January 28, 2024 • 45 mins
Citation: Baker, Jonathan D. 2012. “Pills, Potions, Products: Kava’s Transformations in New and Nontraditional Contexts.” The Contemporary Pacific 24 (2): 233–65. https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2012.0026.
The episode titled "JD Baker 2012" from the Kava Lounge discusses Dr. JD Baker's paper from the Journal of the Contemporary Pacific, published in 2012. The hosts, Jimmy and Douglas, explore the transformation of kava in new and non-traditional contexts. They delve into topics like kava's changing role across cultures, and its adoption in Western societies as a pharmaceutical and recreational analog. Discussions include kava's cultural significance, preparation methods, and the nuances of its use and perception in different societies. The episode also touches on the challenges of representing kava authentically in commercial products and its evolving identity in the global market.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Douglas LaRose (00:07):
Pour in the tanoa and sit down and enjoy another
session of the Kava Lounge
welcome to the show, everyone.
Welcome back.
. Jimmy Price: Welcome to the Cabo Lounge.
It's Jimmy and Douglas, and we'rehere tonight talking about Dr.
JD Baker and his paper called
Pills, potions, products, kavas Transformation,
(00:27):
and New and Non-Traditional
Jimmy Price (00:29):
Contexts.
Thank you, Doug
. , Douglas LaRose: it's from the Journal of the Contemporary
Pacific volume 24, number two.
Published in 2012.
. Jimmy Price: Yep.
And a very interesting paper it actuallyhas pictures, which is not a common
thing for a lot of these papers to have.
So that was entertaining becauseone of these pictures actually came
up not two hours after I'd finishedthis paper on kava Forms . So it
(00:52):
was a very timely thing to read.
It was and I've actually beengoing back and forth with Dr.
Baker he'll hurt me for a saying Dr.
Baker.
But this is formal.
I wanna keep it formal cuz we'respeaking about him and his work.
But I do speak with Dr.
Baker pretty often, eitherthrough email and , video chat.
Yeah.
This one's kind of closer to me in termsof the people that I've been around.
I've actually drank kava with Dr.
(01:13):
Baker twice.
And Whoa.
So, this guy I actually connectedwith instantly because we immediately
started talking about C Y P inhibition.
I sat down and was like, Dr.
Baker, and he said don't call me Dr.
Baker.
I said, okay, what aboutthis C Y P inhibition?
And we started talking about thatjust instantly when we sat down.
And I couldn't not talk to him becauseI knew who he was and that he had a lot
(01:36):
to do with kava and had written aboutit and yeah, it was just, it was a very
interesting meeting in Hawaii with him.
And this actually underscores a lotthat he's talked about with me personally
in the circles that we've had online.
It echoes a lot of hissentiments in these papers.
It was good to dig down into this andsee how he writes , it was a good paper.
And in the first paragraph,I think probably ought toll.
Just go ahead and address that.
(01:58):
The first paragraph of this paper.
Actually.
Where I go on Fridays for my Zoom sessions, they have a Zoom component to it now.
It's still going on from 2012.
Dr.
Bitten Bender puts together a kava circleafter school on Fridays at three o'clock
on campus or somewhere close to campus.
They'll have anybody from well-knownkava experts to people just
wanting to understand what kava is.
(02:20):
, three o'clock on a Friday afternoon,I seated on a stool in the back of
the corner of science lab at Manoahcampus, the University of Hawaii.
Several of the regulars are here waitingfor the co preparation to be complete.
In Pompei kava roots are pounded onbasalt slabs , that ring like bells
and the sound foreshadows the eveningof kava drinking in Skip's lab.
Kava circle is announced withthe sound of the Vitamix blender.
(02:43):
We shout over the sound of theVitamix to continue our conversations.
The kava is mixed with warm waterand run through the blender twice.
The water is strained out and theprocess is repeated , two more times.
The combination of all three extractionsis then poured into a serving bowl from
which the individual cups are scooped.
I've talked to Dr.
Bitten Bender about that process.
They use body temperature water thatis for fresh kava, and , he'll use
(03:07):
one pound of kava to about two gallonsof water, and that's their ratio.
It's strong.
Douglas LaRose (03:15):
Yeah.
I found a fresh
Jimmy Price (03:16):
Found a fresh cba, and that's about two gallons of water.
They blend it twice they'reprobably getting it way
stronger than we normally drink
Douglas LaRose (03:22):
I just have to say that, yeah.
This is an excellent paper.
I really enjoyed reading it.
That first paragraph threw me fora surprise because most , academic
papers published in journals.
, they stood up with an abstract,and it's often in italics, but
this really sets the scene.
he's describing this experiencethat he had and , he's showing
(03:42):
how all of these different ways ofpreparing cava converging in this
lab, at the University of Hawaii.
the perfect introduction to this paper.
Dr.
Jonathan D.
Baker you are an excellent writer becauseI read this whole thing in one city
and Anne enjoyed every moment of it.
It's an excellent
Jimmy Price (03:58):
paper.
This one I read this betweenphone calls at work and it
definitely captured my attention.
Douglas LaRose (04:04):
Yeah, I looked up Dr.
Baker and was surprised that he'sa professor of biology, I believe,
or he has his PhD in biology.
Because when I was reading hispaper, I was thinking that he was
an anthropologist because he wasusing social science language and
talking about ethnographic methods.
I was surprised to find outthat he was a biologist.
, that shows that he's
cutting across disciplines,
which is much neededin the academic world.
(04:26):
, Jimmy Price: definitely.
he's a plant guru.
When we were in Hawaii, he walkedby me with a bag, and he's someone
just brought me these, and itjust, he holds it up and it's these
mushrooms I'd never, seen before.
So it was just like, he loveswhat he does and he lives what
he does because people were justlike, Hey, can you ID these?
So e even when he is walking aroundknow what he is good at and they
(04:46):
seek him out for his profession.
I'll talk about how the paper's written.
It's broken down in five sections.
the first section is calledBackground Cross-Cutting Scapes.
The second section is called from Portionto Pill Kava as a pharmaceutical analog.
The next section is Buzz anda bowl Recreational kava use.
The one after that is Brownies,chocolate and soda, kavas Food Forms.
(05:07):
And finally, the future of the ccap.
There in the introduction section, theone part that captures my attention
was the phrase where he says, kavais undergoing a transformation into
an alcohol like recreational analog.
We've been speaking about that fora long time, and this has been
something that I deal withmoderating on our kava on Reddit.
(05:28):
Is everyone coming to, , kava lookingfor a substitute for alcohol?
And I thought that was very interestingthat he pointed that out at the beginning
because it is Fact that there are anumber of people that come to it that way.
it is also presented in that fashionin a lot of bars in South Florida.
North Florida, all of Florida it is putforth as a recreational analog to alcohol.
(05:52):
there's good and bad in that, butwe'll continue to get into this.
Do you have anything to say aboutthe introductory part, Doug?
Yeah, I wanna react to that because, there's a whole
section, in the paper about thattopic, it's a very shrewd point, very
well stated and argued throughout thepaper, the word analog is very key to
that sentence because, , he's talkingabout kava being something that can be
used recreationally in lieu of alcohol.
(06:15):
Which is healthier pro-socialand, , doesn't have the damaging
addictive side effects of alcohol.
right off the bat, highlightingthe benefits of kava and
Kavas role in social scenes indifferent parts of the country.
And I think to some extent ourkava community sees kava that way.
We mostly drink it recreationally.
(06:35):
I don't think any of us drinkit in a ritual way, it's
more of a social activity.
He starts off really on theright foot , with that statement.
I do wanna talk about the opening partbefore we get to the background because
he actually lays out what his argument is.
And it's a great argument.
He is talking about in this paper, theway that kava has changed over time and
(06:57):
how there's no such thing as traditional.
And this is in the realm of anthropology.
The word traditional is like a tabooword because nothing is static.
Everything is changing at all times.
, whether it's kava or Christianityor computers, whatever it is,
it's changing at all times.
So there's actually never.
a moment where you can free somethingin time and say, this is the
(07:19):
traditional way of doing things.
, he really finds the support forthat argument throughout the paper.
the first part of thepaper sets that up well.
that kava has changed over time.
The way that kava is consumed,has changed over time.
there's no good or bad in things changingor, , the way that you prepare kava.
If it's not the same as, , howancient ni Vanuatu made it, you're
(07:43):
not committing a great crime.
And I think that it's apoint that needs to be made
Jimmy Price (07:47):
Yeah, I agree with you.
And I believe that actually was oneof the first things that I highlighted
it says that kava can be thought toexist on a continuum from traditional
to non-traditional in terms of form anduse as well as associated knowledge.
this part of it rings to somethingwe've been dealing with on terms of
what is traditional So in between,there are various stages where
(08:09):
understanding of kava are a mix ofboth traditional and non-traditional.
Thus a simple traditional, non-traditionaldichotomy is too simplistic.
And I think that's what he'ssuggesting there, is that when
Kava arrives at whatever location,and I believe he even says this
verbatim, that it takes on whateverqualities that society abus it with.
So it just morphs into whatit needs to be for them.
(08:32):
Did you wanna say anythingabout that portion there?
Douglas LaRose (08:34):
I would add that when I read that part of the paper, I was happy
and excited because , kava is a plantand it's an agricultural product it
doesn't within itself contain any meaning,it's the people that drink kava, that
imbue it with meaning and substance.
as kava moves, , from culture toculture, it takes on new meanings.
(08:56):
it's a powerful, point that he's making.
One that I think the whole kavacommunity could learn from.
I just wanna Give two thumbs up to Dr.
Baker for making that excellent point.
Jimmy Price (09:04):
Yeah, right on.
And then, it goes on to talk about novelcombustibles, which are consumables
are to a large extent, interpretedthrough the lens of the culture and
to which they have been introduced.
the substance can be readily movedfrom one place to another, the
associated meanings and practices arenot inherent to the object cultural.
And social information is less evenlytransmitted than the substance themselves.
(09:27):
So I think that core there, Sums up.
What I believe he's trying to say youcan move a substance , it can do the same
things, but it will not be interpretedin the same way through the lens
of culture they will be interpreted.
So however it arrives to us, and itwill take its form through our eyes.
So I thought that was verypoignant and let's see here.
(09:49):
It says also, yeah, and,
Douglas LaRose (09:50):
I was gonna add that he uses this word
that is very interesting to me.
Indigenization.
And he talks about the way thatdifferent plants and even medicines
even like even synthetic medicines areindigenized into local ethno medical
systems So that's really a culturalprocess where logic is created to merge
(10:13):
, that medicine , into the local context.
if you pull back, 30,000 feet and youlook down on this, when Kava got to
Europe, Europeans, , looked at it asthis potential pharmaceutical, right?
So they were able to extract Coones,put them into pill form and then
prescribe it as a medicine for anxiety.
And that is a form of indigenizationthey're taking something.
