Herbal twinning

I haven’t been writing here as much lately because, frankly, I can feel my perspectives on things changing and many of my ideas are either marinating or not right for right now. However, I just got an idea I want to note down for posterity. Always gratifying when that happens.

I’m about to embark on training to be a herbalist – a skill set I’ve been inspired to gain by the pandemic and the increasingly visible failure of Western allopathic medicine. (See what I mean? That’s another post, for another time.) Increasingly, I’m drawn to the idea of local herbalism, or herbalism which tries as far as possible to treat patients with herbs indigenous or naturalised to the locality.

Really there are three overlapping factors which I consider when recommending herbal treatments to someone:

1) Where does this person reside? This is probably the most important factor because using herbs grown locally increases our connection to place and is more resilient to supply chain shocks.

2) Where are this person’s people from? This might make herbs from other localities more effective for this particular person.

3) What conditions are you treating? This is of course what gets people through the herbalist’s door, but a range of herbs from many different traditions can be used to treat the same conditions.

So let’s say you’re presented with someone who needs a powerful adaptogen, which generally grow in the tropics. We do have some native adaptogens in the UK but they’re often used to treat specific conditions and not as a broad-spectrum adaptogen like Siberian ginseng, for example. There are of course various species of mushrooms that pack a wallop, but they’re not always well-tolerated. (I have beef with Lion’s Mane…)

So now we pull back and look at the state of the world today. Pharmacies are facing shortages of penicillin-derived antibiotics. Penicillin. Actually, one of the things that spurred me to wean off my antidepressants and onto herbal alternatives was a shortage of my particular pill. You might think that herbalism is immune to such supply chain shocks… but you’d be wrong.

Some popular herbs sourced from other climes are pricier than local alternatives, precisely because they are harder to get hold of. I recently had to reformulate my own tincture because there was simply no way I’d be able to grow gotu kola locally – and its tincture per mL is twice as much as the other herbs in my prescription. But of course, sometimes the conditions a herbalist treats respond best to herbs not grown locally.

So how could a herbalist ensure that their supply chains remain stable? And here’s my idea for posterity: herbal twinning.

Imagine a network of herbalists in different climes, where individual herbalists in different locations were twinned with each other. Like cities. This could be organised through professional bodies like the National Institute of Medical Herbalism in the UK, although not all countries have a separate association for herbalists – indeed, in some countries research institutions may be better placed to facilitate connections.

Anyway, the herbal twins could remain in regular contact and potentially source herbs for each other. This ‘mesh network’ might prove to be more resilient than relying on traditional supply chain management. Indeed, you could code a mobile app…

Something to think about, instead of my upcoming custody hearing.