember that, , these islands
haven't been frozen in time and , kavaceremonies have only occurred one way.
They, they continue toevolve in, in Fiji mm-hmm.
. There's no right or wrong way todrink kava in those cultures either.
And, , women are increasingly, , becomingmore accepted as participants in, in

(14:28):
kava ceremonies in different countries.
So, , the culture changes over timeand, and, , it something that used to
be only used for religious purposes cannow be used for, for secular purposes.
And that's true with a lot of , , youknow, not, not to make a comparison, but
with hallucinogenics , psilocybin andmescalin and peyote and things like that,

(14:49):
the, the indigenous people use them for,, purely for , kind of religious purposes.
But, but we're finding all of thesemedicinal benefits for p t s trauma,
things like that in, in modern society.
So, I think we can look at kavaas the same way as being something
that means different things todifferent people at different

times.
Has, sociopolitical ceremonialand , and personal Utmost importance.
Yeah.
To, to those who find it necessary.
Like just to the people that findit good in their life to, that have
a good fit for kava in their life.
And that's the one thing I always have togo back on every now and then is, is like,
Drinking kava isn't for every person.
Not everybody's gonna like it.

(15:30):
And it's just, it's a unique thing.
It takes, it takes dedication.
It's not, it doesn't tastelike strawberry milkshake.
It's , and, and it's not, it's somethingthat takes a while to understand
and, and get a good understanding ofwhat you're actually jumping into.
But I thought, I like thatdemocratization of kava.
And it's, yeah.
Yeah.
, it, it absolutely has done that.
, Vanuatu is a key, a key example.

(15:52):
They've gone from only drinking atceremony and, through the religious
practices to, , it being a hugegovernmental government pushed solution
for alcohol consumption, curtailing..
And so, it's, it's, and that's likethe biggest secular use of it that
you could, , that you could think of.
So , it's gone from highly.
Highly ceremonial, highly religious,to a tool for the government.

(16:16):
And also, , it's just, it, it just,it, like we were saying earlier, it
just takes the form of wherever it, itlands and where, where it needs to be.
And I think that's what makes it so uso much of a, a utilitarian thing for
people sometimes is that it just, , doeswhat they need it to and not more.
And it just has that.
That unique feeling to it.
I don't know.

(16:36):
, it's difficult to, yeah, todescribe, but yeah, I like the
de democratization of kava.
And, and, and just, it's funny, justbelow that it talks about how kava is re
regarded as a pleasurable, so social drinkand individuals rarely drink it alone.
And so it's that I find that thatsentiment rec like reflected.
Through all the research, especially theold anthropological research in kava,

(16:57):
it's like no one drinks this alone.
In fact, they, they, they would,might even brand you a witch
for, for drinking it alone.
Like they'll they'llgive you the side eye.
Yeah.
Like, what are you doing?
You know, you, this is wrong.
So it it, it's strange because we are.
I guess we're the kava witches,drinking it at our , drinking at
our sinks and yelling at our backs.
Splashes about how good it tastes.
But yeah, it is, it's, it isinteresting how that, that that

(17:20):
kind of has been a, a unsaid rule.
But I guess I, a stated rule cuzwe, we, we just recently witnessed
one of our, our friends who alsohappens to be a, a Vanuatu exporter
brought on his his friend to one ofour zooms, his, his farmer friend.
Mm-hmm.
and Let's see.
. He was talking about he said who hewas making his kava and the, the guy
comes in, he goes, Who's, who's here?

(17:41):
Who you drinking?
kava with . Like trying to, trying tosee why he was be, he'd be drinking
kava alone, but he was on our chat,so he was drinking kava with us.
They're like, oh, okay.
Okay.
But it, it does seem to be somethingthat's always wound through the
literature and the the, the sentimentsand the attitudes of the kava
drinkers is don't drink it alone.
But , that doesn't always happen for us.

(18:01):
Like I don.
I only know one person within likea 200 mile radius that drinks kava.
So it's, it, it, it's not somethingwhere I can just call up the boys
and we, , pull out the bucketand mix 'em up and, , go to town.
It's just not, it does,doesn't happen that way.
And that's all right.
Like that's, , , I think people need tohear that it's okay because , there's,
there's a lot of, of attitudes outthere that might say, , you have

(18:22):
to do it one way or the other.
But, , having gone what we've gonethrough with Kava, I think we can both
say that, , use it how you want to.
and it will let you know what's right.
It will give you hints asto what you need to do.
Like when your skin starts flakingoff, you need to back down or find a
different kava or like, learn what you'redoing wrong or reach your, change your
strainer or whatever you need to do.
It's just a, it's a learning processand I think that the more we direct

(18:46):
people with it, except for, , I kindof have a, a, a specific area where
I guess we could talk about, butbut the, the cultural appropriation
aspect of, of some of the ceremonialrecreations I guess we could say.
But yeah.

Yeah.
Let, let's leave that for another

article that might be best for another topic.
, Douglas LaRose: she doesn't really touch on that in this.
No.
And that is such a whole, likedifferent, that's another box of worms.
Bottle of wax.
Yeah, exactly.
. But, but.
Topic I just wanted to mentionbecause this came up about drinking
alone versus drinking in groups.
I met with one of my old professorsfrom graduate school where I

(19:19):
studied applied anthropology.
And I, I actually brought up this topicand I was talking about that w w that call
that you just referenced, where we weretalking to this Vanuatu farmers and, and
that, that, that anecdote about you know,who, oh, who are you drinking kava with?
You know that that's not.
. You know what's interesting about that?
And, and I think it's actually like areally, simple answer to why that is,

(19:42):
and it's not because there's some like,Really, really intense, moral belief
that one must not drink kava alone.
I, I think, and, and, and when Italked to my professor, we kind
of brainstormed this idea Americanculture and European culture.
We've like broken down the, we'rewe're highly hyper individualistic.

(20:02):
And we've broken down thebarriers even within the family.
So where you, you just have like thenuclear family and, this is getting
like very anthropological, but thatwas good to the point where it's
like, , you have a father, a mother ofkids, and a lot of traditional societies
and , places like Melanesia Polynesia.
you have these huge families thatlive together, like grandmothers,

(20:23):
grandfathers, aunts, uncles.
, you might have like 25 peoplelike living within the same area.
And so you're just notalone to begin with.
, you know, so like right in the UnitedStates, , you, you might, you know,
you move outta your parents' house, youget a job, you get an apartment , you
might have a wife and kids, , that'sbecoming increasingly less common.

(20:43):
There's more and more likelihood thatyou're gonna be doing things alone Yeah.
In our culture than ina place like Vanuatu.
So I, I don't read that much into that.
and I don't worry too much when Idrink kava alone, that I'm somehow
like summoning the devil.
Breaking some sacred, yeah.
Breaking

some sacred packed with, with the the original kava drinkers.
. , I think it's fine.
And I'm sure that, like, I'm sure that inVanuatu and Fiji people, Sometimes drink,

I can't imagine.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
, it's pretty common anyways.
, it's just those people that, thatthink it should be consumed in
one specific way and it will beconsumed how it would be consumed.
We can, we can guide.
and I think we should guide, and thereare some good ways to drink kava.
There are some really, , therapeuticways of drinking kava.
There's, there's some like questionableways of drink drinking kava that

(21:30):
make you go are you all right?
Like, do you, do youneed to go to treatment?
Like that, that sort ofway of drinking kava, but.
It, it's all, it's all individual.
It's all comes down to what youfeel comfortable with and what
you find that works for you.
, that, that least that's myopinion, , I'm not, yeah.
I have no authority to make thatstatement in any way official, right.
but yeah.
In my opinion.
But nerd, does

anybody?
Nerd

Does anybody Exactly.
No one, no one does.
So I'm, I'm just, I'mbacking up the universe here.
. Douglas LaRose: So there's no, like, there's no pope of kava.
It's, it's like a.
Like, , there, there are so many differentcountries that drink Kave traditionally,
and they have their own traditions.
Yep.
That you can't, you can't really saythat, oh, the Hawaiians are the experts,

(22:10):
or the, the Fijis or the experts or the,you know, the Samoans are the experts.
So it's, it's.
Yeah, I, I think it's always goodto, to keep an open mind and it,
honestly, just knowing how kava is propagated.
They're all experts for being ableto continue to grow it and keep
it around and keep care for it.
And, and it, it really does go.

