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Importing Kava to Oz

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I suppose after all this time we shouldn't be surprised at anything Howard comes up with. I agree, this is just Howard's new Tampa etc. I have a feeling it may backfire on him though, we can live in hope :)

Of course, I'm sure that their new found concern for the indigenous people will result in a total ban on all alcohol imports into this country also.............ok, maybe not :rolleyes:

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I also had a supply of a substance that cured melanomas, sunspots, skin cancer of any kid in a matter of days with one application. Still have some and have treated dozens of people in Vanuatu and even more in Aussie.

A pharmacuetical coy bought out the supplier (mum and dad set up) and I have never heard of it since. 5mls treated hundredsof cancers.

Wow thats quite a handy substance! Care to share the name of it and its composition?

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Its unbelievable they have left the carry-in kava alone. Can't understand that one!

Oh, not at all surprising. This is the token that gets the ethnic community off their backs and lets the government claim the moral high ground. It's really quite clever - like so many things Howard does. He makes a decision that pisses a lot of people off, but will eliminate the most vocal and relevant opposition with a minimal handout or meaningless concession. He's been doing this forever. But we all love him cos interest rates are low :rolleyes::scratchhead:

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Guess its back to diazepam for me,of course I,ll be

better off and the government should be thanked for saving me from myself and

of course the pharmacutical companies know better than anyone else .

Don't worry Andrew diazepam its as safe as houses, we can give it to the kiddies...put it next to the ridilin in their lunch boxes. All I can say is thank God for one insane moment there I too actually thought I knew what was good for me...lucky!! :BANGHEAD2:

People, with a change of government would these restrictions and regulations still stand for some time? Or is it as bad as trying to change legislation?

AJ

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Most of the herb restrictions are TGA driven and the TGA is a power upon itself. I don't think a fed governemnt change would make much difference in most cases. It MAY have taken longer for the kava situation to develop [the TGA must me wetting themselves over the NT situation], but either way I think the restriction was inevitable. Also, while it is easier to stop a labor government from implementing such restrictions, when it comes to actually reversing them they are just as useless.

I think it was strike who once wrote that to weaken the laws we must try and add as many items as possible to the list. He was talking about drug precursors, but the theory holds for anything else as well. I mean, 20 years ago every cop knew that there were 3 prohibited herbs and they knew what at least 2 of them looked like. Now there are minimum 5 in all states, with 6 in 3 states, and up to about 30 in the ACT. Put a bunch of herbs in front of an ACT cop and I bet he can't pick out more than 3 - if that. That's what you get when you ban too many things.

Ban too many things and the law loses credibility and power.

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Allowing people to still bring in kava as long as you fetch it overseas is like banning coffee imports but if you fly to africa personally you can bring back two kilos...how much does that end up costing per gram???!!

Im sure there are fiji/Vanuatu/Australia associations here in OZ who could lobby the government to allow personal import (via post) of up to 2 kilos per shipment. This allows checking of the person (not one of those targeted awful indigenous potential child abusers) would not be wothwhile selling to indigenous persons (sly grog running much easier with no paperwork or waiting).

It would only take a few TV news grabs of a couple of expat peaceful looking fijian families bemoaning their cultural right to access their kava for maybe the government to do some minor tweaking to this draconian legislation. Then we could apply for the 2kg permit to import and source it from klin kava vanuatu...just a thought...

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What constitutes 'Medical Purposes', and how to fit the bill?

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Allowing people to still bring in kava as long as you fetch it overseas is like banning coffee imports but if you fly to africa personally you can bring back two kilos...how much does that end up costing per gram???!!

Im sure there are fiji/Vanuatu/Australia associations here in OZ who could lobby the government to allow personal import (via post) of up to 2 kilos per shipment. This allows checking of the person (not one of those targeted awful indigenous potential child abusers) would not be wothwhile selling to indigenous persons (sly grog running much easier with no paperwork or waiting).

It would only take a few TV news grabs of a couple of expat peaceful looking fijian families bemoaning their cultural right to access their kava for maybe the government to do some minor tweaking to this draconian legislation. Then we could apply for the 2kg permit to import and source it from klin kava vanuatu...just a thought...