(10:37):
That's traditionally consumed elsewhere,and they're turning it into this pill
form, which makes cultural sense topeople, like us, , who go to the doctor
and get prescriptions for medications.
I just think that's a cool way ofthinking about it, we're like really
obsessed with measurements and likemilligrams What's the daily dosage?
, people in Fiji and Vani when theyprepare kava, they don't think
(10:59):
about that kind of stuff at all.
And, like right from the beginning,we're taking this traditional plant and.
Presenting it to the public ina way that makes sense to them.
I had never thought about it that way, butthe way he writes this here is brilliant
, it's such a cool way of thinking about it.
a substance consumed in someindigenous context is incorporated
into the pharmaceutical context.
(11:20):
So it's like the evolution of kava frombeing a traditional drink consumed in
a group of people to being somethingthat can be put in a pill bottle.
You know about at the
Jimmy Price (11:30):
drugstore, right?
the vast majority of copper productssold in the Western countries
fall into this category of dietarysupplements, A handful in Europe
were developed in the pharmaceuticalgrade, single compound pills.
Dietary supplements are typically lessrefined than pharmaceutical products, and
are governed by different regulations.
If any plant materials incorporatedinto pharmaceuticals are reduced to
(11:51):
chemical extracts, usually comprisedof a single isolated compound.
They're stripped of theirbotanical identity for the less
refined botanical medicines.
The process is actually quite similarand the two are transformed to
be more like pharmaceuticals.
Plant medicines are turned intocapsules, pills, liquids, extracts,
and others, and to Western medicines.
Cuz , it's familiar, like you weresaying, it's familiar to the Westerner.
(12:12):
, the powdered form of Cavo hastaken so long to catch on.
it really has because in the nineties,it's had decades to exist and it hasn't
been picked up in the United States.
it just started here inthe early two thousands.
, it's taken a while for powderedkava to come to our consciousness
where these other products wekind of flock to because it's
it's in the health food store.
, you see the pills, oh, my anxiety is high.
(12:33):
Oh, my stress is high.
I can do this without takingpills, without going to the doctor.
He does a great job at illustratinghow it is repackaged from its original
form into something that's moreingestible by the American society.
Douglas LaRose (12:45):
This is one of the challenges I face when
I talk to people about kava.
Recommend kava to people whostruggle with anxiety , or are
looking for a way to wind down atthe end of a stressful workday.
They'll send me a text message or they'llcall me up and they'll be like, oh,
hey, I went down to the, , the healthfood store and I bottle a bottle of
kava capsules and I'll be like, oh no.
. Let me send you some some websites,some links, you should make it with
(13:07):
dry powder and that's really theonly way it's gonna benefit you.
And then they get confused and giveup , so when I was reading this, I was
I struggle with this issue when I'mtalking to people about kava people
will go and spend like 30, $40 on abottle of kava powder in pill capsules.
And I'm like, that's notgonna do much for you
. Jimmy Price: Nope.
sometimes just be rough cut cava in apill or a micronized cava in a pill.
(13:30):
So you're like, okay, there'sone gram in that pill.
, how many grams of cav youusually use in a session like 20.
that's a lot of pills.
You're gonna have to be swallowingto equal up a standard CVA session,
which you would normally take.
Now I realize that the micronizedportion wouldn't be that much and
you could get away with it, ifyou're looking for anxiety relief.
But in terms of experiencingkava, appreciating it's
gonna require the real deal.
(13:50):
And I know people want to say, whatabout extracts and everything?
But it requires the real deal.
there is somethingdifferent about extracts.
We don't know what causes it.
I think there's a portion of kavathat's not extracted by solvents
that is key to the kavas experience.
there's something that itdoesn't grab and pull out.
But back to the paper we're talkingabout pharmaceutical, and then
after he talks about pharmaceutical,which he defines as the process of
(14:13):
non-pharmaceutical medicines beingintroduced into a pharmaceutical
dominated western medical system.
He goes on to speak about the parallelof this process of pharmaceutical
is the notion of recreational
The first one was . Indigenization, thenpharmaceutical and now recreational.
Dr.
Baker defines this process as referringto the incorporation of a substance
(14:33):
into the context of recreational use,
he says recreational drug use itselfis a problematic concept fraught
with cultural assumptions and valuejudgments Recreational is meant to be
a descriptive term for the process bywhich something is translated into a
context of use, primarily focused oninducing intoxication or inebriation.
So it's taken from the medical form,and now we're going into the kava
(14:57):
community form, our recreational use.
I would like to focus more on therecreational side of it because I think
that when we focus on it too much asa drug, as an actual therapy for some
sort of condition, it draws , too manypeople thinking that they can solve
everything with it because it's a drug.
And that's not necessarily how kava works.
(15:17):
It was good to read through this.
he talks about other plants that havebeen subject to these effects, like coa
after it was extracted you get cocaine.
he also talks about salvia divinorum.
And talks about other soft drugs likecoffee, tea, and chocolate, which
once removed from their traditionalcontext, they become popular in the
society in which they're introduced.
So, , it is interesting to see howkava did suffer from the same sort of
(15:41):
treatment especially in the nineties.
Yeah., I wanted to jump in here really quick because, ,, when
we first started you quoted a part of itwhere he was talking about, , an alcohol
analogy He talks extensively about khatchewing, a plant that grows in Ethiopia
and the Highlands I've actually workedin Ethiopia for three years, and I
chewed khat with the local folks there.
Yeah, it's part of the culture.
(16:02):
, it's a lot like a methamphetamine.
It gives you a lot of energyand reduces your appetite.
And then,, like tobacco, , tobacco wasthis really sacred plant to Native
Americans and used in ritualisticceremonies to mark power structures
But then it turnedinto this recreational.
substance that people woulduse in social settings.
(16:22):
And I think the comparisonto Kava is really apt.
Although I do believe that kava has beenused recreationally in the Pacific Islands
for, , hundreds if not thousands of years.
, not only for, , ritualistic purposes,but yeah, I think it's a, it's
an interesting way of drying theparallel between the pharmaceutical
and the recreational of Kava.
(16:42):
And showing how those two processeshave happened here in the United
States and Europe simultaneouslyparallel to each other.
And they mean two different things,but, they've both undergone a
process that can be understoodas part of our cultural context.
a great.
Presentation of thisinformation in the paper.
Jimmy Price (17:00):
He says, kava as is discussed here in all the cases
kava is treated as an analog tosomething else already in use.
that association shapes how kava isperceived, adopted, and transformed.
Him talking about the analog to alcohol,and there's so many people that will
analog it to so many different things.
that's the first thing someoneasks on these platforms that
(17:21):
we moderate, is what is it?
What does it feel like?
what can I compare it to?
It's truly one of those things whereyou have to experience yourself.
you're not going to see ancestors,it's something very subtle that
you have to experience yourselfbefore you can truly understand it.
there's a lot of people that say it's likebenzos or alcohol means it's not really.
It's on its own level.
Douglas LaRose (17:39):
so Jimmy, Why don't you jump into the next section on
from potion to pill, because thisis a topic you're passionate about
Jimmy Price (17:45):
Oh, man, We've got plenty of papers to discuss.
it says, kavas most profoundchange in terms of context,
location, form, and use is its fulltransformation into a pharmaceutical
analog in western countries.
This section describes Kavas pharmaform So he talks about kava being
like a supplement to the industry.
Says, , by contrast dosageconsistency of kava beverage.
(18:07):
Okay.
And in this section he speaks abouthow it's very difficult to translate
from a pill to a cup of kava.
It's a difficult thing for us to saywhen you're drinking kava, you're
getting this many milligrams.
And he says, the point is thatin comparison to CVA supplement
users, most CBA drinkers are notassessing their consumption in
terms of milligrams of Cabo lactone.
I hear a lot of CVA drinkers ask, how manyCabo lactone in my drinking, in my Cabo?
(18:31):
So it is an online question.
botanicals are approaching thestandards of pharmaceuticals, they
have not entirely reached themstandardization might carry more
symbolic weight than what is warrantedbased on the existing variability.
And standardization is a big thingin these supplement industries and
making sure that whatever you sayit is on the bottle is what you're
getting and it doesn't change.
(18:53):
. Kava is a variable herb.
It can change based on, itsgenetic makeup where you purchase
it from, based on how old it is,based on what part of the plant
is being used most predominantly.
So it is a very difficultthing to actually standardize.
He speaks about the liver incident in theearly two thousands and late nineties.
that's, still a stain that we deal with.
(19:13):
the rationale for kava use wasentirely transformed it turned
into a pharmaceutical and wasprescribed as a prescription
drug in Germany and Switzerland.
Douglas LaRose (19:21):
Yeah, he talks at length here about how these studies
were done that compared the effects ofkava with benzodiazepines and showed
that kava can produce some of the samerelaxing effects as benzodiazepines.
And that was the logic that underpinnedits prescription as a anti-anxiety drug.
(19:45):
So truly it wasn't just likea, " oh, we heard about this herb.
We're gonna put it in capsuleform and sell it to the public
as a way of relieving anxiety."
It was actually the scientistsand pharmacists were.
Oh, whoever, I don't know what the titleof is of people who develop medicines.
I guess they're
yeah.
, they did these studies comparing theeffects of kava to benzodiazepines,
(20:07):
and they were sufficiently pleasedwith the results enough to,
, actually develop a prescriptionalternative to benzodiazepines.
But the thing that stood out to me isafter that discussion, he got into this
really fascinating discussion about, howthe marketing of those kava pills was
done with this traditional imagery.
Like pictures of the PacificIslands or pictures of people
(20:30):
from Popeye and New Guinea.
So yeah, the villagers that are on thebottles and the pictures of the trees,
they create this marker of authenticity.
And exotic exoticism.
Jimmy Price (20:40):
Exoticism, the exotic other
Douglas LaRose (20:42):
really links the customer feel like, oh
wow, I'm taking this medicine.
That's the traditional product ofthese wise, , islanders that have been
consuming it for thousands of years.
But then it's also capitalizingoff of that cultural.
The cultural roots ofkava in the South Pacific.
Yes.
I just thought thatwas another really cool
Jimmy Price (21:01):
discussion.
Agreed.
That's I have all thiswhole page highlighted.
It says we go the extra 8,000 miles tofind the kava that effectively promotes,
relaxation, and relieves stress.
So yeah, it's they totally do.
They'll use the the exoticism of kavabeing different at the outside,, what
is kava, He says, , I argue that thischoice illustrates that a connection to
(21:23):
actual present day cultural practicesis less important than a connection
to an implied or suggested traditionthrough which consumers will, from
Irv Farm's perspective, come toassociate authenticity and efficacy
with the product being marketed.
So I think it's, he even pokes alittle bit at herb Farm for their
Papa New Guinea advertisement.
And I thought that was agreat little section
Douglas LaRose (21:44):
one thing I wanted to point out was how these
pharmaceutical companies are invokingthe word tradition to convey a
message of safety and efficacy.