(22:31):
Go to show how important kava was or is.
And, and still it still is, but definitelywas to the people that brought it
across the South Pacific with them.
The Lapita.
But it, it, it just goes to show just how.
How much emphasis was placed on thisplant in its survival and its continuance.
And it also shows how strongreligion is to just wipe it

(22:53):
off to just completely Right.
Go in there and just torch so much ofwhat, what was going on with kava.
But that, that actually,I believe that there was
missionaries talked about in here.

Yeah.
It it, it does come up.
Yeah, it comes up laterin the ar in the article.
Yeah.
There in, in the, in the vanuwatu section.
. One thing that I thought was superinteresting that, and I think this
kind of references what we were talkingabout earlier with what was happening
with Kava at the time, with the theGerman scare and Australian Aborigines.

(23:27):
It's on page 2 71 under the
diversity of kava in the Pacific.
There's a, there's a a quote.
That says Lebo has suggested thatseveral steps are necessary to ensure
the sustainability of Vanuatu exportsales to international markets.
These include reducing variabilitybetween cultivars and cultivation

(23:48):
sites, using only root materialto produce a standardized product
and establishing quality controls.
Now, the second two things.
It seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
But the first point that reducingvariability between cultivars and
cultivation sites, I find that thatno longer like really applies cuz I
feel like nowadays like people wannatry the different cultivars people.

(24:11):
Yes.
Go to different cos for different effects.
Yes.
I can see like when you're putting ina pill, like how it might be different.
Yeah,

I believe that was for specifically.
International market.
So I, I think that would be inthe context of her pills and
kava concoctions sort of thing.
Right, right.
And, and, and even then, likeI, I guess he would be speaking
but he already says yeah.

So that there would be a more like consistent strength and
like kind of a more consistent strengthand effect I think of, of the kava.
Like, so if you were to gobuy a bottle of kava pills,

it'd be the same.
It,

it like, It would be the same every time.
Kind of like when you go toMcDonald's, you always get

the same crappy little, you know, the same
disappointment everywhere, right?
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that, I think that's kindof what, but, but like as I said, I
think that nowadays, in the present.
Like we don't, that doesn't apply.
That's no longer something lookfor, we actually, we actually want
there to be like more variety.
We want there to be there to be
more diversity.
, that does not, I think thatmight still apply to the export

(25:14):
for, for extract market maybe.
But in terms of powdered, what she doesn'taddress here and she hasn't addressed
our, our community and our way ofdrinking kava and our, our little thing.
But it, it, it doesn'ttake that into account.
I can see how you would wantto keep a very consistent
export for your pharmaceuticals.
Because that was, they werepharmaceuticals for a while.

(25:36):
, they were, it was anactual pharmaceutical drug.
You could go down and buy at the atthe pharmacy in, in Germany and Right.
Switzerland.
And so, , it was a, it was a big deal.
It, and it fell a long way.
And that's, it's quite unfortunate.

One cool thing , the, the, that this article does really
well is the way that she lays outthe different descriptions for
the different geographic regions.
Mm-hmm.
, I found it to be really well donebecause she starts, she, she kind of
loosely references P N G at some point,but she jumps into Vanuatu and as
the homeland of, of kava, where youhave the most cultivars is the most

(26:11):
kind of evidence of, of domesticationwhich, which is consistent with
agricultural crops all over the world.
So that makes a lot of sense.
But then she, she moves into Fiji andtalks about Fiji and there's a lot of
cool stuff in there including about thekind of the more recent involvement of
women in kava drinking social ceremonies.
But then it, what's really cool,when she gets to Tonga and Pompe.

(26:35):
Mm-hmm.
and yeah.
New Caledonia.
, and I've never thought aboutit this way, but Tonga was the
gateway for Kava into Polynesia.
Yes.
And I, I guess, like I had kind of looselyunderstood that in the past, The way
that it's presented here, it actuallyreally kind of opened my mind to this.

(26:57):
What if it, it must have been a reallybig historical event because you have
these me melanesian practices with kavain traditions, and then it gets to toga
and it, it becomes like r really connectedto like the, the kings and the different
political ceremonies and the powerof kava that that is used to differe.

(27:17):
people's different sociopoliticalstatuses and economic statuses
within different societies.
Mm-hmm.
. and it made me think of, ofyour, your trip to Hawaii.
To Hawaii where you observed a CVAceremony and it, it's, it's described
in here as this kind of, you shaped,or like horseshoe shaped mm-hmm.
Group of people with, with, with like achief or like some kind of like really

(27:39):
noble person that is presiding over theKabb bowl and the, is kind of the, the

master

of ceremonies.
Mm-hmm.
. And I just thought it was cool that, that.
Was was that unfolded in the Polynesianphase of, of Kava history and
didn't really exist prior to that.
It was like, Ritualistic and kind ofreligious when it was in Polynesia, but
then when it got to Polynesia, it becamethis like really powerful political

tool.
Political new social stratifying tool.
Yeah.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
. It was a huge display of power.
And that's another paperthat Nancy Pollock writes.
It's called The Power of kava.
. And it is actually very much.
Centered on that concept of how kavadelineated the social ranks among the
Tongans and the other people that Ithink several different several different

(28:26):
places use it that way, but Tongan, Fijimainly Tonga would be very much reliant
on that system to delineate social rank.
and political rank becausethere were two different things.
You could be , the top headpolitical person, but you
could have a low social rank.
So it, it was, it's really strangehow the dichotomy works, but the,
researchers would say it makes senseto the people that that live there.

(28:48):
It all makes perfect sense.
Even though it's extremely complicatedand an intricate and complex, it's
still something that can, can comprehendon a whole, and when you get into
the, the kava ceremony kind of.
Solidifies all of that into actually youcan view the, the hierarchy of, the, the
ceremony and , who's who, where they'resitting delineates their social rank.

This is a really good quote about that.
And it's on page 2 76 and she, and this isa little bit of a long quote, so , pardon?
Pardoned me.
, she says the, Circle as it is oftenlabeled, is in fact a U-shaped formation
in which all participants have theirplace at one side or the other of
the highest ranking participant.
He sits at the head of the Ufacing the open space for the Kava

(29:31):
bowl, and the kava maker usuallyfemale, are located the kava maker.
And this is for Tonga.
The kava maker is assisted by anumber of young men and women as
well as the master of ceremonies.
After the kava root is pounded andwater added, the liquid is sieved
to remove fibrous material beforebeing served in a half coconut shell.
I mean, this is all, we're,we're all familiar with that.
It is crucial that the kava is presentedin the correct order to honor the status

(29:55):
of everyone's seated in the kava circle.
women sit outside the formal circleobserving closely to ensure that
protocol is carefully followed.
I found that to be interesting.
I did not know that.
Like, that's me too.
Like a huge like, like mm-hmm.
. That's the biggest , kind of new factof the day for me is that like women in
Tonga sit outside of this kava circleand basically like enforce the protocols.

(30:20):
Mm-hmm.
, like

that's, that blows my mind.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
, I had that highlighted in my paper.
, yeah,

Because the way that people have talked about women in kava
has been, , this kind of patriarchykind of thing where it's like women
are not allowed to participatein, in anything to do with kava.
But, this is actually like, Accordingto this, like they actually have
a really powerful role mm-hmm.
in ensuring that, that theprotocols are followed.
And to me that, , denoteskind of more respect than it

(30:45):
does kind of power over women.