Thats a good point. You are allowed to bring 2kg into the country legally from a holiday by a cruise ship or by plane SO why is it illegal to get it posted?? So by deduction, why is postage illegal??

There is no rhyme nor reason to this legislation. This could also be seen as discriminatory in that those people that can't afford to travel can not access the anxiety relieving product, kava!

Provided a lobby was successful for the two kilos, each shipment order of kava would incurr expenses such as

1. Quarantine inspection ($20-00)

2. Customs clearance ($44-00)

3. Aqis inspection (about $30-00)

4. GST on all the above

5 Customs clearance in Aussie by an agent. (approximately $250-00 to be divided among all orders)

6. Postage out to the different locations (about $20-00)

7. There is at least one other minor cost that i can't think of at the moment.

Items 1 & 2 above could be reduced if I succesfully lobby the Vanuatu Govt. to do an accumulative calulation on these amounts so that they are able to maintain exports to Aussie.

Once a month a shipment can be made of all the 2Kg orders under the same bill of lading.

This :unsure: could bring the cost of 1 kilo to anywhere between $70- $90 per kilo. A lot of money and something to consider before going to all the trouble.

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So if I get a prescription from my doctor, can I import Kava still?

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Wow thats quite a handy substance! Care to share the name of it and its composition?

"Triple L" One of my friends from South africa believed it was sap from a sausage tree. Try and google "triple L"

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Looks like medicinal use is a washout too. Quote from the tga

'There is a limit on the maximum amount of Piper methysticum permitted per dosage form - for a tablet or a capsule, there is a limit of 125mg of kavalactones (a group of consistuents found in Piper methysticum); and for a tea bag, there is a limit of 3g of dried rhizome (of Piper methysticum). In addition, all products containing Piper methysticum (any dosage form) must comply with a maximum daily dose of not more than 250mg of kavalactones.'

250mg of kavalactones/day isn't much. Average around 10% kavalactone/dry powder weight though, about 10mg/g?, that'd be 30mg kavalactone/3g teabag, about 8 teabags/day or so for 30 days = 720g... no, I was right, it sucks...

How big can you make a tablet of compressed kava powder?...

"... nah mate, this is kava LITE... she's only 0.5% kavalactone content... hey, I DRIVE y'know!"

:lol:

:P

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Joys of a govt. thats been on top for too long hey? Bastards.

Can the problem be approached laterally? How much is a cheapie round trip to NZ, assuming it'd be not entirely impossible for some enterprising type to get a container of the good stuff dropped off in kiwiland... then we can go over and look at mountains and come back loaded...still the weight issues, but might help costs and make someone else a few spare dollars. What about arranging buyers...surely there are one helluva lot of folks that go to n from pacific nations that aren't currently maxing out their kava kard on the way home... there'd be people who DO buy it, but never occurs to em that hubbie can get his 2 k's and wifey the same. Should we put up ads in travel agents and personal sections of newspapers asking for anyone going on holidays to fiji to give us a ring? Anyone know any hosties, or pilots? (now that'd be handy). can it be shipped in as something else, have something added to it to make it unfit for consumption...bulk it out with something that seemingly makes it useless but can be cleaned up at this end by any gnome with some patience.. find someone that can fit 10kg of kava up their bum? I think I found a practical use for John Howard, haha.

Maybe some kind souls could try labelling a big tub of it "organic herbal flea powder" and see what happens. Insecticidal dust (label it derris, root powder is root powder eh?).

Wishful thinking... on the hunt for plants now... SOMEONE has to have some, lot of inventive people around.

bastards.

VM

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So if I get a prescription from my doctor, can I import Kava still?

No. Medical purposes means that only registered pharmaceutical companies with TGA approved kava products can still import.

Klinkava, your approach makes sense to a rational person. However, you are dealing with an agency that has wanted to see kava banned for many years and the only reason why they hadn't done so was because they had no good excuse. Now they do. Even with the best arguments you bring forward they will not be interested. Sorry to be pessimistic about this, but this community has had a lot of experience with the TGA's powers and we are some of the few who actually fight and undermine this juggernaut. The australian comunity as a whole is apathetic to these issues. Just think, when was the last time you lent your support to a section of the herb community who were struggling to keep something legal and available? Maybe I am wrong, but chances are you haven't. And chances are the last time the TGA issue was discussed by people around you you nodded and carried on doing as before. That is exactly how just about everyone else acts and feels about this, which is why at this point even a strong orchestrated campaign will not have any impact because simply there won't be enough people who will make enough noise.