, we westerners have this image ofnatural therapeutics and herbs and,
, traditional diets and things likethat is being these pure more healthy
(22:08):
alternatives to modern medicine.
So oftentimes, , these pharmaceuticalcompanies will find something like kava
This is where issues of bio piracycome up, , where people start getting
worried about people stealing theintellectual property of indigenous
peoples and then, , making millionsand billions of dollars off of it.
What the literatureconsidered as bio piracy.
But he's really making the case herethat these pharmaceutical companies took
(22:31):
this traditional herb saw that it wassuccessful at addressing some of these
anxiety issues and then used that wordtradition and the cultural context of
the South Pacific to make their patientsfeel like they were getting something
healthier than a benzodiazepine.
Which is true , but it's alsousing the traditional image to
Jimmy Price (22:52):
strengthen their sales pitch.
It's commercial kava and farmform is significantly transformed
in terms of space or localityas well as context of use.
Root material is shipped to westerncountries where it's processed into
capsules, tinctures, and tablets.
These value added products are turndistributed throughout the world.
It is possible, for example, tobuy kava supplements in Honolulu.
(23:14):
The kava goes full circle and returnsto the Pacific after being transformed.
You can buy a CBA extract inHonolulu, and that's where
probably that kava started from,came back to you in that form.
And that kind of leads us into our nextportion of the paper, which is titled
Buzz and a Bowl, recreational kava Usage.
And the kava sewer is the king ofthe recreation of Kasur platform.
(23:37):
I'll let him take it away on that one.
Douglas LaRose (23:38):
Yeah, I was a little bit disappointed, that the Kasur blog
was not, mentioned but I'm just joking.
2012.
Yeah.
. Yeah.
2012.
It was right.
My, my blog was around then.
Yeah.
So this part of the paper one thing thatstood out to me was, , he is talking
about, , kava bars and the contemporarykava drinking scene in the United States,
specifically places, , like Florida.
(23:59):
he mentions actual kavabars that I've been to.
But one of the really cool thingsthat he does is he talks about
how these kava bars tap into.
Those traditions and the imageryassociated with the South Pacific.
If you're listening to this podcastand you've been to a kava bar, you've
probably seen, a tiki god or a tikiidol on the wall, or some kind of
(24:23):
imitation of, bamboo on the walls.
That's all to make you feel like you'rehaving this authentic experience.
, in many of these contexts,there is an awareness of the
traditions associated with kava.
Even if little of this knowledgeis incorporated into the actual
protocols of drinking, the purposeof consumption is largely consonant
with less formal social consumptionand Pacific Islander communities.
(24:46):
So yeah, he calls this quasitraditional consumption.
we see this all the time, online and onthe kava group and forums where, , people
are hosting these, kava ceremoniesin different kava bars, , in Georgia,
in Florida, all over the place they'resitting around with a ta Noah, drinking
kava, and they're talking about Fiji.
(25:07):
They're talking about UA too.
And they're trying to representthe traditional consumption of kava
and make people feel like they'repart of this traditional history.
But they're not getting it right.
When you go to a kava bar in Florida andyou sit around at Tenino and you drink
kava and, you talk about your feelings oryou like wave crystals around or whatever.
, that's not traditional kava consumption.
But it's presented as such.
(25:28):
So these kava bars tap into thetraditional aesthetic of kava
without actually, achieving a, kindof replication of the ceremony.
And I think Dr.
Baker would agree that there isno such thing as a traditional
ceremony , , so they're notreally committing any great crime.
They're just doing their best to, helppeople out and give them an authentic
(25:48):
experience, but also have a successful
Jimmy Price (25:50):
business.
And some of 'em are just straight silly
Douglas LaRose (25:52):
Yeah.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with being silly.
Jimmy Price (25:55):
And one of the parts I highlighted close to where you're
talking about is it says , despitethe partial continuity, there are
important differences between traditionaland quasi traditional consumption.
The lack of formal protocolsor ceremonies associated with
drinking is the primary difference.
That means that the quasi traditionalconsumption is just you and your
(26:15):
friends around it, as , Traditionalas it needs to be put forth.
But , that is a change from, whatwe see that Cabo bars are doing.
It's a complete mirroring of theactual alcohol industry where
you're served, you drink your drinkor your shell. A lot of them are
not conducive to that environment.
I can't say that overall that everyoneis not, because a number of bars that
(26:35):
do take this into account and willprovide this space for people to do
this and or provide or do it themselves.
And I'd like to give credit to them,but overall, the most of the bars we see
and we see talked about are the ones thatyou find in head shops , don't typically
completely sell kava, or are big.
They sell vapes and THC products, kraim,everything else, , so that's the kind
(26:57):
of thing that I'm not sure how we getacross that it's not traditional, I
thought that was a great spot in there.
he's talking about thelack of formal protocols.
I've seen it, but I wouldn'tknow how to do that myself.
Douglas LaRose (27:08):
that would just be one iteration of the protocols too.
there is no official wayof conducting a KA ceremony.
, it's changed over time.
It continues to change.
And it depends on, , whetheryou're in Samoa or Fiji or Toga
or Vanuatu, like all those kavaceremonies are gonna look different.
So it's okay, which one would you followif you did decide to do it authentically?
(27:28):
? , it's a super interesting discussion,and then he goes on to talk
about the analogy to alcohol.
And I think you could have gotten alittle bit more into this but he talks
about how, , I argue, this is a quote.
I argue that in the kava bar, asin Hawaii as well as this, in the
continental United States, kava functionsas an analog for alcohol consumption.
It is still a social beverage, butthe norms of social interaction
(27:50):
are akin to what would beseen in a bar serving alcohol.
Furthermore, this is morepronounced in kava bars on the
continent than in those in Hawaii.
And, in the continental United Statesif you grow up in a traditional
middle class family, you're probably.
going to college hitting the bars andgetting blackout drunk with your friends.
(28:13):
and that behavior continues until yourealize that you're destroying your
body and your mind, till it hurts.
kava, can mimic that environment and thatsocial setting I've been to these kava
bars and they work wonders for people.
They keep people sober.
They give people community, they providea lot of good things , for the patrons.
And it is similar to alcohol becauseit's an alternative to alcohol.
(28:36):
Kava bars are alternativesto alcohol bars.
and I think that , at the end of theday, , this isn't a paper about addiction
or about , kava being better than alcoholor kava being the solution to alcoholism.
for a lot of people, kava has become, asolution for their addiction issues a
way to get their lives back on trackand away from self-destruction,
Jimmy Price (28:59):
Agreed.
that's how I came to cross kava.
I have a little spot below where itsays the farther removed recreational
consumption is from the Pacific, theless informed it is by actual historical
and present day kava drinking practices.
And I thought that was Insightful interms of the way that's exactly right.
The further away itgoes from its homeland.
(29:19):
The less informed it is by theactual historical and present
day kava drinking practices.
Kava has made it here before thereal kava information had, we
didn't know what we were doing andwe didn't know how to address kava or
how it was supposed to be consumed.
Because we were presentedwith bags of powder.
how do you go about this?
that's the first question mostpeople ask is, okay, I got the
(29:40):
powder, I got the strainer.
What's next?
A different sort of paradigm forAmericans to have to brew up a kava
beverage to drink for an effect
And it's a hard sell, but,, we exist.
So there are people that take to itand it is a positive thing for them.
this is where he talks about the allbus pass from hall Noah and if you can
get your free 10 Noah once you drinkenough shells or something like that.
Douglas LaRose (30:02):
was gonna say really quick on that note about the difficulty
of accessing and understanding kava.
I think people like you and I takeit for granted because we've been
drinking kava for so long but Iremember when I first started
ordering Kava online and preparing it.
I was super intimidated.
And I think that is still theexperience of a lot of people that
(30:23):
come to kava is they get this bag inthe mail and they get even they get
this strainer with the bag, but it'sstill like, how much of this do I use?
And like people like youand we stop answering them.
So we just let other people answer them.
Who are on the forums.
But it is very intimidatingcuz you're like, you don't
know what it's gonna feel like.
how to prepare it and youdon't know like the basics how
(30:44):
to brew up a shell of kava.
And I remind myself thatthis is not something that
I've always known how to do.
. Jimmy Price: And he talks about here and I thought this was pretty funny about
how , it comes full circle again wherean individual was making a ka vanilla
shake using gel caps and ice cream.
they were mixing 20 to 30gel caps in their ice cream.
(31:05):
with a couple shakes of cinnamon,some vanilla extract and
blend for about five minutes.
We went full circle and they're tryingto make drinks outta the extract pills.
And it's funny how we come back to theway that Cabo was consumed the whole time.
It, and we go away from thecapsule, the way from the extracts
back, back to, and it is us too.
(31:25):
Like we, at first, we wereall into, the Paradise kava
extracts all the extract drinks
Let's try that.
And now it's.
We find , more value in the powderedCVAs than we ever had in the extracts.
Yeah, some of 'em taste pretty good..
The extract from Paradise CVAcalled what was it, coconut, vanilla
something, but it was, oh man, itwas like eating numbing ice cream.
(31:46):
It was just a different thing.
And it was, I'm not sure I reallygot that much effect off extracts.
Maybe a little bit of headinessgoing back to the paper here.
He says the boundary betweenrecreational drug use and the
consumption of kava foods is fuzzy.
And it is one of the issues loomingon the horizon with respects
to kava and kava marketing.
And this is a very, he's Nostradamussaying this stuff right now because
(32:08):
it we're dealing with with somepretty serious issues where people
are calling their products kava andthey are at best a minority kava.
And at worst, it is usually someextracted plant material that is
very addictive and they're tryingto sell the product under the guise
of it being a pure kava product.
(32:29):
it is a big threat to our industry rightnow and how this recreational drug and
consumption of food is being blurred.
And especially if we have people thatare saying, , this is this, use this shot
to, , increase the energy in your day.
, this is the best functional drink,, and it's just not, it needs to be
divorced of those sort of things.
Kava deserves more respect than itto be jammed into a bottle with some
(32:50):
, addictive substance that totally changesthe nature of the entire beverage.
That is not kava.
It's not even kava.
It doesn't even have actual kavaand it's just kava lactone extracts.
I don't know.
I completely agree with you.
I think that it is a hugeproblem that we're facing.
this goes back to what I was sayingearlier about how kavas very intimidating,
, when you get your bag of kava in themail, you don't know what to do with it.
(33:12):
so people are attempted to buy theselittle shots or,, kava products that
have, , cra mixed in with them andcaffeine mixed in with them, and crazy
high doses of vitamin B or whatever thehell people wanna mix with their kava.
And yeah, it's, those people mightwalk away from that experience saying,
oh, I took Kava and I got really sick.
Or I've been taking Kava andI got really addicted to it.
(33:35):
And, the public doesn't know any better.
They, , then just acceptwhat they're saying.
, they don't know that there's away of consuming kava that is just
kava, , so, it's a really importantpoint and it can't be said too much.