Okay.
And we're gonna go start backtalking about the Nancy Pollock's
And it's Pollock's paper,the Contemporary Pacific.
Sustainability of the Cava trade.
Yeah, the sustain, yeah.
Yep.
That's the one.
And we're gonna be talking about,we're gonna go back and Dr.
Pollock breaks down all the countriesby individuals and, and breaks down
the, the cultures and, and different,different individual facts about each one.

(31:10):
And she starts in the SouthPacific with Van Watu.
We, which was, I believe we mentionedearlier, the, the homeland of Kava
Northern Van Vanuatu was where Kavawas domesticated from Piper Wish
Manai to its domesticated form Pipermethysticum and due, due to its.
Varieties there due toits length of time there.
And, and, and just number of peoplethat were involved with cultivation of

(31:33):
kava there, they managed to create 247different cultivars of kaba in Van Watu,
which is impressive because that's not alot of land and that's a lot of different
cultivars to, to have come up with in,in the amount of time that they have.
So it's a, and they also are knownfor having the strongest kava that
tests can confirm that that's apretty, pretty accurate statement

(31:57):
in terms of kava lactone percentage.
And and it's just, it, they are,they are typically higher than,
than, than most others, but not,not all other locations, but.
Yeah.
And I mean the, and they alsopro processed their kava from,
from fresh and not dried kava.
And that's, that's gonna be one that,that is pretty important to, to underscore

(32:18):
in terms of kavas physiological effects.
Cuz it seems that dry kava has , notnearly as much effect as, as fresh
freshly made kava from fresh roots.

Yeah.
Yeah, I would agree.
And, and I think , in my, my experience,the, the difference between dried kava and
fresh kava and I, I've, I've unfortunatelyonly had fresh kava from frozen root.
But I, but I think it's pretty close tobeing the same thing in my experience.
Yeah.
The, the effects are kindof markedly different
but I would love to hearyour thoughts, Jimmy.

(32:49):
I mean, I, I know that you've.
Imbibed in the the green juice before.
So what, what did you noticeis kind of the major big
difference between dried kava and
fresh

kava?
I think the biggest differenceis gonna be the taste.
In terms of its, I mean, theyj it tastes like cucumber water
like anesthetic, cucumber water.
And most of the fresh CBBs thatI've had have all been Hawaiian CBAs.
So they've all been kind, I mean,not, they didn't, they didn't put,
they didn't melt your face off.
They didn't put you on, , on your ass.
Right.
And they didn't, , cause youto, , chatter your teeth or anything.

(33:20):
It was a, it was a very mellow,very relaxing sort of experience.
. Yeah, I mean fresh kava, I mean interms of, it's, it's flavor and, and
it just, it has a different feel to it.
And I don't think, actually, I don't thinkeither of us have had real fresh kava in
terms of being at the plant where theygrind it up right there, pull outta the
ground, wash it, skin it, and then, andthen process it right there and drink it.

(33:42):
So I think that is the realkava is the real fresh kava

so, so one thing I wanted to, to point out here that really
jumped out to me being a farmer myselfis, , that 247 Cultivar is number that is
really impressive from an agriculturalstandpoint and having grown cacao and some
other different crops in West Africa for,for a small island nation like Vontu to.

(34:09):
Cultivate 247 different cultivars of kava.
It, it means that they werereally putting in the work.
Like they you.
You don't just, that doesn'tjust happen spontaneously.
With a plant like kava,you don't have flowers.
You don't have seeds.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you do, but you can't usethem to propagate the, the, the plant.
So farmers, kava farmers would'veliterally had to notice a difference

(34:32):
in a kava plant be attracted to thatdifference, and then consciously choose
to, to propagate one single plant into ainto a new cultivar, and then just kind of
like, wait for those mutations to happen.
Right.
It, it, it was the, the factthat they were cultivated 204
87 varieties is impressive.
And and after kava moves out of Vanuatu,you don't see that happening that much.

(34:55):
And that's how, that's one of thescientific pieces of evidence.
that let scholars know that kavaoriginated in Vanuatu was the
genetic diversity that's that'sseen in the, in the varieties there.
So super interesting,

Fact.
Mm-hmm.
. Yes.
And I mean, it can, can be as, assomething as small as a slight change
in the in the number of dots between theodes and, and it could, could indicate a,
chemotype change to the kava that mightmake it more desirable or less desirable.
Cause I'm sure out of these 247cultivars, they were probably a

(35:30):
bunch of those cultivars that theywere like, whoa, this is crap.
bury that stuff.
Like, so, I mean, there's, there'sprobably a lot more that didn't
cut, it didn't make the, the grade.
Than than did.
So we, that's, that's only representativeof, , just a tiny bit of work.
And I mean, , that you're, you'rethe, you're a farmer, but it's,
it, it's incredible that, thatthey would have that amount of

(35:52):
dedication and focus on one plant.
And it's just shows how importantand how far back it was.
I mean, that was, , , they datethat somewhere 2000, 2,500 years ago.
It was that important then for themto do this, that this was already
ingrained in their society when theystarted, like kava just s was, I don't

(36:13):
know how or what the, the chemicals orwhat, how they made kaba originally.
Who, what was the firstkaba that was made?
Was it, , Piper Witch Manai, , and what,what about that, , caused them to want.
Cultivate it.
Like what, what, like,I, I don't, I don't know.
I just, there's a lot of questionsthat are, that are still there, but
, we could go through those all day.
Yeah.
But Nancy also talks about thatthey use less water traditionally

(36:37):
than the than most other islandsdo when they make their Cabo.
So it's, it's a stronger,stronger mix traditionally just
as what, whatever they mix.
Cuz I mean, I've seen, I've, I'veseen the YouTube videos of, of
tourists going to ve Watu and thoseshells do not look weak at all.
they look menacing.
. Yeah.
You could paint with 'em.

Yeah.
And in fact, I've read a lot ofaccounts contemporary and kind of
more historical where people go toVanuatu and they try kava for the first
time and, and just get completely.
kind of completely lose their legs.
. Mm-hmm.
. Cause it's so strong.
So yeah.
I mean, , for a fact that whenthey say that, , alas water, , they
definitely, there's definitely a, astr a strength that comes out of that.

(37:22):
One really interesting part of this paperand other research that we've done in
the past looking at, at the historicalperiod, and by historical period, I
mean the post-contact period wherethere were colonists and missionaries
is that for a long spell in historyand Nancy talks about this, kava was
abandoned mostly in, in the kind ofthe main kind of colonized parts of

(37:46):
Vanuatu by missionaries because it wasconsidered, he even, it was considered
, what's, what's, what's the word for it?
Like pagan, like agonistic kind of ritual.
Mm-hmm.
that was associated withfunerals and death and, and,
and all kinds of dark things.
And, and , some of thosemyths are pretty dark.
And kava was consumed to funerals.
Yep.
But unfortunately what happened asa result was you had these, these

(38:08):
British folks Spanish folks Ithink some friends were there too.
And they brought all kinds ofhorrible vices, , alcoholism.
Just different social,

just kidding.

Religion, , right?
Yeah, yeah.
Fundamentalist religion.
And, and also, , I would imagine, , the,the, the kind of the capitalist Oh, yes.
Working till list kind of approach toextracting resources from the earth.
Whether it's through agriculture,there was, there was definitely forced
labor in slavery and things like that.
But the, the, the kind of the brighterside of that story is that later
on after Vanuatu gain independencethe government, , made a conscious

(38:43):
effort to promote kava because of the.
Really negative social impacts of alcoholthat we're all very familiar with.
In, in our, in our cultures, our European,

a lot of churches changed course as well.
They, they saw how, how devastatingthe effects of alcohol were on
the people and that, , you'renot gonna have any followers if
they're all drunk in the street.
So they, they opened up kava and evensome churches like had kaba sessions
in the church, whereas in some places,you, you don't bring kava in the church.
Like that's just, thatis completely taboo.
Right.

(39:14):
But yep, they, there was, Ibelieve it was the Catholic church
that opened up and allowed a lotof kava drinking in some areas.
I'm not sure that's ubiquitousall over the South Pacific.
But
. . And then after, I mean, like, she wastalking about the, the abandoned kava
and how it resurged and about in 1980.
Of course that corresponds with,with new hi brides being gaining
their independence and becomingve watu the Republic of ve Watu.