The ethnic community will probably make representation through commercial and some activist channels, but from experience most ethnic communties are too timid to speak up.

I am not saying it shouldn't be done though. Simply registering one's opposition to new laws is important. But it needs to be approached from a tactical position, not from a position where you are hoping or even relying on results. Maybe do some research to see if there are any MPs with links to the Pacific ethnic communities, or to kava itself. These would be important allies.

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maybe with enough vegetable gum we could turn kava into "particle board" and import it disguised as ikea clones, statues of the virgin mary. Or just bring it in hidden in the huge amounts of meth, heroin, pills, slaves, guns and so on that get in just fine every day of the week.

guess the kava kings just cant put the right kash into the right pockets eh? maybe a double edged war on brown people approach... gip pacific island of income so they have those "crazy coups" so we can send "peacekeepers" (along with quite a few federal police and spooks with submachine guns) to keep the area "stabalised" , whilst ensuring that they will start nicking plenty of blackfellas for running booze once again when they could make some kind of income runnin kava instead. So the Nice New Plan seems to be paying off. Kava is causing some problems (ok, not causing...yknow what I mean), as I said in a previous about kava, I read a report about the kava trade in the NT communities and pattern of use of some people and its not healthy..but its probably healthier than knocking off a carton of warm beer and a half ounce of brown bud.

bastards all of them. Sitting there, sipping their endless supply of "diplomatic gifts" (tax free home delivered 50 year old single malt).

VM

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Guest Øskorei

Oh this is fucked.

Andrew's post is a good example of why this sucks. Should someone diagnosed with a condition be forced to munch on pharms, when there are viable alternatives that are far less destructive to the body and the spirit ? And forget diagnosis, if people just want to wind down after a hard week to a few piper smoothies, it's far more responsibel than drinkiing booze, and with far less undesirable social effects such as accidents & (unwarranted, random) violence. Focuking hell, I'd like to organise a bus-trip one Friday night for these authorities, and cruise around the city pubs to show them first-hand the effects of alcohol on some of the community. The tour would start at 11pm and finish at around 5am at the hospital.

What would Ø do when you all elect me as El-Presidente? Create funky kava & hookah bars in every suburb, and you would have one chilled out bunch of revellers.

surely there are one helluva lot of folks that go to n from pacific nations that aren't currently maxing out their kava kard on the way home.

Good theory, Vert, but I'm thinking that the demand for Kava among the Aussie-Islander community are going to snaffle these stashes up before we see any of it. I'm of the mind that if you & me can presently go to our local store and grab a few KG for such reasonable prices, they're not depending on the ethneo-market, but rather that there's a heap of the pacific expats who are drinking a little bit of home culture.

It's perplexing that they are using indigenous communities in NT as examples of 'problematic' kava trends. For fucks sake, again lets put this into perspective as an alcohol alternative. I have reason to believe that high-place-people within the liquor industry might just be running hard on these legislation changes on the mighty piper.

Edited by Øskorei

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As coincidence would have it there are friends of mine visiting the solomon islands via Fiji there and back so I have placed my order! Very sad that it has come to this though...

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I cant believe that this happened so suddenly. I know that this has been on the cards for years but 2 weeks ago there was absolutely no discussion about this topic and today its no longer available. I would have at least expected that it would be shut down over the next 6 months and not 1 day after suspending all licensing and registration privileges.

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Fenris, it had to happen like that. There are some VERY big kava importers in australia and they have a lot of money for stockpiling. They did stockpile years ago when it looked like the heat was being turned up, but then came several years of being lulled into a state of no threat. BANG! Perfect timing. NO major stocks in australia means that they don't have to do any national or state based control, but just turn the tap off at the gate.

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Guest Øskorei

Perhaps we as members of the only serious ethnobotanical forum in this country are very much at the 'here & now' of this info dissemination. If it pans out as the posts might suggest, and with the buy-in information from John Klin (admittedly a new SAB'er), and the retorts from Tort, whom I assume is checking this shyte out beyond the speculation, then perhaps we should be making a mad dash to stock up ASAP. If it's not too late.

