What is the Legal Situation? Last edited: 09 04 2011 07:50

The current situation and regulatory obstacles

The practice of herbal medicine and the supply of herbs is undergoing a fundamental review at the moment, with important announcements due to be made over the next few weeks.

The Traditional Herbal Medicines Products Directive (THMPD), a piece of European legislation allegedly designed to protect the consumer from unscrupulous traders and manufacturers, is due to be implemented in the UK in April 2011. In a nutshell:

• Any products that are deemed to be herbal medicines will have to have a license.


• Licenses cost in the region of £20,000 per product (some estimates put this as high as £80,000)


• The licensing process is complex and ridiculous, having been dreamt up by characters from a Jonathan Swift novel…


• ...and so the only products that will be commercially available will be ones made by large companies with excess cash

However…

The original proposal for this legislation was based on the assumption that Medical Herbalists, who by this time would be statutorily regulated , would be exempt, and would be able to carry on supplying herbal medicines to their patients providing they could demonstrate that there had been some sort of consultation first, between practitioner and patient, face to face.

And yet…

This regulation has not taken place, meaning that herbalists are now unsure as to whether they can continue in practice, using their carefully acquired knowledge and skills to help people using herbs that, in the wrong hands, might be harmful (and which, in the hands of skilled herbalists, have never been harmful).

Obviously

this situation is dire, and there are many theories as to how it has come about – but one thing is for certain: it is dysfunctional and in no-one’s interest.

The regulation of herbal practitioners and suppliers edges us closer to orthodox models of supply and demand and a high-technology, high energy approach to the way we go about our business – entirely in the opposite direction of what will be needed (whether we like it or not).

One of the side effects of this apparent need (by whoever it is) to regulate and control herbal medicine has been to gently nudge herbalists in the direction of self-managing and sustainable practice, away from the prying of the state and its institutions. Many of us have taken to crafting our own medicines, and working more closely with local communities to ensure our practices remain viable and sustainable – promoting herbal medicine as the readily accessible common good it has always proved to be, particularly when times are hard.