(39:37):
And at this time also a big portion ofa push during this time was, was Casto.
Was this, this returnto the way things were?
and Kava was included withthat and pushed very heavily.
And so in 1980, kava just cameback like a freight train.
The, the, the actual, the, theVanuatu Tourism board promoted

(40:00):
kava as a as something toappeal to visitors and tourists.
And I mean, it was, it was fully embracedas part of their identity at that point.
And that's when we start to seeit really turn around and become
more secularly just mm-hmm.
used, I guess you could say.
But it is, I thought that was ratherinteresting how it would, all of a

(40:21):
sudden when the country gets theirindependence, they just are like, oh,
we can make our own decisions now.
Get out

and, and Jimmy the linguistics of the word kava
correct me if I'm wrong, but inthe, the local Sian languages, in
Vanuatu, it, it means bitter, right?
Bitter means something

like bitter.
Mm-hmm.
, yes.
Pepper, pretty much bitter.
Bitter is the, is the in term that kavais interchangeable form, I believe, from
what I'm reading, these research papers.
Yep.
Bitter.
So then

kava, kava goes from from Vanuatu to Fiji next, and, and
it's kind of geographic dispersal.
And in Fiji it's called yako, if Ibelieve I'm pronouncing that correctly.
But Yago might be . Yeah, yago.
Yeah.
Yago.
And that, that's also a wordfor bitter in the Fiji language.
And Fiji's interesting to me becausethe contemporary kava scene in Fiji

(41:16):
well, maybe scene's not the rightword, but the, the, the, the varieties
of Kava and Fiji are very limited,and it seems like there really isn't
a huge emphasis on cult of ours.
Like there's not.
, it's, you're, you're, you talkabout the kom or the stump, or
you talk about the lateral roots.
The Kom being the ena.

(41:37):
and the lateral roots being the Waka.
And the Waka is the stuff that mostpeople go after because it's, it's a

stronger don't forget about the Casa . Oh, the casa.
Can't forget the Casa . That'sthe creepy stuff, right?
That's the oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, yeah.
That, that's added, that'sthe basal basal stem.
And it will be, if you see pictures onthe internet of drying kava, it will
be the pieces that look like donuts.
They have like holes in the center of 'em.

(42:02):
That's the, that's, that's the casa.
And that's, that's stem chips.
And they have a lo very, verylow kava lactone content.
So , they're the least valuablefor, for the, the Fijians.
But they, they divide 'em up inthree grades and it's, there is no If
there's very little to know of, of anymine paid to, to the, the cultivars.

(42:23):
It's just, there, there is a little,if you go deep and you get people that
know what they're talking about, youcan find people that know black and
white kaba and you can, that's whereyou'll find better quality and lower
quality kaba, cuz the, the black Cs aretypically the ones that are stronger
and not, not necessarily in a good way.
And the, and the whiteCovas are more desirable.

(42:43):
And and it is just a, it, I'm not sureif it's something to do with the color
of the, the pith or the the Parma of thekava plant itself, or maybe the stem,
probably the stem color most likely.
But also one cultivar that I, i, itgets mentioned more than anything
cuz I think it's the only cultivarpeople know of other than the, the
ones that, that come with C Harris.

(43:04):
But, The Damu Damu is, has alwaysbeen requested, and, and it, it, it
occupies a, a very unique spot inthe, the kava cultivars of, of Fiji.
It looks more like a Van Watsukava than it does a Fiji kava.
And it's an interesting one because ithas it's got the, I believe it's a 4 23.
It's, it's got a lower methin levelthan, than your average Fiji and Kava.

(43:27):
So it's, it's, you have to wonder if itwas introduced later, but this is, this is
for a whole nother conversation, mm-hmm.
, but they, it was, it was introduced,actually, it seems to, has had taken
a quite a long time to get to Fiji.
It actually.
Went to, they, they think it went to Tongafirst and then came to Fiji through Tonga.
And they think that Fiji didn'tget kava until somewhere around the

(43:48):
15th or six 16th century by way ofWallace and and, and through Tonga.
And so it's, it's not necessarilyas old as it is in Van Watu,
but it's also, it's also muchmore, it's much more ritualistic.
There, the, the way that that kavaceremonies are, are upheld in Fiji

(44:10):
are, much more ceremonial thanwhat we see from, from Van Watu in
terms of their, their kava rituals.
So it, it is interesting tosee , the comparison and the
contrast there from the two.
But let's see here.

Yeah, I, I think just really quickly on that
topic of, of ritual, I think it'simportant to distinguish , you
know, there are different kindsof ritualistic drinking of kava.
So in, in Vanuatu, my understanding,, from the eth ethnography and the
anthropology is kava is consumed in aritualistic sense that's kind of more

(44:42):
like religious and like traditionalanimistic, , kind of connected
to like very old god traditionalbelief systems and gods Exactly.
Yeah.
That's, that's a good word to use.
And in Fiji it's ritualisticin way of maintaining social
order and social hierarchy.
And, and word ritual can be appliedto this is the anthropologist to me
coming out , the word ritual can beapplied to both of those scenarios.

(45:06):
But they're two very, very differentthings like, so using a substance
for religious ritualistic purposes.
Is a way of like competing with theancestors and having visions and,
and getting messages from, from the,from the gods and things like that.
Using kava in, in a kind of sociopoliticalcontext or, or a substance in a
sociopolitical context is a way of,of establishing hierarchy showing who

(45:31):
has power, who doesn't have power.
I think it's really important , to, , makethat distinction because when we talk
about ritual uses of kava and Vanuatuand ritual uses of Kava and Fiji, we're
talking about two very different things.

Definitely.
Yeah.
And I think it reflects on its origin.
With, with Kaba having come over fromTonga to Fiji you, you see that, and
we'll talk about that here in a moment.
You'll see that ceremonial aspectreflected in that transfer from one, one.
One land mass to the other.
And and, and with that segue,we can go into the Tongan topic.
And this considered thePolynesian homeland of Kaba.

(46:06):
And of course, you'll find everyonewho wants to fight you over the
myths and of the origins of Kaba.
But They, they have their own specificbeliefs, and generally it rip most
of the origins of kaba myths arisefrom the death of either a loved one
or a sacrifice and a, a touching ofthe divine, and in a product of that

(46:27):
touching of the divine from thatsacrifice then kava comes from that.
And that's it.
It is a common theme echoedthroughout different cultures.
But it's always something to do withsomeone being killed and then buried
and then kava grew or plants grew fromtheir grave, usually different spots.
The, details can be a, a bit differenteither way, but it, it is always something

(46:49):
to do with, with someone being killed.
And then risen again in the form of kava.
There are a couple of different oneswhere where they get kind of macab.
One of them was where a.
A leader comes and and comes to anisland that's under a famine and
the the people there bake theirown daughter, their, their lepers
daughter and try to serve it to him.

(47:11):
And he says, no, take this take, take yourdaughter's body and, and bury them and
bury the head here in the, the body here.
And sugar cane grew from onewhere kava grew from the other.
And you, you ate the, ate the kava toyou, you, you drank the kava to, to go be
put, to go down and you eat the sugar caneto, to come back to life, so to speak.

(47:33):
Huh But they, they do kindof maintain the same sort of
myths in terms of kavas origin
the male beverage.
It wasn't to be consumed by the women.
And that's traditionallythe ritual was a male thing.
However in terms of medicinalusages the women did, did get,
get to use kaba medicinally.
So, but in terms of,

yeah, I thought that was interesting.
I thought that was an interesting fact.
They, they talked about how women yeah.
Used kava for like, I think it'slike for like urinary tracts kind
of issues and like to promotelike the flow of, of urine.
Mm-hmm.
. And I think we all, we've all had ourexperince, well you, you drink like maybe
one pint of kava before you go to bed,but I, I usually drink a couple gallons
of kava starting at about 7:00 PM SoI'm usually up a couple times at night.