If we repeat that point on everypodcast , that we record, we
will be doing a service To Kava.
Because it's such an important point.
(33:56):
Absolutely.
People need to know that if they'rebuying kava in a bag and they're putting
it into a cve and they're putting it inwater, and they're making a water aqueous
kava drink, then they're doing it right
kava.
Jimmy Price (34:07):
That's right.
That's all you need.
The codex recommends kava as water androot particle mixed together and strained.
And that's, when we saykava, that's what we mean.
Anything outside of that istechnically a kava, lactone product.
An extract product.
You wouldn't wanna call the pillsthat are in the bottle kava.
It gives the wrong impression No, thoseare kava, lactone crammed into a pill.
(34:29):
Kavas an experience.
Kava is a plant, kavas a drink.
It is not these pills, it is notthese kava, lactone extract beverages.
It's not these shots.
that's a traditional consumption,as defined by the codex,
Or traditional has the sameexact meaning, but . I think that
kind of leads us into our nextsection titled, Chavas Food Forms.
And, this actually brought back a lot ofmemories because, and I actually through
(34:52):
this paper, I copied one of the imagesand sent to the creator because I knew
one of the guys that, and you do too.
But one of the guys that made one of theproducts in the next section, explained
to me what it was and how it was madethis whole section was very interesting.
He talks about how they went throughdifferent iterations of tests to see
what they could find, anything thatcould cover the taste of kava, They
had made kava butter ginger flavoredkava extracts, drinks kava bread.
(35:16):
They had bloody Marys withkava in it, mustard muffins,
pastry popcorn, and chocolate.
so many different things that theytried to cover the taste of Cabo with.
And I was actually speakingwith him last night.
He said every one of those was terribleAnd of course, in the paper he tries
to be nice and it's they weren'tthat great, but he said that nothing.
It turns out that Cabo Lactone have aflavor and a minimum effective amount.
(35:41):
So you have to have a certainamount in Whatever you're eating
to actually provide an effect.
And that amount turns out thatyou can't hide any sort of food
product without still being ableto detect the Cabo lactone flavor.
That unique and sometimes off-puttingflavor that people don't necessarily
flock to, but is common in kava.
(36:02):
But that's the kava Lactone.
he tries all these differentthings and he talks about bit Dr.
Bitten Bender has made a kavaJava mixture with coffee and kava.
I'll let you talk for a minute.
Doug.
. Douglas LaRose: I just first wanna respond to the kava coffee combination.
There's nothing I've despise more than.
Kava coffee combinations.
I think because of the psychoactiveeffect, the synergy of kava and coffee.
(36:25):
They don't go well together.
some people like it, but forme, coffee and kava, don't
even cancel each other out.
They create like a ballof anxiety in my brain.
So when it comes to these kava products,these kava UNE products called them,
I am not a fan and I've made nosecrets about the fact that I don't
take kindly to these like milkshakesand cocktails and kava chocolate.
(36:48):
infusions and kava popcorn soundsabsolutely terrible as well.
Batter bread.
Come on.
Like the, that sounds like aterrible way to get your kava.
Just accept the fact that kavatastes the weight that it tastes.
. And remember that when you drink kavait's going to affect your taste buds,
, for the next like 30 or 40 minutes.
Because it totally blowsapart your taste buds.
(37:10):
And that pepperiness I happen to,like the flavor of kava by itself.
I happen to, like theflavor of kava by itself.
But I have never had anythingexcept for kava candies.
The kava extract that Paradise Kavasold, was the best I've ever had.
And then some of the Kava Ritasand stuff like that, that are made
from the kava Lockton extracts.
(37:32):
. But that's really masking the flavorof the kava to the point where you're
getting the kava Locktons, but it'sso far removed from kava itself
This is where he brings up the pictures.
He talks about the Kona Coastchocolate, and says the worst
combination was the chocolate in Kava.
It ruined the quality of the tasteof both if the kava content was high
enough, the food content numbed themouth and tastes bitter and earthy
(37:55):
If it tastes good, the kava contentwas probably low CBAs flavor is
an acquired taste for Westerners.
And it truly is.
I have never once like reallytruly warmed up to that flavor.
When Dr.
Apple made it in circle, I drank thatand I didn't have any sort of terrible
reaction like I do when I drink mythick paint before I go to bed.
, there is a big difference betweenstupidly concentrated cava and cava
(38:16):
consumed in amounts that are somewhat moretraditional and lower and more diluted.
When I place some of my judgmentson its flavor, they are quite
augmented by its concentration.
So that's always with me when it comesto flavors, always take that bit of
salt with it, because when I drinkkava, it's always extremely concentrated.
So there's never something that I find.
(38:38):
pleasant about that flavor, buthey, I don't complain about it.
, I'll sit there and I'll cuss at my sinkmy back splash, but I'll remember that
Cabo was consumed against the removalof culture by missionaries in Van Watu.
And it signified a complete turn againstthe missionaries the flavors doesn't
even phase me at that point becausekava has that deep history that it's
(38:59):
too cool to worry about the taste,you're drinking history here and it's
actually reducing your anxiety Justdon't complain about the muddy flavor.
. Just take it for what it is.
it's part of the experience.
kava is graciously lending youpart of itself for the time being.
And some days it might be a lot, and somedays it might not be much at all, He says
that Ava Twoo, which was a product by oia.
(39:20):
And that's made by a gentlemanthat both Douglass and I know
personally, his name is Steve.
And he had made a kava extract beverage.
He told me it was the 30% extract.
You add some lessin you hit it with ahigh sheer immersion blender then add
some ginger for flavoring and some sugar.
He's there, it's not that complicated.
But he created a extract drink thatwon the taste contest in Hawaii for
(39:45):
one of the Hawaii kava conventions.
Why did he,
Douglas LaRose (39:48):
why did he stop?
Jimmy Price (39:49):
me.
And honestly I would try it, but I'mpretty sure he stopped because of
logistic issue like most peopledo when they sell bottled kava.
Yeah.
It's just hard to sell bottledkava and be somewhat affordable
and shipping large glass bottles orplastic bottles, just not that makes.
And you'd have to make it some sortof topping that we're like super
concentrated where it was just onebottle would be enough for 40 uses.
(40:12):
he speaks about some other products inhere that I think I've seen in the past.
One was Mary Jane's relaxing Soda.
I remember drinking some of thatthinking, when's gonna kick in?
it didn't do anything, of course,It was another one of those
things they tried and it failed.
he talks a lot aboutthings that try and fail.
Here's one that I saw, and I spokeabout this at the beginning of the
podcast, that on page 2 55, there'san image of traditional Hawaiian teas.
(40:35):
It says 100% certified Hawaiian,and it says, ingredients list
100% all natural, big island grownHawaiian Ava leaves and lemongrass.
So it's a tea of kava,leafs and lemongrass.
this product actuallyshowed up on kava forums.
Three hours after I finishedreading this paper someone in Hawaii
(40:55):
posted and says, is this safe todrink ? So it point very timely.
And maybe we will have a podcaston p n g usage of kava at some
point, because that's another topicthat could be a good deep dive
into the leaf consumption of kava.
But he talks about that and showsa picture of some sort of kava
sexual enhancer found at a hotel.
(41:16):
it's interesting he hasthe Chinese go ahead, Doug.
Douglas LaRose (41:17):
I was just gonna say that it was a Chinese product that was sold
in China, and they were advertising itas a sexual enhancer in China, a lot of.
Extracts supplements, claim that they're,beneficial for sexual performance
. Jimmy Price: So there's no research to confirm that There might be research
to confirm the opposite, actually.
Here's where Dr.
(41:38):
Baker talks about the word tradition as itis frequently used in popular culture and
narratives, suggest behavior or beliefsfrom the past that have a stable form.
That's like saying computer andusing a reference from 1992.
We have to continue to stay constantwith things and traditional.
Takes different formsand changes over time.
Here he says, traditional, likewiseis problematic as an adjective.
(42:01):
In addition to implying a fictionalstability for cultures, it also
alludes to the continued discourseabout human societies ranked
on a continuum of development.
Traditional cultures are juxtaposed withmodernity, sometimes being traditional
as portrayed as positive, whereother times traditional societies are
characterized as backwards or primitive.
The word traditional.
Yeah, it could be a double-edged sword.
(42:23):
It can be used for good and bad.
Yeah.
I wanted to make a point herebecause you can use all kinds of
analogies, , like computers and.
Tobacco or whatever.
But just kava itself, like when youread the history of kava use in Vanuatu,
when you hear about how it was consumedin the pre-colonial period, then the
colonial period where people wherethese evangelical colonial forces and
(42:47):
occupiers were, , forcing people tostop drinking kava and claiming that it
was like the Devil's Root or whatever.
So there was many years wherepeople didn't drink kava.
And those traditions, thoserituals that Kava was associated
with in Vanuatu were disrupted.
And then in the post-independenceperiod, they revitalized kava
(43:09):
as a way of like national unity.
To show that, , this is partof bi Niwa, we drink kava.
This is part of our culture.
kava consumption doesn't have a statictraditional pattern that it follows.
social scientists argue that traditionsare performative, dynamic and subject
to reinterpretation and strategicreconfiguration based on present
(43:29):
political and social contexts.
And that's exactly what, that's exactlywhat that example demonstrates, is how
there was a way that Kava was consumedbefore the colonial period, and a way it
was consumed after The new HIEs in Vasu.
They weren't like, oh, beingdrinking kava is like a core
part of our national identity.
Nobody was thinking that way.
(43:49):
, they lived in villages.
They didn't really have an idea ofwhat a state was, what a nation was.
And then after the independence, theyreimagined the role of carbon society
and created these new traditions.
you can look at kava itself in the historyof kava to show how that's happened even
in the most traditional heartland of kava.
Vanuatu is where Kava comes from.
(44:09):
. And they, the people in Vva havecreated new meaning and new rituals,
a new traditions around kava.
So really just drives that pointhome, like really eloquently
Jimmy Price (44:21):
agreed.
I believe that kind of sums up and itleads us to the end of our paper here.
He says that , it is well worthconsidering the impact these trends
might have on the future of kava in thevarious contexts in which it's consumed.
We are considering those and theimpact that they're having, and we're
watching the impact that they're having.
And so there's a lot of otherpeople you can just come on Facebook
(44:41):
and see the opinions people haveabout the impact it's having.
But I thought this paper was excellent.
Even though it's written in 2012,it's still very applicable today.
we have current examples of everythinghe's spoken about So it's a very
insightful paper in terms of howhe predicted what was to come.
And it was pretty obvious at thetime what was gonna happen because
(45:02):
it's happened in other industries.
interesting to see its impact
On the average consumer.
Great paper.
So I'll let you close it out.
Doug
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah, I think you've said it all , and Dr.
Baker As you said, 2012, whenI started reading this, I asked
myself, when was this written?
And I was surprised it feelslike it was written like, , three
years ago or two years ago.