This really is fucked. What's next, Damiana ?

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If it pans out as the posts might suggest, and with the buy-in information from John Klin (admittedly a new SAB'er), and the retorts from Tort, whom I assume is checking this shyte out beyond the speculation, then perhaps we should be making a mad dash to stock up ASAP. If it's not too late.

My recommendation is to go and stock up at the local fiji shop as much as you can. This is solid legal stuff and unlikely to change. Yes, i checked it out [see the links posted to TGA, OCS and customs]. Actually realised the personal mail import route was closed even before John [or even customs it seems] did. Get what you can if you can afford it so that the meagre stocks will last for those who can't.

Prices in one indian grocer went up from $40 to $55 this week, and I would presume this climb will continue in coming weeks. Or worse they might not sell to you unless you are Fiji/Indian. I've been stocking up too, but seriously, once other sources run dry and most of you buy from SAB, my stock won't last 3 weeks. Apparently they are also trawling the web for kava websites, so if SAB.com.au goes down you'll know why.

Can someone type an emergency notice as a separate thread, informing the community of the situation [with links etc]. I am a little too smashed to post important threads :drool2:

Maybe also post addresses of fiji shops where people can stock up. No point keeping them secret now.

This really is fucked. What's next, Damiana ?

Don't joke about it. Damiana is actually banned in Japan.

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Most of the herb restrictions are TGA driven and the TGA is a power upon itself.

I understand the situation is tight but could you please help me better understand,

What avenues of review exists, and in which stage - whether they be potent or not?

How are they funded?

How are they influenced and by who?

How big are their resources? - labs, legal etc

What is the process of delivery/implementation of descisions?

Can they be manipulated by their own regulations?

Is the TGA the regulatory body for approval of pharm products/medicines? aren't these lengthy and extensive/exhaustive processes?

Just want to be better informed...Know thy enemy.

Thanks :)

AJ

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is kava a problem in the indigenous communities?

i mean i know it's used, but are there innumerable reports ov kava influenced violence or child abuse, like there are w/alcohol?

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I understand the situation is tight but could you please help me better understand,

I have written a fair bit about the structure of the TGA in previous threads.

What avenues of review exists, and in which stage - whether they be potent or not?

This is the thing that gets me in a democracy. The TGA reviews itself. Worse even challenges to decisions are referred back to the group who made the original decision.

State governments can override the TGA, but they generally don't. Also, state governments have no say in customs matters.

Pretty much only the federal government can override TGA decisions. So if you are thinking of challenging a decision, always consider how bible bashing Tony Abbott wold viote on your issue, cos he is ultimately the one to make the change.

How are they funded?

Industry levies.

How are they influenced and by who?

Look at the make up of the comittee. It consists of representatives from police, AMA, ADA, pharma cos, and ONE person from complimentary medicine.

How big are their resources? - labs, legal etc

very big.

What is the process of delivery/implementation of descisions?

One of the few legal publications NOT available for free on the web.

Can they be manipulated by their own regulations?

No, they just change them.

Is the TGA the regulatory body for approval of pharm products/medicines? aren't these lengthy and extensive/exhaustive processes?

yes, and yes.

However the banning of substances is much easier.

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Guest Øskorei
How are they influenced and by who?

Look at the make up of the comittee. It consists of representatives from police, AMA, ADA, pharma cos, and ONE person from complimentary medicine.

That's convenient for business domination. Reminds me of the 20+ studies performed on St Johns Wort where it was shown to significantly affect cases of mild to moderate depression, yet the Pfizer Pharm Co study tests concluded no such results.

So this kava business with the TGA, I wonder if there was substantial protest from the community in protecting an ingrained part of pacific nation heritage from becoming inaccessible, they would reconsider? Should I look at building a website for people to register their details in protest, have everyone flog the idea to as many pacific peolle they can find, and have this presented by one of our well-versed members (Im looking at you T) before the licences are revoked in three months time, or is this just a complete waste of time ?

It's a fucking cosy, tidy arrangement though. No need to outlaw the stuff when all you have to do is chop the bulk supply lines. Unlike narcotics trafficking, weight-per-dose is so much plant material, that we're not exactly going to see a lot of mules smuggling this up their butt.

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