(48:18):
And yes, the urine is flowing.
, it flows well.
More, more than I wanted to.
But yeah, so the , you know,I think the, the pompei stuff,
like, it's a little thin.
I, i the section on Pompei.
Mm-hmm.
. But, but we we're familiar with,you know, these two cult of ours.
I've had the Ramada and, andthe, the Ramer, like probably
not pronouncing those correctly,but the, they are pretty strong.

(48:43):
Those Pompe kavas like I, and very uniqueI don't know what like I would relate
it to or what I would compare it to inVanuatu, but I've always, I've always
felt a kind of zip in those that I didn'tfeel from from the, the Vanuatu varieties.
What about you?
Have you had

them?
I don't think I've ever had any Pompe.
Oh, Kaba.
If I did, I'd have to make Sau out of it.
and to, to define what ska is.
Ska is the, the term for Kaba andPompe, and it's made differently.
It's made with, with hibiscus,mage instead of water or
very, very little water.
And it makes a thick gelatinous, soupykaba that you sip and you share cups of.

(49:25):
You don't share, like you don't share.
Bowls of and it is extremely strong.
In fact, there was a recent newsarticle on an Australian MP that
went to Pompe and had had drank theentire bowl to himself and ended up
in the hospital . But he was fun.
He was fun.
No . He he just couldn't walkand threw up a lot and Yeah.

(49:46):
Said, slept longer than hehad since he was a teenager.

It's a nice side effect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
, Jimmy Price: but there is not very many.
I mean, Pompe was, they havetwo, two cultivars and that's it.
And they sell at the kava bars.
They, she did remark that theysold bottled saka, but it was
not for the, the, the tourist.
You are not, it was notfor tourist's stomach.
It was for local stomach only.

(50:10):
That's what it was, whatit said on the bottle.
So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very familiar with that kind of thinking.
The, you know, the, a lot of of peoplewho show up in like I, you know, I've
worked in different countries in Africaand a lot of people who show up for the
first time in a drink, you know, a locala locally made product they, it's usually
not very easy on their stomachs, , overtime, like you kind of build up the,

(50:33):
the, the flo in your stomach to beable to, to digest local, local drinks.
So I, I think if you live there longenough, Jimmy, you'd probably be okay.
Okay.
. But if you visit, if you everfind yourself in, in Pompe in
your Cava journeys, yeah, Iwould, I would definitely not
recommend drinking the stuff.

That's, it might be better now.
This was from what, 19, 2008, 2009.
So, yeah, it could have been better.
Now, , they might be using Dasanibottled water at this point.
Nestle, so, so for.

So for New Caledonia, you know, I found this part to
be interesting because I hadn'treally done a lot of research.
I mean, I know that you've you've, you'vetalked to some folks who've been down to
New Caledonia and traveled around there.
But this, and, and earlier in the podcastwe were talking about the three different
kind of areas of study that, dr.
Pollock was looking at, and one ofthem was the migrant communities
that consume kava in the diaspora.

(51:26):
The diaspora being, , the, the communityof Islanders that lives outside of
the islands and new Caledonia isconsidered part of that diaspora because
Melanesians and Polynesians didn'tlive in new Caledonia until recently.
So, New Caledonia has becomea huge consumer , of kava, but
they can't grow kava there.
Harshly tall.

(51:46):
Yeah.
Yep, exactly.
So they yeah, they, they, it's, it's ahuge epicenter of kava consumption though.
And actually while we're talking aboutNew Kali, you, we might as well just
talk about Kiribas and Australia as wellbecause neither of those countries either
traditionally consumed Kava and Australia.
Well, Jimmy, let's, whatdon't you talk about Kibo

first?
boss.
That is a very interesting topic.
I, I, I looked a bit deeperinto this one specific area
through the sources in the paper.
And their, their manner ofconsuming kava is more relaxed.
They don't have a strictgoverning rule set.
There's no set.
It's more Van Watu style than it isany other country style drinking kava.

(52:28):
Kava was introduced by missionariesand state representatives
to the mainstream KBOs.
However, it's been beingconsumed decades prior.
And, and the island ofBarnaba, I said home.
I'm, I know I'm probably not pronouncingthat right, but there's a one island
in CBAs where they, there's beenseveral people that have seen people
drinking kaba there decades before this.

(52:49):
They just never caught on locally on,on the large island in nuMe, the cities.
But they likely had gotten Kapa fromvisiting Fiji and brought it back over.
And they were being consumedin the, in the villages.
But.
The Catholic church, here's wherethe Catholic church comes in.
They offered space for Kaba gatheringsand missionaries supported the activity
as an alternative to alcohol consumption.

(53:11):
Yeah.
So it is, it it it was, this came along.
So, so recently we're talking about2000, 3004 is when they're, they're
dating this this arrival of kava intothe, the mainstream, which was kinda
interesting cause that's exactly whenI could say that that's when it hit
the American mainstream psyche as well.

(53:31):
It's interesting to see the differencesin how we've reacted to them.
, I wonder how many, how many liver,oh, wait, no, I do know how many liver
scares they've had one and it wasthey've had one, one case of liver
issue in New Caledonia and the peoplewere alcoholics and they were taking a
bunch of different medicines as well.
And it was, it was traditional kaba.

(53:52):
It was, it was Equis.
Prepared traditionally kaba andresearchers love to quote that
they love just like, well, actuallyit's not just the extracts.
And they'll quote that one paper forthose people that were just alcoholics.
And, , it just, it was not, it wasnot the kaba obviously, but that
was, that's the origin , of someonesaying that, well, even aqueous

(54:14):
extracts cause liver problems.
That's the only timeit's ever been recorded.
And it's, it hangs on avery, very thin thread there.
But But the, the, the CatholicChurch supported the activity.
I mean, it was, it was seenthat, that this was a better
alternative to, to the alcohol thatwas being consumed at the time.
And it, really has pickedup KBAs and New Caledonia.
I believe in, from what I sawfrom Vanuatu, they, actually

(54:37):
import more kava than, thanAmerica, than the United States.
And in terms of landmass, that's hilarious.
. So that means they, they, yeah, they have,I think what I saw was there was a kava
bar for every 200 people in, in Kiba.

Sounds like, sounds like I need to move to Hiba.
This is what you're trying to

say.
. Yeah.
It's, it's a kava.
It's a kava.
He mecca.
. So I,

so the Australia topic to me is so interesting and, and tragic.
, if, if, if people know anything aboutAustralia , one of the first things
they know is that Australia, prior tothe, the colonization by the British
was was, was the ancestral home of theAustralian aborigines, which were hundreds

(55:25):
and hundreds of different ethnic groupsand, and, and languages and cultures.
And during the colonial periodthe Australian Aborigines
were just brutally treated.
, there, there were definite, definiteattempts at full genocide and Ethode.
And these communities , were,were forced onto kind of basically
reservations within Australia.

(55:46):
and alcohol became a huge problem,remains a huge problem for Australian
aboriginal communities in Australia.
And kava was something that was introducedin the Northern Territories in the,
the 1980s as an alternative to alcohol.
And it's such a tragic story becausethe Aborigines began drinking kava

(56:07):
and , there were stories about theirquality of life improving and their
kind of social cohesion becomingstronger, and people getting gainful
employment and things like that.
But then Australia went and took itaway from them again and banned the
import of Kava into Australia andcondemned, , Aborigines for consuming it.
And that was based on a, a one studydone in 1988 by Menzi School of Health.

(56:32):
This was was, is Matthews at all, arethey the ones who did the research?
They claimed that Kava was Yes.
Was okay.
So Matthews at all, shameon you Matthews at all.
because

Yeah.
Cause he really screwedthings up for a lot of people.
It did.
And the, the really, the hard partabout it is, is that he, he really
did report what he saw, but thecorrelations that people make
because of that paper are incorrect.
Yeah.
He, he reported the health issueswith the Aborigines, which were vast

(57:02):
and impoverished, forgotten about.
People don't typicallyhave, , great health scores.
They're not, they're notthe healthiest population.
And that's, that's what we wereseeing in that, that study you saw
you saw lung volumes decreased.
You saw increases of of issueswith, with actually with liver with,
with skin, with, with heart issues.
I mean, all these things.