, it's so on point in this moment thatwe're experiencing with Kava right now.
(45:25):
. He says it all right here.
And I would encourage everybodyto check out this paper.
He talks about how kava traditionsare different, , like with Australian
Aborigines and people in the Salt Islands.
So yeah, check it out.
Dr.
Baker's two thumbs upfor an awesome paper.
Hope to be reading more ofyour stuff in the future.
Right on.
Bula.
Pour in the tanoa and sit down and enjoy another
session of the Kava Lounge
welcome to the show, everyone.
Welcome back.
. Jimmy Price: Welcome to the Cabo Lounge.
It's Jimmy and Douglas, and we'rehere tonight talking about Dr.
JD Baker and his paper called
Pills, potions, products, kavas Transformation,
(00:27):
and New and Non-Traditional
Jimmy Price (00:29):
Contexts.
Thank you, Doug
. , Douglas LaRose: it's from the Journal of the Contemporary
Pacific volume 24, number two.
Published in 2012.
. Jimmy Price: Yep.
And a very interesting paper it actuallyhas pictures, which is not a common
thing for a lot of these papers to have.
So that was entertaining becauseone of these pictures actually came
up not two hours after I'd finishedthis paper on kava Forms . So it
(00:52):
was a very timely thing to read.
It was and I've actually beengoing back and forth with Dr.
Baker he'll hurt me for a saying Dr.
Baker.
But this is formal.
I wanna keep it formal cuz we'respeaking about him and his work.
But I do speak with Dr.
Baker pretty often, eitherthrough email and , video chat.
Yeah.
This one's kind of closer to me in termsof the people that I've been around.
I've actually drank kava with Dr.
(01:13):
Baker twice.
And Whoa.
So, this guy I actually connectedwith instantly because we immediately
started talking about C Y P inhibition.
I sat down and was like, Dr.
Baker, and he said don't call me Dr.
Baker.
I said, okay, what aboutthis C Y P inhibition?
And we started talking about thatjust instantly when we sat down.
And I couldn't not talk to him becauseI knew who he was and that he had a lot
(01:36):
to do with kava and had written aboutit and yeah, it was just, it was a very
interesting meeting in Hawaii with him.
And this actually underscores a lotthat he's talked about with me personally
in the circles that we've had online.
It echoes a lot of hissentiments in these papers.
It was good to dig down into this andsee how he writes , it was a good paper.
And in the first paragraph,I think probably ought toll.
Just go ahead and address that.
(01:58):
The first paragraph of this paper.
Actually.
Where I go on Fridays for my Zoom sessions, they have a Zoom component to it now.
It's still going on from 2012.
Dr.
Bitten Bender puts together a kava circleafter school on Fridays at three o'clock
on campus or somewhere close to campus.
They'll have anybody from well-knownkava experts to people just
wanting to understand what kava is.
(02:20):
, three o'clock on a Friday afternoon,I seated on a stool in the back of
the corner of science lab at Manoahcampus, the University of Hawaii.
Several of the regulars are here waitingfor the co preparation to be complete.
In Pompei kava roots are pounded onbasalt slabs , that ring like bells
and the sound foreshadows the eveningof kava drinking in Skip's lab.
Kava circle is announced withthe sound of the Vitamix blender.
(02:43):
We shout over the sound of theVitamix to continue our conversations.
The kava is mixed with warm waterand run through the blender twice.
The water is strained out and theprocess is repeated , two more times.
The combination of all three extractionsis then poured into a serving bowl from
which the individual cups are scooped.
I've talked to Dr.
Bitten Bender about that process.
They use body temperature water thatis for fresh kava, and , he'll use
(03:07):
one pound of kava to about two gallonsof water, and that's their ratio.
It's strong.
Douglas LaRose (03:15):
Yeah.
I found a fresh
Jimmy Price (03:16):
Found a fresh cba, and that's about two gallons of water.
They blend it twice they'reprobably getting it way
stronger than we normally drink
Douglas LaRose (03:22):
I just have to say that, yeah.
This is an excellent paper.
I really enjoyed reading it.
That first paragraph threw me fora surprise because most , academic
papers published in journals.
, they stood up with an abstract,and it's often in italics, but
this really sets the scene.
he's describing this experiencethat he had and , he's showing
(03:42):
how all of these different ways ofpreparing cava converging in this
lab, at the University of Hawaii.
the perfect introduction to this paper.
Dr.
Jonathan D.
Baker you are an excellent writer becauseI read this whole thing in one city
and Anne enjoyed every moment of it.
It's an excellent
Jimmy Price (03:58):
paper.
This one I read this betweenphone calls at work and it
definitely captured my attention.
Douglas LaRose (04:04):
Yeah, I looked up Dr.
Baker and was surprised that he'sa professor of biology, I believe,
or he has his PhD in biology.
Because when I was reading hispaper, I was thinking that he was
an anthropologist because he wasusing social science language and
talking about ethnographic methods.
I was surprised to find outthat he was a biologist.
, that shows that he's
cutting across disciplines,
which is much neededin the academic world.
(04:26):
, Jimmy Price: definitely.
he's a plant guru.
When we were in Hawaii, he walkedby me with a bag, and he's someone
just brought me these, and itjust, he holds it up and it's these
mushrooms I'd never, seen before.
So it was just like, he loveswhat he does and he lives what
he does because people were justlike, Hey, can you ID these?
So e even when he is walking aroundknow what he is good at and they
(04:46):
seek him out for his profession.
I'll talk about how the paper's written.
It's broken down in five sections.
the first section is calledBackground Cross-Cutting Scapes.
The second section is called from Portionto Pill Kava as a pharmaceutical analog.
The next section is Buzz anda bowl Recreational kava use.
The one after that is Brownies,chocolate and soda, kavas Food Forms.
(05:07):
And finally, the future of the ccap.
There in the introduction section, theone part that captures my attention
was the phrase where he says, kavais undergoing a transformation into
an alcohol like recreational analog.
We've been speaking about that fora long time, and this has been
something that I deal withmoderating on our kava on Reddit.
(05:28):
Is everyone coming to, , kava lookingfor a substitute for alcohol?
And I thought that was very interestingthat he pointed that out at the beginning
because it is Fact that there are anumber of people that come to it that way.
it is also presented in that fashionin a lot of bars in South Florida.
North Florida, all of Florida it is putforth as a recreational analog to alcohol.
(05:52):
there's good and bad in that, butwe'll continue to get into this.
Do you have anything to say aboutthe introductory part, Doug?
Yeah, I wanna react to that because, there's a whole
section, in the paper about thattopic, it's a very shrewd point, very
well stated and argued throughout thepaper, the word analog is very key to
that sentence because, , he's talkingabout kava being something that can be
used recreationally in lieu of alcohol.
(06:15):
Which is healthier pro-socialand, , doesn't have the damaging
addictive side effects of alcohol.
right off the bat, highlightingthe benefits of kava and
Kavas role in social scenes indifferent parts of the country.
And I think to some extent ourkava community sees kava that way.
We mostly drink it recreationally.
(06:35):
I don't think any of us drinkit in a ritual way, it's
more of a social activity.
He starts off really on theright foot , with that statement.
I do wanna talk about the opening partbefore we get to the background because
he actually lays out what his argument is.
And it's a great argument.
He is talking about in this paper, theway that kava has changed over time and
(06:57):
how there's no such thing as traditional.
And this is in the realm of anthropology.
The word traditional is like a tabooword because nothing is static.
Everything is changing at all times.
, whether it's kava or Christianityor computers, whatever it is,
it's changing at all times.
So there's actually never.
a moment where you can free somethingin time and say, this is the
(07:19):
traditional way of doing things.
, he really finds the support forthat argument throughout the paper.
the first part of thepaper sets that up well.
that kava has changed over time.
The way that kava is consumed,has changed over time.
there's no good or bad in things changingor, , the way that you prepare kava.
If it's not the same as, , howancient ni Vanuatu made it, you're
(07:43):
not committing a great crime.
And I think that it's apoint that needs to be made
Jimmy Price (07:47):
Yeah, I agree with you.
And I believe that actually was oneof the first things that I highlighted
it says that kava can be thought toexist on a continuum from traditional
to non-traditional in terms of form anduse as well as associated knowledge.
this part of it rings to somethingwe've been dealing with on terms of
what is traditional So in between,there are various stages where
(08:09):
understanding of kava are a mix ofboth traditional and non-traditional.
Thus a simple traditional, non-traditionaldichotomy is too simplistic.
And I think that's what he'ssuggesting there, is that when
Kava arrives at whatever location,and I believe he even says this
verbatim, that it takes on whateverqualities that society abus it with.
So it just morphs into whatit needs to be for them.
(08:32):
Did you wanna say anythingabout that portion there?
Douglas LaRose (08:34):
I would add that when I read that part of the paper, I was happy
and excited because , kava is a plantand it's an agricultural product it
doesn't within itself contain any meaning,it's the people that drink kava, that
imbue it with meaning and substance.
as kava moves, , from culture toculture, it takes on new meanings.
(08:56):
it's a powerful, point that he's making.
One that I think the whole kavacommunity could learn from.
I just wanna Give two thumbs up to Dr.
Baker for making that excellent point.
Jimmy Price (09:04):
Yeah, right on.
And then, it goes on to talk about novelcombustibles, which are consumables
are to a large extent, interpretedthrough the lens of the culture and
to which they have been introduced.
the substance can be readily movedfrom one place to another, the
associated meanings and practices arenot inherent to the object cultural.
And social information is less evenlytransmitted than the substance themselves.
(09:27):
So I think that core there, Sums up.
What I believe he's trying to say youcan move a substance , it can do the same
things, but it will not be interpretedin the same way through the lens
of culture they will be interpreted.
So however it arrives to us, and itwill take its form through our eyes.
So I thought that was verypoignant and let's see here.
(09:49):
It says also, yeah, and,
Douglas LaRose (09:50):
I was gonna add that he uses this word
that is very interesting to me.
Indigenization.
And he talks about the way thatdifferent plants and even medicines
even like even synthetic medicines areindigenized into local ethno medical
systems So that's really a culturalprocess where logic is created to merge
(10:13):
, that medicine , into the local context.
if you pull back, 30,000 feet and youlook down on this, when Kava got to
Europe, Europeans, , looked at it asthis potential pharmaceutical, right?
So they were able to extract Coones,put them into pill form and then
prescribe it as a medicine for anxiety.
And that is a form of indigenizationthey're taking something.
(10:37):
That's traditionally consumed elsewhere,and they're turning it into this pill
form, which makes cultural sense topeople, like us, , who go to the doctor
and get prescriptions for medications.
I just think that's a cool way ofthinking about it, we're like really
obsessed with measurements and likemilligrams What's the daily dosage?
, people in Fiji and Vani when theyprepare kava, they don't think
(10:59):
about that kind of stuff at all.
And, like right from the beginning,we're taking this traditional plant and.
Presenting it to the public ina way that makes sense to them.
I had never thought about it that way, butthe way he writes this here is brilliant
, it's such a cool way of thinking about it.
a substance consumed in someindigenous context is incorporated
into the pharmaceutical context.
(11:20):
So it's like the evolution of kava frombeing a traditional drink consumed in
a group of people to being somethingthat can be put in a pill bottle.
You know about at the
Jimmy Price (11:30):
drugstore, right?
the vast majority of copper productssold in the Western countries
fall into this category of dietarysupplements, A handful in Europe
were developed in the pharmaceuticalgrade, single compound pills.
Dietary supplements are typically lessrefined than pharmaceutical products, and
are governed by different regulations.
If any plant materials incorporatedinto pharmaceuticals are reduced to
(11:51):
chemical extracts, usually comprisedof a single isolated compound.
They're stripped of theirbotanical identity for the less
refined botanical medicines.
The process is actually quite similarand the two are transformed to
be more like pharmaceuticals.
Plant medicines are turned intocapsules, pills, liquids, extracts,
and others, and to Western medicines.
Cuz , it's familiar, like you weresaying, it's familiar to the Westerner.
(12:12):
, the powdered form of Cavo hastaken so long to catch on.
it really has because in the nineties,it's had decades to exist and it hasn't
been picked up in the United States.
it just started here inthe early two thousands.
, it's taken a while for powderedkava to come to our consciousness
where these other products wekind of flock to because it's
it's in the health food store.
, you see the pills, oh, my anxiety is high.
(12:33):
Oh, my stress is high.
I can do this without takingpills, without going to the doctor.
He does a great job at illustratinghow it is repackaged from its original
form into something that's moreingestible by the American society.
Douglas LaRose (12:45):
This is one of the challenges I face when
I talk to people about kava.
Recommend kava to people whostruggle with anxiety , or are
looking for a way to wind down atthe end of a stressful workday.
They'll send me a text message or they'llcall me up and they'll be like, oh,
hey, I went down to the, , the healthfood store and I bottle a bottle of
kava capsules and I'll be like, oh no.
. Let me send you some some websites,some links, you should make it with
(13:07):
dry powder and that's really theonly way it's gonna benefit you.
And then they get confused and giveup , so when I was reading this, I was
I struggle with this issue when I'mtalking to people about kava people
will go and spend like 30, $40 on abottle of kava powder in pill capsules.
And I'm like, that's notgonna do much for you
. Jimmy Price: Nope.
sometimes just be rough cut cava in apill or a micronized cava in a pill.
(13:30):
So you're like, okay, there'sone gram in that pill.
, how many grams of cav youusually use in a session like 20.
that's a lot of pills.
You're gonna have to be swallowingto equal up a standard CVA session,
which you would normally take.
Now I realize that the micronizedportion wouldn't be that much and
you could get away with it, ifyou're looking for anxiety relief.
But in terms of experiencingkava, appreciating it's
gonna require the real deal.
(13:50):
And I know people want to say, whatabout extracts and everything?
But it requires the real deal.
there is somethingdifferent about extracts.
We don't know what causes it.
I think there's a portion of kavathat's not extracted by solvents
that is key to the kavas experience.
there's something that itdoesn't grab and pull out.
But back to the paper we're talkingabout pharmaceutical, and then
after he talks about pharmaceutical,which he defines as the process of
(14:13):
non-pharmaceutical medicines beingintroduced into a pharmaceutical
dominated western medical system.
He goes on to speak about the parallelof this process of pharmaceutical
is the notion of recreational
The first one was . Indigenization, thenpharmaceutical and now recreational.
Dr.
Baker defines this process as referringto the incorporation of a substance
(14:33):
into the context of recreational use,
he says recreational drug use itselfis a problematic concept fraught
with cultural assumptions and valuejudgments Recreational is meant to be
a descriptive term for the process bywhich something is translated into a
context of use, primarily focused oninducing intoxication or inebriation.
So it's taken from the medical form,and now we're going into the kava
(14:57):
community form, our recreational use.
I would like to focus more on therecreational side of it because I think
that when we focus on it too much asa drug, as an actual therapy for some
sort of condition, it draws , too manypeople thinking that they can solve
everything with it because it's a drug.
And that's not necessarily how kava works.
(15:17):
It was good to read through this.
he talks about other plants that havebeen subject to these effects, like coa
after it was extracted you get cocaine.
he also talks about salvia divinorum.
And talks about other soft drugs likecoffee, tea, and chocolate, which
once removed from their traditionalcontext, they become popular in the
society in which they're introduced.
So, , it is interesting to see howkava did suffer from the same sort of
(15:41):
treatment especially in the nineties.
Yeah., I wanted to jump in here really quick because, ,, when
we first started you quoted a part of itwhere he was talking about, , an alcohol
analogy He talks extensively about khatchewing, a plant that grows in Ethiopia
and the Highlands I've actually workedin Ethiopia for three years, and I
chewed khat with the local folks there.
Yeah, it's part of the culture.
(16:02):
, it's a lot like a methamphetamine.
It gives you a lot of energyand reduces your appetite.
And then,, like tobacco, , tobacco wasthis really sacred plant to Native
Americans and used in ritualisticceremonies to mark power structures
But then it turnedinto this recreational.
substance that people woulduse in social settings.
(16:22):
And I think the comparisonto Kava is really apt.
Although I do believe that kava has beenused recreationally in the Pacific Islands
for, , hundreds if not thousands of years.
, not only for, , ritualistic purposes,but yeah, I think it's a, it's
an interesting way of drying theparallel between the pharmaceutical
and the recreational of Kava.
(16:42):
And showing how those two processeshave happened here in the United
States and Europe simultaneouslyparallel to each other.
And they mean two different things,but, they've both undergone a
process that can be understoodas part of our cultural context.
a great.
Presentation of thisinformation in the paper.
Jimmy Price (17:00):
He says, kava as is discussed here in all the cases
kava is treated as an analog tosomething else already in use.
that association shapes how kava isperceived, adopted, and transformed.
Him talking about the analog to alcohol,and there's so many people that will
analog it to so many different things.
that's the first thing someoneasks on these platforms that
(17:21):
we moderate, is what is it?
What does it feel like?
what can I compare it to?
It's truly one of those things whereyou have to experience yourself.
you're not going to see ancestors,it's something very subtle that
you have to experience yourselfbefore you can truly understand it.
there's a lot of people that say it's likebenzos or alcohol means it's not really.
It's on its own level.
Douglas LaRose (17:39):
so Jimmy, Why don't you jump into the next section on
from potion to pill, because thisis a topic you're passionate about
Jimmy Price (17:45):
Oh, man, We've got plenty of papers to discuss.
it says, kavas most profoundchange in terms of context,
location, form, and use is its fulltransformation into a pharmaceutical
analog in western countries.
This section describes Kavas pharmaform So he talks about kava being
like a supplement to the industry.
Says, , by contrast dosageconsistency of kava beverage.
(18:07):
Okay.
And in this section he speaks abouthow it's very difficult to translate
from a pill to a cup of kava.
It's a difficult thing for us to saywhen you're drinking kava, you're
getting this many milligrams.
And he says, the point is thatin comparison to CVA supplement
users, most CBA drinkers are notassessing their consumption in
terms of milligrams of Cabo lactone.
I hear a lot of CVA drinkers ask, how manyCabo lactone in my drinking, in my Cabo?
(18:31):
So it is an online question.
botanicals are approaching thestandards of pharmaceuticals, they
have not entirely reached themstandardization might carry more
symbolic weight than what is warrantedbased on the existing variability.
And standardization is a big thingin these supplement industries and
making sure that whatever you sayit is on the bottle is what you're
getting and it doesn't change.
(18:53):
. Kava is a variable herb.
It can change based on, itsgenetic makeup where you purchase
it from, based on how old it is,based on what part of the plant
is being used most predominantly.
So it is a very difficultthing to actually standardize.
He speaks about the liver incident in theearly two thousands and late nineties.
that's, still a stain that we deal with.
(19:13):
the rationale for kava use wasentirely transformed it turned
into a pharmaceutical and wasprescribed as a prescription
drug in Germany and Switzerland.
Douglas LaRose (19:21):
Yeah, he talks at length here about how these studies
were done that compared the effects ofkava with benzodiazepines and showed
that kava can produce some of the samerelaxing effects as benzodiazepines.
And that was the logic that underpinnedits prescription as a anti-anxiety drug.
(19:45):
So truly it wasn't just likea, " oh, we heard about this herb.
We're gonna put it in capsuleform and sell it to the public
as a way of relieving anxiety."
It was actually the scientistsand pharmacists were.
Oh, whoever, I don't know what the titleof is of people who develop medicines.
I guess they're
yeah.
, they did these studies comparing theeffects of kava to benzodiazepines,
(20:07):
and they were sufficiently pleasedwith the results enough to,
, actually develop a prescriptionalternative to benzodiazepines.
But the thing that stood out to me isafter that discussion, he got into this
really fascinating discussion about, howthe marketing of those kava pills was
done with this traditional imagery.
Like pictures of the PacificIslands or pictures of people
(20:30):
from Popeye and New Guinea.
So yeah, the villagers that are on thebottles and the pictures of the trees,
they create this marker of authenticity.
And exotic exoticism.
Jimmy Price (20:40):
Exoticism, the exotic other
Douglas LaRose (20:42):
really links the customer feel like, oh
wow, I'm taking this medicine.
That's the traditional product ofthese wise, , islanders that have been
consuming it for thousands of years.
But then it's also capitalizingoff of that cultural.
The cultural roots ofkava in the South Pacific.
Yes.
I just thought thatwas another really cool
Jimmy Price (21:01):
discussion.
Agreed.
That's I have all thiswhole page highlighted.
It says we go the extra 8,000 miles tofind the kava that effectively promotes,
relaxation, and relieves stress.
So yeah, it's they totally do.
They'll use the the exoticism of kavabeing different at the outside,, what
is kava, He says, , I argue that thischoice illustrates that a connection to
(21:23):
actual present day cultural practicesis less important than a connection
to an implied or suggested traditionthrough which consumers will, from
Irv Farm's perspective, come toassociate authenticity and efficacy
with the product being marketed.
So I think it's, he even pokes alittle bit at herb Farm for their
Papa New Guinea advertisement.
And I thought that was agreat little section
Douglas LaRose (21:44):
one thing I wanted to point out was how these
pharmaceutical companies are invokingthe word tradition to convey a
message of safety and efficacy.
, we westerners have this image ofnatural therapeutics and herbs and,
, traditional diets and things likethat is being these pure more healthy
(22:08):
alternatives to modern medicine.
So oftentimes, , these pharmaceuticalcompanies will find something like kava
This is where issues of bio piracycome up, , where people start getting
worried about people stealing theintellectual property of indigenous
peoples and then, , making millionsand billions of dollars off of it.
What the literatureconsidered as bio piracy.