(57:23):
And they tried to connect kavato, to sudden heart failure.
Heart attack.
They tried to, they and, and failed.
They were unsuccessful with that.
So it actually doesnot cause heart attack.
But what the biggest thing to come outof it was that kava causes liver failure.
And what they used to say this was, theysaid that due to the changes in G G T,

(57:44):
which is gamma glutamyl transferase.
And it is a specific enzyme in your liver.
And it, rises on heavy,heavy CBA consumption.
Especially people with larger BMIs.
But if you drink CBA just,your bad health, and you,
you , and that's all you do.
You can rise that level.
It is not indicative of liver damage.
You have to have correspondingA S T A L T increases to say
that there's liver damage.

(58:04):
It's induction of G G T by adaptation.
And it's just, it is justcalled an adaptation.
And it's not a, an unhealthy thing.
It's not like it, it doesn'tcause, , physiological problems.
I have, I have friends that drink kavawith high G gts and they're, they're
doctors like, don't worry about it.
Just don't worry about,it's not a big deal.
, if any of these other valueswere off, we would say something,

(58:25):
but this is not a big deal.
So it ge generally, it, it is whatsparked off the the first inklings of
liver issue and it, it was incorrect.
The G G T rise is not anindication of liver damage.
And we're not dying out here.
Like, I haven't, , I'm onlyon my fourth liver now.
I mean, and I think that's totallyacceptable for 18 years of c consumption.
So, but I mean, really it's, andI, I argue with people on a regular

(58:49):
basis online on these platformsand they'll argue with you, but yet
here we are and here is an entire.
, generations of people that continuallydrink kaba on a regular basis, and
these, these, these issues are notpopping up, never have popped up.
So it's just like, it's, it's, it'shard to, to argue with people when

(59:09):
you're faced with empirical datathat says, no , that's not true.
And, , people still wanna wanna say,well, but, but I saw it on Google.
, so.
Yeah.
Yeah.

I feel like this is probably the, the biggest takeaway
that people should have from, fromthis episode or from, , this podcast,
the early episodes of this podcast.
I have spent my whole, the wholelast 20 years of my life trying to
convince people that I am not goingto die from liver, liver failure due
to my excessive kava consumption.

(59:40):
Whether it's my parents or my siblings, ormy friends or people that I work with, I
talk about kava a lot because I love kava.
I promote kava because I know howwonderful it is for, for your health
for your lifestyle for your happiness.
But the first thing that peoplealways ask is, oh, isn't that the

(01:00:01):
stuff that's bad for your liver?
And whether it's consumer reports, whichis, which just published an issue that's
like dated in January, 2023, whether it'sconsumer reports making and reiterating
that claim that kava causes liver damage.
It just doesn't go away.
And it's based on absolute feet of clay.

(01:00:21):
There's like no evidence thatthis, that kava damages your liver.
Study after study has shown that it.
Perfectly safe to consume if, you'regonna be worried about anything when it
comes to kava it's where you're gettingit from and, and whether it has any
bacteria or coliforms or e coli, likeyou wanna make sure that you're buying it
from a trusted vendor who's making surethat that kind of junk doesn't get into

(01:00:44):
your kava, but it is completely safe.
And , if people are really concernedabout you drinking kava, tell them
to just look a little bit deepercuz they don't have to look that
far to learn the truth about kava.

Jimmy Price (01:00:55):
Right.
And even one of Dr.
Matthew's own cohorts was talking aboutthis and out of 20 years of data, there
has not been one single case of fulminanthepatic failure in, in Northern Territory
out of their 20 years of consumption.
So it.
It's not, it's not a thing.

(01:01:15):
Now, it could have been a thing andwe can talk about that in another
episode, but, and we could do anentire episode on that if you want to.
But it could have been a thing it couldhave actually been toxic at one point
in time, but you would need a timemachine to get back to that point.
Right.
But it's, it's, but with wild, yeah.
Yeah.
The, the crazy crap that they cameout with in Germany and we're, we're
extracting and whatever that was, wedon't know, obviously wasn't good.

(01:01:39):
And it was, it was isolated tovery specific areas and it was very
obvious that we had a product issue,a product manufacturing issue,
and not a product like a, like anintrinsic product safety issue.
Cuz that's, it just, itdidn't happen that way.
Like, kavas been consumed forthousands of years safely and

(01:01:59):
it continues to be consumed now.
Like, and the thing about itis Kava is consumed at a higher
clip now than it was then.
And, and, and we're stillnot seeing these issues.
So, . Right.
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah.
So when you're, so when your uncle, , is,is is there at Christmas dinner and
you're, you say, oh, hey uncle JaredI , I I I started drinking this stuff

(01:02:19):
kava, and it's doing wonders for me.
And he says, oh, that's thestuff that hurts your liver.
Just slap that beer out of his hand andsay, damn, you Uncle Jared, you're a fool.
, yeah.
Yep.
Get that alcohol outta that hand,

Douglas LaRose (01:02:31):
right?
Yep.
Exactly.
And cause there's so muchhypocrisy about this, this topic.
Yes.
Like, like you can buy a salad at thesupermarket that has lister or like,
that has some kind of salmonella and,and get sick and go to the hospital.
That's way more likely to happen toyou than ordering a bag of kava online.
And actually it's 100% morelikely to happen to you Yeah.

(01:02:54):
Than anything happened to you from kava.
So, right.
That, and, and this, this seguesnicely into the, the European Union
and the German pharmaceutical ban.
So I'll just start off byintroducing this topic.
The west, , Europe and theUnited States became interested
in kava as a pharmaceutical.
Well, very early on actually, but wekind of more intensively during the,

(01:03:16):
the late 20th century, like the 1990s.
And people started totake kava in pill form.
And, and in this, thisarticle, the author Dr.
Pollock, she talks a lot about kava beingconsumed in pill form in, in the us.
This was kind of before westarted making kava with powder.
But it was very much a it was verymuch seen as like a supplement
that would help reduce anxiety.

(01:03:37):
But it probably didn't do muchbecause it was in pill form.
And in, in Germany the, it wasused for kind of similar purposes.
And Jimmy, why don't you take it awayon that one, because you have a very
in depth understanding of the, hiskava of the kava band in Germany.
Certainly
. Jimmy Price: So the kava industry was made up of exporters from Van Watu exporting

(01:03:58):
raw powder to processors in Germany.
And they were extracting CBA andselling it in pills as a pharmaceutical.
And this was a, an accepted practice.
They had some really good studies that,that backed up the efficacy of cva.
. And this was a , they, this,this went on for several years
until they had a supply issue.

(01:04:20):
wasn't enough kava to meet the demand of,of the European Union and, and Germany.
So what they did was they, theycontracted with certain growers in VE
Watu and went for cultivars that wereextremely high in kaba lactone content.
Cuz that's what you're looking for, right?
In kava, Kaba, lactone, , sothey extracted this kaba.

(01:04:40):
We don't know.
This is where things get very fuzzy.
We don't know if this was aneffect from the actual kaba itself.
There is, there's evidence that saysmaybe there's evidence that says
no, we don't know if it was trulysomething from the wrong plant.
Part theory.
They've gone back and found legacysamples and tested those and did not
find traces of Chlorophyl or PiperMethyine, which would indicate above,

(01:05:02):
above ground portions being used.
So they, they used this extract andit went on the market about 1990.
And we, at that time, we startedseeing the first, the first slew of
adverse event reports come in fromGermany and Switzerland, actually,
specifically Switzerland was thefirst LATAN was the, was the product
that was marketed in Switzerland.