But he's really making the case herethat these pharmaceutical companies took
(22:31):
this traditional herb saw that it wassuccessful at addressing some of these
anxiety issues and then used that wordtradition and the cultural context of
the South Pacific to make their patientsfeel like they were getting something
healthier than a benzodiazepine.
Which is true , but it's alsousing the traditional image to
Jimmy Price (22:52):
strengthen their sales pitch.
It's commercial kava and farmform is significantly transformed
in terms of space or localityas well as context of use.
Root material is shipped to westerncountries where it's processed into
capsules, tinctures, and tablets.
These value added products are turndistributed throughout the world.
It is possible, for example, tobuy kava supplements in Honolulu.
(23:14):
The kava goes full circle and returnsto the Pacific after being transformed.
You can buy a CBA extract inHonolulu, and that's where
probably that kava started from,came back to you in that form.
And that kind of leads us into our nextportion of the paper, which is titled
Buzz and a Bowl, recreational kava Usage.
And the kava sewer is the king ofthe recreation of Kasur platform.
(23:37):
I'll let him take it away on that one.
Douglas LaRose (23:38):
Yeah, I was a little bit disappointed, that the Kasur blog
was not, mentioned but I'm just joking.
2012.
Yeah.
. Yeah.
2012.
It was right.
My, my blog was around then.
Yeah.
So this part of the paper one thing thatstood out to me was, , he is talking
about, , kava bars and the contemporarykava drinking scene in the United States,
specifically places, , like Florida.
(23:59):
he mentions actual kavabars that I've been to.
But one of the really cool thingsthat he does is he talks about
how these kava bars tap into.
Those traditions and the imageryassociated with the South Pacific.
If you're listening to this podcastand you've been to a kava bar, you've
probably seen, a tiki god or a tikiidol on the wall, or some kind of
(24:23):
imitation of, bamboo on the walls.
That's all to make you feel like you'rehaving this authentic experience.
, in many of these contexts,there is an awareness of the
traditions associated with kava.
Even if little of this knowledgeis incorporated into the actual
protocols of drinking, the purposeof consumption is largely consonant
with less formal social consumptionand Pacific Islander communities.
(24:46):
So yeah, he calls this quasitraditional consumption.
we see this all the time, online and onthe kava group and forums where, , people
are hosting these, kava ceremoniesin different kava bars, , in Georgia,
in Florida, all over the place they'resitting around with a ta Noah, drinking
kava, and they're talking about Fiji.
(25:07):
They're talking about UA too.
And they're trying to representthe traditional consumption of kava
and make people feel like they'repart of this traditional history.
But they're not getting it right.
When you go to a kava bar in Florida andyou sit around at Tenino and you drink
kava and, you talk about your feelings oryou like wave crystals around or whatever.
, that's not traditional kava consumption.
But it's presented as such.
(25:28):
So these kava bars tap into thetraditional aesthetic of kava
without actually, achieving a, kindof replication of the ceremony.
And I think Dr.
Baker would agree that there isno such thing as a traditional
ceremony , , so they're notreally committing any great crime.
They're just doing their best to, helppeople out and give them an authentic
(25:48):
experience, but also have a successful
Jimmy Price (25:50):
business.
And some of 'em are just straight silly
Douglas LaRose (25:52):
Yeah.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with being silly.
Jimmy Price (25:55):
And one of the parts I highlighted close to where you're
talking about is it says , despitethe partial continuity, there are
important differences between traditionaland quasi traditional consumption.
The lack of formal protocolsor ceremonies associated with
drinking is the primary difference.
That means that the quasi traditionalconsumption is just you and your
(26:15):
friends around it, as , Traditionalas it needs to be put forth.
But , that is a change from, whatwe see that Cabo bars are doing.
It's a complete mirroring of theactual alcohol industry where
you're served, you drink your drinkor your shell. A lot of them are
not conducive to that environment.
I can't say that overall that everyoneis not, because a number of bars that
(26:35):
do take this into account and willprovide this space for people to do
this and or provide or do it themselves.
And I'd like to give credit to them,but overall, the most of the bars we see
and we see talked about are the ones thatyou find in head shops , don't typically
completely sell kava, or are big.
They sell vapes and THC products, kraim,everything else, , so that's the kind
(26:57):
of thing that I'm not sure how we getacross that it's not traditional, I
thought that was a great spot in there.
he's talking about thelack of formal protocols.
I've seen it, but I wouldn'tknow how to do that myself.
Douglas LaRose (27:08):
that would just be one iteration of the protocols too.
there is no official wayof conducting a KA ceremony.
, it's changed over time.
It continues to change.
And it depends on, , whetheryou're in Samoa or Fiji or Toga
or Vanuatu, like all those kavaceremonies are gonna look different.
So it's okay, which one would you followif you did decide to do it authentically?
(27:28):
? , it's a super interesting discussion,and then he goes on to talk
about the analogy to alcohol.
And I think you could have gotten alittle bit more into this but he talks
about how, , I argue, this is a quote.
I argue that in the kava bar, asin Hawaii as well as this, in the
continental United States, kava functionsas an analog for alcohol consumption.
It is still a social beverage, butthe norms of social interaction
(27:50):
are akin to what would beseen in a bar serving alcohol.
Furthermore, this is morepronounced in kava bars on the
continent than in those in Hawaii.
And, in the continental United Statesif you grow up in a traditional
middle class family, you're probably.
going to college hitting the bars andgetting blackout drunk with your friends.
(28:13):
and that behavior continues until yourealize that you're destroying your
body and your mind, till it hurts.
kava, can mimic that environment and thatsocial setting I've been to these kava
bars and they work wonders for people.
They keep people sober.
They give people community, they providea lot of good things , for the patrons.
And it is similar to alcohol becauseit's an alternative to alcohol.
(28:36):
Kava bars are alternativesto alcohol bars.
and I think that , at the end of theday, , this isn't a paper about addiction
or about , kava being better than alcoholor kava being the solution to alcoholism.
for a lot of people, kava has become, asolution for their addiction issues a
way to get their lives back on trackand away from self-destruction,
Jimmy Price (28:59):
Agreed.
that's how I came to cross kava.
I have a little spot below where itsays the farther removed recreational
consumption is from the Pacific, theless informed it is by actual historical
and present day kava drinking practices.
And I thought that was Insightful interms of the way that's exactly right.
The further away itgoes from its homeland.
(29:19):
The less informed it is by theactual historical and present
day kava drinking practices.
Kava has made it here before thereal kava information had, we
didn't know what we were doing andwe didn't know how to address kava or
how it was supposed to be consumed.
Because we were presentedwith bags of powder.
how do you go about this?
that's the first question mostpeople ask is, okay, I got the
(29:40):
powder, I got the strainer.
What's next?
A different sort of paradigm forAmericans to have to brew up a kava
beverage to drink for an effect
And it's a hard sell, but,, we exist.
So there are people that take to itand it is a positive thing for them.
this is where he talks about the allbus pass from hall Noah and if you can
get your free 10 Noah once you drinkenough shells or something like that.
Douglas LaRose (30:02):
was gonna say really quick on that note about the difficulty
of accessing and understanding kava.
I think people like you and I takeit for granted because we've been
drinking kava for so long but Iremember when I first started
ordering Kava online and preparing it.
I was super intimidated.
And I think that is still theexperience of a lot of people that
(30:23):
come to kava is they get this bag inthe mail and they get even they get
this strainer with the bag, but it'sstill like, how much of this do I use?
And like people like youand we stop answering them.
So we just let other people answer them.
Who are on the forums.
But it is very intimidatingcuz you're like, you don't
know what it's gonna feel like.
how to prepare it and youdon't know like the basics how
(30:44):
to brew up a shell of kava.
And I remind myself thatthis is not something that
I've always known how to do.
. Jimmy Price: And he talks about here and I thought this was pretty funny about
how , it comes full circle again wherean individual was making a ka vanilla
shake using gel caps and ice cream.
they were mixing 20 to 30gel caps in their ice cream.
(31:05):
with a couple shakes of cinnamon,some vanilla extract and
blend for about five minutes.
We went full circle and they're tryingto make drinks outta the extract pills.
And it's funny how we come back to theway that Cabo was consumed the whole time.
It, and we go away from thecapsule, the way from the extracts
back, back to, and it is us too.
(31:25):
Like we, at first, we wereall into, the Paradise kava
extracts all the extract drinks
Let's try that.
And now it's.
We find , more value in the powderedCVAs than we ever had in the extracts.
Yeah, some of 'em taste pretty good..
The extract from Paradise CVAcalled what was it, coconut, vanilla
something, but it was, oh man, itwas like eating numbing ice cream.
(31:46):
It was just a different thing.
And it was, I'm not sure I reallygot that much effect off extracts.
Maybe a little bit of headinessgoing back to the paper here.
He says the boundary betweenrecreational drug use and the
consumption of kava foods is fuzzy.
And it is one of the issues loomingon the horizon with respects
to kava and kava marketing.
And this is a very, he's Nostradamussaying this stuff right now because
(32:08):
it we're dealing with with somepretty serious issues where people
are calling their products kava andthey are at best a minority kava.
And at worst, it is usually someextracted plant material that is
very addictive and they're tryingto sell the product under the guise
of it being a pure kava product.
(32:29):
it is a big threat to our industry rightnow and how this recreational drug and
consumption of food is being blurred.
And especially if we have people thatare saying, , this is this, use this shot
to, , increase the energy in your day.
, this is the best functional drink,, and it's just not, it needs to be
divorced of those sort of things.
Kava deserves more respect than itto be jammed into a bottle with some
(32:50):
, addictive substance that totally changesthe nature of the entire beverage.
That is not kava.
It's not even kava.
It doesn't even have actual kavaand it's just kava lactone extracts.
I don't know.
I completely agree with you.
I think that it is a hugeproblem that we're facing.
this goes back to what I was sayingearlier about how kavas very intimidating,
, when you get your bag of kava in themail, you don't know what to do with it.
(33:12):
so people are attempted to buy theselittle shots or,, kava products that
have, , cra mixed in with them andcaffeine mixed in with them, and crazy
high doses of vitamin B or whatever thehell people wanna mix with their kava.
And yeah, it's, those people mightwalk away from that experience saying,
oh, I took Kava and I got really sick.
Or I've been taking Kava andI got really addicted to it.
(33:35):
And, the public doesn't know any better.
They, , then just acceptwhat they're saying.
, they don't know that there's away of consuming kava that is just
kava, , so, it's a really importantpoint and it can't be said too much.
If we repeat that point on everypodcast , that we record, we
will be doing a service To Kava.
Because it's such an important point.
(33:56):
Absolutely.
People need to know that if they'rebuying kava in a bag and they're putting
it into a cve and they're putting it inwater, and they're making a water aqueous
kava drink, then they're doing it right
kava.
Jimmy Price (34:07):
That's right.
That's all you need.
The codex recommends kava as water androot particle mixed together and strained.
And that's, when we saykava, that's what we mean.
Anything outside of that istechnically a kava, lactone product.
An extract product.
You wouldn't wanna call the pillsthat are in the bottle kava.
It gives the wrong impression No, thoseare kava, lactone crammed into a pill.
(34:29):
Kavas an experience.
Kava is a plant, kavas a drink.
It is not these pills, it is notthese kava, lactone extract beverages.
It's not these shots.
that's a traditional consumption,as defined by the codex,
Or traditional has the sameexact meaning, but . I think that
kind of leads us into our nextsection titled, Chavas Food Forms.
And, this actually brought back a lot ofmemories because, and I actually through
(34:52):
this paper, I copied one of the imagesand sent to the creator because I knew
one of the guys that, and you do too.
But one of the guys that made one of theproducts in the next section, explained
to me what it was and how it was madethis whole section was very interesting.
He talks about how they went throughdifferent iterations of tests to see
what they could find, anything thatcould cover the taste of kava, They
had made kava butter ginger flavoredkava extracts, drinks kava bread.
(35:16):
They had bloody Marys withkava in it, mustard muffins,
pastry popcorn, and chocolate.
so many different things that theytried to cover the taste of Cabo with.
And I was actually speakingwith him last night.
He said every one of those was terribleAnd of course, in the paper he tries
to be nice and it's they weren'tthat great, but he said that nothing.
It turns out that Cabo Lactone have aflavor and a minimum effective amount.
(35:41):
So you have to have a certainamount in Whatever you're eating
to actually provide an effect.
And that amount turns out thatyou can't hide any sort of food
product without still being ableto detect the Cabo lactone flavor.
That unique and sometimes off-puttingflavor that people don't necessarily
flock to, but is common in kava.
(36:02):
But that's the kava Lactone.
he tries all these differentthings and he talks about bit Dr.
Bitten Bender has made a kavaJava mixture with coffee and kava.
I'll let you talk for a minute.
Doug.
. Douglas LaRose: I just first wanna respond to the kava coffee combination.
There's nothing I've despise more than.
Kava coffee combinations.
I think because of the psychoactiveeffect, the synergy of kava and coffee.
(36:25):
They don't go well together.
some people like it, but forme, coffee and kava, don't
even cancel each other out.
They create like a ballof anxiety in my brain.
So when it comes to these kava products,these kava UNE products called them,
I am not a fan and I've made nosecrets about the fact that I don't
take kindly to these like milkshakesand cocktails and kava chocolate.
(36:48):
infusions and kava popcorn soundsabsolutely terrible as well.
Batter bread.
Come on.
Like the, that sounds like aterrible way to get your kava.
Just accept the fact that kavatastes the weight that it tastes.
. And remember that when you drink kavait's going to affect your taste buds,
, for the next like 30 or 40 minutes.
Because it totally blowsapart your taste buds.
(37:10):
And that pepperiness I happen to,like the flavor of kava by itself.
I happen to, like theflavor of kava by itself.
But I have never had anythingexcept for kava candies.
The kava extract that Paradise Kavasold, was the best I've ever had.
And then some of the Kava Ritasand stuff like that, that are made
from the kava Lockton extracts.
(37:32):
. But that's really masking the flavorof the kava to the point where you're
getting the kava Locktons, but it'sso far removed from kava itself
This is where he brings up the pictures.
He talks about the Kona Coastchocolate, and says the worst
combination was the chocolate in Kava.
It ruined the quality of the tasteof both if the kava content was high
enough, the food content numbed themouth and tastes bitter and earthy
(37:55):
If it tastes good, the kava contentwas probably low CBAs flavor is
an acquired taste for Westerners.
And it truly is.
I have never once like reallytruly warmed up to that flavor.
When Dr.
Apple made it in circle, I drank thatand I didn't have any sort of terrible
reaction like I do when I drink mythick paint before I go to bed.
, there is a big difference betweenstupidly concentrated cava and cava
(38:16):
consumed in amounts that are somewhat moretraditional and lower and more diluted.
When I place some of my judgmentson its flavor, they are quite
augmented by its concentration.
So that's always with me when it comesto flavors, always take that bit of
salt with it, because when I drinkkava, it's always extremely concentrated.
So there's never something that I find.
(38:38):
pleasant about that flavor, buthey, I don't complain about it.
, I'll sit there and I'll cuss at my sinkmy back splash, but I'll remember that
Cabo was consumed against the removalof culture by missionaries in Van Watu.
And it signified a complete turn againstthe missionaries the flavors doesn't
even phase me at that point becausekava has that deep history that it's
(38:59):
too cool to worry about the taste,you're drinking history here and it's
actually reducing your anxiety Justdon't complain about the muddy flavor.
. Just take it for what it is.
it's part of the experience.
kava is graciously lending youpart of itself for the time being.
And some days it might be a lot, and somedays it might not be much at all, He says
that Ava Twoo, which was a product by oia.
(39:20):
And that's made by a gentlemanthat both Douglass and I know
personally, his name is Steve.
And he had made a kava extract beverage.
He told me it was the 30% extract.
You add some lessin you hit it with ahigh sheer immersion blender then add
some ginger for flavoring and some sugar.
He's there, it's not that complicated.
But he created a extract drink thatwon the taste contest in Hawaii for
(39:45):
one of the Hawaii kava conventions.
Why did he,
Douglas LaRose (39:48):
why did he stop?
Jimmy Price (39:49):
me.
And honestly I would try it, but I'mpretty sure he stopped because of
logistic issue like most peopledo when they sell bottled kava.
Yeah.
It's just hard to sell bottledkava and be somewhat affordable
and shipping large glass bottles orplastic bottles, just not that makes.
And you'd have to make it some sortof topping that we're like super
concentrated where it was just onebottle would be enough for 40 uses.
(40:12):
he speaks about some other products inhere that I think I've seen in the past.
One was Mary Jane's relaxing Soda.
I remember drinking some of thatthinking, when's gonna kick in?
it didn't do anything, of course,It was another one of those
things they tried and it failed.
he talks a lot aboutthings that try and fail.
Here's one that I saw, and I spokeabout this at the beginning of the
podcast, that on page 2 55, there'san image of traditional Hawaiian teas.
(40:35):
It says 100% certified Hawaiian,and it says, ingredients list
100% all natural, big island grownHawaiian Ava leaves and lemongrass.
So it's a tea of kava,leafs and lemongrass.
this product actuallyshowed up on kava forums.
Three hours after I finishedreading this paper someone in Hawaii
(40:55):
posted and says, is this safe todrink ? So it point very timely.
And maybe we will have a podcaston p n g usage of kava at some
point, because that's another topicthat could be a good deep dive
into the leaf consumption of kava.
But he talks about that and showsa picture of some sort of kava
sexual enhancer found at a hotel.
(41:16):
it's interesting he hasthe Chinese go ahead, Doug.
Douglas LaRose (41:17):
I was just gonna say that it was a Chinese product that was sold
in China, and they were advertising itas a sexual enhancer in China, a lot of.
Extracts supplements, claim that they're,beneficial for sexual performance
. Jimmy Price: So there's no research to confirm that There might be research
to confirm the opposite, actually.
Here's where Dr.
(41:38):
Baker talks about the word tradition as itis frequently used in popular culture and
narratives, suggest behavior or beliefsfrom the past that have a stable form.
That's like saying computer andusing a reference from 1992.
We have to continue to stay constantwith things and traditional.
Takes different formsand changes over time.
Here he says, traditional, likewiseis problematic as an adjective.
(42:01):
In addition to implying a fictionalstability for cultures, it also
alludes to the continued discourseabout human societies ranked
on a continuum of development.
Traditional cultures are juxtaposed withmodernity, sometimes being traditional
as portrayed as positive, whereother times traditional societies are
characterized as backwards or primitive.
The word traditional.
Yeah, it could be a double-edged sword.
(42:23):
It can be used for good and bad.
Yeah.
I wanted to make a point herebecause you can use all kinds of
analogies, , like computers and.
Tobacco or whatever.
But just kava itself, like when youread the history of kava use in Vanuatu,
when you hear about how it was consumedin the pre-colonial period, then the
colonial period where people wherethese evangelical colonial forces and
(42:47):
occupiers were, , forcing people tostop drinking kava and claiming that it
was like the Devil's Root or whatever.
So there was many years wherepeople didn't drink kava.
And those traditions, thoserituals that Kava was associated
with in Vanuatu were disrupted.
And then in the post-independenceperiod, they revitalized kava
(43:09):
as a way of like national unity.
To show that, , this is partof bi Niwa, we drink kava.
This is part of our culture.
kava consumption doesn't have a statictraditional pattern that it follows.
social scientists argue that traditionsare performative, dynamic and subject
to reinterpretation and strategicreconfiguration based on present
(43:29):
political and social contexts.
And that's exactly what, that's exactlywhat that example demonstrates, is how
there was a way that Kava was consumedbefore the colonial period, and a way it
was consumed after The new HIEs in Vasu.
They weren't like, oh, beingdrinking kava is like a core
part of our national identity.
Nobody was thinking that way.
(43:49):
, they lived in villages.
They didn't really have an idea ofwhat a state was, what a nation was.
And then after the independence, theyreimagined the role of carbon society
and created these new traditions.
you can look at kava itself in the historyof kava to show how that's happened even
in the most traditional heartland of kava.
Vanuatu is where Kava comes from.
(44:09):
. And they, the people in Vva havecreated new meaning and new rituals,
a new traditions around kava.
So really just drives that pointhome, like really eloquently
Jimmy Price (44:21):
agreed.
I believe that kind of sums up and itleads us to the end of our paper here.
He says that , it is well worthconsidering the impact these trends
might have on the future of kava in thevarious contexts in which it's consumed.
We are considering those and theimpact that they're having, and we're
watching the impact that they're having.
And so there's a lot of otherpeople you can just come on Facebook
(44:41):
and see the opinions people haveabout the impact it's having.
But I thought this paper was excellent.
Even though it's written in 2012,it's still very applicable today.
we have current examples of everythinghe's spoken about So it's a very
insightful paper in terms of howhe predicted what was to come.
And it was pretty obvious at thetime what was gonna happen because
(45:02):
it's happened in other industries.
interesting to see its impact
On the average consumer.
Great paper.
So I'll let you close it out.
Doug
. Douglas LaRose: Yeah, I think you've said it all , and Dr.
Baker As you said, 2012, whenI started reading this, I asked
myself, when was this written?
And I was surprised it feelslike it was written like, , three
years ago or two years ago.
, it's so on point in this moment thatwe're experiencing with Kava right now.
(45:25):
. He says it all right here.
And I would encourage everybodyto check out this paper.
He talks about how kava traditionsare different, , like with Australian
Aborigines and people in the Salt Islands.
So yeah, check it out.
Dr.
Baker's two thumbs upfor an awesome paper.
Hope to be reading more ofyour stuff in the future.
Right on.
Bula.
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