(01:05:23):
It was an isotonic extract of kava.
And they had somewhere around 30, 40cases of of acute liver failure or liver
complications in, in individuals thatwere taking these, these Manufactured
drugs out of, out of Germany.
And so B Farm, which is the Germanpharmaceutical board, threw the

(01:05:44):
red flag up and , , pulled themarket authorization for Kaba.
And this was for, basically,this is where the terms get, get
convoluted as well, because herewe're talking about kava extract.
And kava extract is aworld away from a kava.
And what we drink at Kava, it'dbe like calling Kava, I believe.
Vincent Lebo makes the same analogy, butit would be similar to calling a caffeine

(01:06:04):
pill coffee, like taking 10 caffeinepills and be like, damn, coffee sucks.
It made me sick.
So it, it, it's not the same.
And that's where it gets messed up.
They, they ascribe this, thiswarning and this, this issue to
kaba itself and not the preparation.
And as such, Kaba overall and, andthe European Union, every, everyone

(01:06:25):
followed Germany's lead, everycountry, even countries that France.
Had great CBA products, great efficacy.
People were getting relief.
They pulled all their CBA products,not one single case of, of liver
liver problems in the entire country.
And they still pulled it offthe shelf just along with it.
Other countries, UK did the same thing.
They, they saw what Germanydid, pull it off the shelf.
No, no issues there.

(01:06:46):
The only, there, there were severalcountries such as United States that
did not ban kaba, thank goodness.
And well, we have somepeople to thank for that.
But it was it, it got pulledinto a realm of bureaucracy and
so it was pulled off the shelf.
And after that the F D Aissued a, a product advisory,

(01:07:08):
a consumer product advisory.
But Germany, Germany banned kava.
And that was in two, 2002is when all that went down.
And by that point we had about a hundredcase reports with tons of duplicate.
Very little information, and therewere, I mean, it was such , a terrible

(01:07:30):
spattering of, of adverse event reports.
They, they were able to narrow itdown to, to ones they could actually
use to three and three of those.
They narrowed that down to one person andthey believe it was a, a idiosyncratic
reaction of an immunologic reactiontype, which would be an allergic reaction,
basically, something that is extremely,extremely rare and happens to like, maybe

(01:07:53):
one out of several hundred million people.
Not, not a very common thing at all.
, so we're not the, the, the scope ofthe problem there were from, from 1990
to 1998, there were about 400 millionkava pills produced and consumed, but
yet they had wow, , 40 or 50 of theseactual cases that came down the line.

(01:08:15):
and, and it's just like, guys, you needto understand, we need to keep this,
this problem actually in perspective.
Is safer than most other drugs on themarket in terms of if this were the real,
if, if kava were actually causing theseproblems, it still wouldn't be necessarily
a problem in the pharmaceutical realm.
But of course, this doesn't apply at allto, to kava that we get from, from where

(01:08:38):
we get it in powder and we make our kava.
Traditionally this applies zero, nota bit, it doesn't even slightly apply.
And that's where , the confusioncomes in where people will see,
oh, well, kavas Band, well, no,that wasn't Kava that was banned.
It was the kava extracts that were banned.
And it's just, it's not the same thing.
I know people were like,well, it's the same chemical.

(01:08:59):
No, but we don't know.
We don't know if it was actuallykava during that timeframe.
Something that was done to the kavaduring that timeframe, or a poor quality
source sending out of, out of whereverit was coming from during that timeframe.
So we truly don't know.
We just don't know.
But it did, it set kava backto, it, it, it completely set
kava back to the very beginning.

(01:09:20):
We had people with Kava gro kava gardensthat were just, they just couldn't sell.
I mean, it, it droppedthe price down to nothing.
It, it really did a numberon , on the kaba industry.
Just destroyed it.
So this, this ties really nicely back into the thesis of, of Nancy
Pollock's paper, which is about thesustainability of kava and how this , the

(01:09:43):
kava liver scare really was a huge threat.
Continues to be a huge threat tomm-hmm , to kava farmers, to, to kava
, processors and, and vendors and sellersbecause they have to deal with this.
Harmful kind of rumor or reputationthat Kava has been given by,
by people that are uninformed.
And what the, the part about theGerman story that gets me every time

(01:10:06):
I read a summary of it and just kindof makes me just throw out my hands
and say, humanities hopeless is , isthe fact that like within two or three
years of that ban happening, maybeeven short of met, they basically
came out and said, oh, you know what?
Actually that research is completelyunfounded and kava is safe.
And yet it's still,

it's still there.
Stuck.
It's still stuck.
Yep.
Yeah.
The World Health Organization cameout and said it was safe in 2007
. Douglas LaRose: Right?
I mean, imagine like that happening.
I mean, it's just, it's just insane to me.
I mean, there are so many thingsthat people can be allergic to.
Yeah.
There are so many negative reactionspeople can have to so many different kinds
of medications, food, natural or chemical.

(01:10:49):
And yet kava is the one thing thatlike, maybe had something to do with
somebody at some point getting sick,and yet the whole, the, and yet it's
still ha has to carry this cross.
? It's just awful.
Yep.
. Yes, indeed.
You know what's funny is I, Iactually wrote up a little essay on
this and it's strangely coming true.
I'm starting to see warnings now.

(01:11:11):
That green tea extract actually has ahigher rate of liver failure and liver
problems than anything kava has everseen in its entire duration of existence.
I mean, I'm talking like200 confirmed cases of liver
failure from, green T extracts.
So now we're actually startingto see rolling out warnings liver
warnings for green T extracts.

(01:11:32):
So, Wow.
And that's where they belong.
Kava does not, there, there is nointrinsic property of kava that has been
proven to cause liver dysfunction ever.
It is.
I mean, they have Flo Flava, kave B.
Okay.
Maybe Flava, Kave B.
Let's give it Flava,Chave B to things in ma.
Massive amounts.

(01:11:53):
They found it actuallywas hepatoprotective.
So it's like, it, it.
And, and also a good cancer, likea possible chemotherapy drug.
But it's, we don't know.
We don't know.
We think that, honestly, I thinkjust, I think this is my personal
opinion and it means nothing.
So don't take, take this with anentire grain or mountain or salt mine.
But I believe it comes down tothe, the eth unethical actions

(01:12:16):
of just a few from what happened.
And I believe we're all suffering fromsomeone or some company wanting to
have more money and have more products.
Sure.
And, and, and it just came down towhere we pay the price for it forever.

Yeah.
And, and when you're at Thanksgivingdinner and you've, you've
finished dressing down Uncle Jar.
, aunt Doen when she's drinkingher green tea, put that tea down.
That's gonna tea kill your liver.
And Doreen, that's, haven't you heard?
Stop talking about my kava,

you and your poison right there.
You heat even . And then Iguess that kinda, yeah, that
drives us to our next question.

Yeah.
Which, which, and, and I wanted to,I wanted to make sure that we connect
this question wells, an Nancy Pollock'sthesis, which is about the, the
endangerment of, of, of the, the kavatrade and the sustainability of kava.
But yes, go ahead, pose the question.
Is kava a drug?
Is it a drug Kava?
Kava is a psychoactive beverage.

It is a, and and according to Ed Johnston, it is
a relaxing, nutritious beverage.
That's what he said.
. Douglas LaRose: I love it.
That's what I mean, that,that description, it, it
makes me like, feel relaxed.
Just hearing that atraditional calming beverage.
Yeah.
I love that.
Mm-hmm.
, that's, that's beautiful.
But, so
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, I was gonna say, I, my stance on thisis that kaba is not a drug because the

(01:13:45):
f d A will not allow us to call it that.
In fact, if we even allude to it beinga drug, we have to put all sorts of
warnings and labels on our products abouthow this was not intended to be used
to cure, treat, or prevent any disease.
So in essence, we are notallowed to call it a drug.
Now, let's get this outta the wayright now, in terms of scientific

(01:14:06):
nomenclature and semantics.
Cobble lactone exert physiologicaleffects, and if you drink them and you
feel them, you know that, that, that bydefinition makes a cobble lactone a drug.
However, . I say socially weshould not, we shouldn't, we
shouldn't refer to it as such.
Cause it is a beverage, it's a food.
It's just like, I, I I think it'sprobably more an, an apt analogy

(01:14:30):
would be like the French and wine.
It's a food.
It's a food and it's just,it's like that for us.
It is a food, but it alsohas a unique component.

Yeah.
I mean, absolutely.
And, and I think that, , , if you startgoing down this road , you and you
start thinking about things that have a,psychoactive or physiological effect on
your body, , kind of easy to identify.
Ones are, are coffee and tea and yba, youknow, things that have caffeine in them.
Chocolate has caffeine in it.
, obviously alcohol has, has ahuge psychoactive effect which

(01:15:03):
is more of a disease than itis a , an actual like effect.
But, The but yeah, I mean, if you'regoing to , call kava a drug, you,
you have to also call coffee a drug.
And, and really the, the worditself and the reasons why we can't
use the word, it's purely kind ofa, a political, economic thing.
It's not, it's, it's not a, whetherthe word is appropriate or not in a

(01:15:27):
scientific sense, it's completely disdiscursive, meaning that it's, , part
of the way that we're allowed to talkabout things and what the government
will kind of come after us for andwhat, what they won't come after us for.
So it's just, it's safer to callit a traditional relaxing beverage.
And, and yeah, I mean, I, it tome, like when I talk about it and

(01:15:47):
I talk to my friends about it,and my friends are pounding shots
of tequila, I'm like, kava is theanti-drug , you know, it's, it truly is.
It's, I I know dozens of peopleand, and if you go to a kava
bar in the United States,
And, and whether it's in California orFlorida or you know, North Carolina,

(01:16:07):
you are going to meet recoveringdrug addicts who drink kava and
have it has saved their lives.
Hmm.
So for it to be confusedwith, with substance abuse and
drugs is, is actually really

offensive . It is.
It's very offensive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
I agree.
And I mean, that's, it's, it canbe argued there are a lot of people
that would argue about whether it'sa, , semantically a drug or not, but
the truth is yes, in terms of, if youwere to ask a doctor, is this a drug?
You would say Yes, absolutely.
But in terms of how we should,like you were saying, how we should

(01:16:46):
speak about it with each other.
It's not it is a, it is a, a beverageand, and is, I mean, it's, yeah, it can
be it can be psychologically altering,but it isn't I mean, in terms of.
In terms of drugs that, thatlike change the way you feel.
Kaba is not on the top of that list.
I mean like truly like I love, I loveit and I love it for its subtlety,
but it's not something that's going tolike, , I, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna

(01:17:09):
go rob my neighbor cuz I ran outta Kabaand I'm not going to , I'm not gonna
spend my last $5 on kava when, , I, Ihave to, , buy groceries or something.
So it's, it's, it's not, it'snot a drug in that sense,
but it, I mean yourself man.
, I'm back at the 7-Eleven,mixing up . Gotta tie off, man.
Come on,

(01:17:30):
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah, and I think on, and that same line, and I think that
this is an important point here is.
. When you look at caffeine and you lookat alcohol and you look at illegal
street drugs, you're looking atthings that are highly addictive.
Like, yes, like, like I cannot functionwithout caffeine in the morning.
Or , I usually drink here at ba butI like can't start working until

(01:17:52):
I've had my year Bama or my coffee.
Like, I need that caffeine and I can,I can travel to another country where
I don't feel safe bringing my kava withme, and I will be 100% perfectly fine.
I have no withdrawals.
I miss it.
I miss having my cava, butjust like, I miss having my
PlayStation, , it's like, right.

(01:18:13):
I wish I had my C with me, but I don't.
This sucks.
But I, but I don't shake, I don't sweat,I don't feel any kind of withdrawal
symptoms because there are none and
it's not a mm-hmm.
Yep.
I've been drinking it for well, I'dsay this last stint was about, Four
solid daily years because I went tothe hospital and I, I didn't have back
in 20, no two, two solid daily years.

(01:18:35):
And and that was only a break of a weekthere when I was in the hospital in 2020.
But it I've, I've yet to have anysort of rebound effects or anything.
I, I, I took a break actuallywhile I was in Hawaii.
I didn't, I didn't drink kava fora few days and Oh, it was just
like, okay, , it wasn't a big deal.
. So, I mean, it's, it's, I've, I, I don'tlike being a gatekeeper when it comes

(01:19:00):
to addiction because, I mean, you peoplebe addicted to eating toilet paper.
I mean, it, it can be anything, but interms of kava being physically addictive
or tolerance causing, it does not.
I've used 40 grams ofkava for almost 20 years.
and I don't have to use anymore.
I don't have to make, I don't haveto make a bigger dose because my last

(01:19:20):
dose last night didn't work as well.
Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't do that.
Like, it's not, it's not an intrinsicproperty of, of kava that way.
And I, I actually have beenfighting people on Reddit recently
because of this exact question.
However, these people on Reddit will nottell you that they're on , a laundry list
, of drugs and or botanical substances thatcould easily be interacting with, with

(01:19:41):
the Kaba pharmacodynamically and causingsome, some weird effect that, that reduces
some effect of kaba that they like.
And, , we're, we'renot , we're not doctors.
Well, some of us aren't doctors,but we're, we're not we're not
pharmacologists on this chat.
I mean, I, I, I like to think that Iknow a little bit about some of the
things that go on, but it's not, I Idon't have any, I don't have a, the,

(01:20:01):
the, the numbers are letters at theend of my name, so I can't, , yeah.
Say that I'm, that, but.
It, it, it's difficult for usto truly pin down what's going
on with those sort of things.
And that's why we, , kava is kava.
We, we wanna talk about kava, we want itto be a hundred percent kava all the time.
We don't have time for that other stuff.
It's just, yeah, we, it's, and thenthat kind of goes back to the, the,
our topic we were just on is that thedrug, I mean, when we start to allow

(01:20:24):
kava to be associated with things, otherthings that have reputations as being
drugs, it's, , you drag it along withit and kava is always in that danger.

Was just gonna say, , the, to tie it all up, , I think to summarize,
, Nancy Pollock's kind of main thrust hereis, , kava is a very, very important.
Cultural plant for all of thesedifferent cultures including our own, in
including people like you and me, right?
And there are the, the threats that areposed to kava by the negative kind of

(01:20:57):
false information about its, its safetyand, and then it's connection to drug use.
Those are threats to the sustainabilityof kava, and it's many, , a myriad forms,
whether that's Fiji culture or Vanuatuculture, or American kava culture.
It, which we have our own differentcultures within our American kava culture.

(01:21:19):
We have our right kava bars in Florida.
We have our people that, , get on Zoomcalls and drink kava and talk about kava.
She is, she's advocating for a righttone to discuss kava as a safe relaxing
traditional beverage that is healthy,that w that causes no harm, and is

(01:21:41):
a great benefit to farmers in theSouth Pacific and should be it should
be carefully dealt with and not justgrouped with grow horrible things like
Mm-hmm.
. And she doesn't mention KRA inthe article, but, , it's, it's one
thing that kept jumping into mymind is, , the biggest threat to
cop of the United States is kra.
And, and she really, it'sa really nice article.
I'm glad that we.

(01:22:02):
We read this as our first one, it,it covered so many different topics.
Yeah, this was great, Jimmy.

Agreed.
Glad we could talk about this one.
And I look forward to the next one,
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah, absolutely.
So this is the Kava Lounge.
This is our introductoryepisode, our, our debut.
We'll be talking about a lot ofdifferent topics over the coming
years and thanks for listening.
This will only get better as it goes onbecause we'll get into a better flow.
Yep.
But if you've made it this far,bula, and thank you so much,

(01:22:31):
bah Malo.
Have a good one.

All Episodes

The Kava Lounge Part 1 - Nancy J Pollock Discussion

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Kava Lounge Part 1 - Nancy J Pollock Discussion