Anarcha herbalism is about reconnecting with your body, taking responsibility for your health, forming relationships with

plants and working to dismantle industrial medicine while creating community healthcare systems. INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE

ANARCHA HERBALISM

Can and does play a role in holistic healthcare However drugs, as compounds in their form, are not a normal part of our diet or have been encountered in our evolution. Pharmaceutical pollution 5090% excreted into the environment chemically unchanged or unmetabolised. Many are not biodegradeable and continue having chemical effects forever. Pollution is also a major concern from hospitals and in production e.g. dyes, organic chemicals, carcinogenic materials. Antibiotics kill broad groups of bacteria, including beneficial ones, and now unique pathogenic bacteria are emerging. Massive amounts in our ecosystems. Hormones are not water-soluble and are affecting wildlife e.g. changing the gender of fish Side effects in the US, properly prescribed pharmaceuticals are the 4th leading cause of death. Plants are broken down into their active constituents into concentrated compounds, distinctly different from original use. Technological medicine is anthropocentric in its approach. It sees body as machine to be fixed. Millions of animals are killed in tests to sanction unsafe medicines as safe for human use. We are ingesting these drugs e.g. Prozac, whether we want to or not! Knowledge of their use is in the hands of a few. Supports a medical elite - the majority men. Corporate control pharmaceutical companies construct new disease categories to expand markets,

academic freedom is jeopardised regularly, financial bribery of doctors and healthcare researchers. Companies dictate markets and access to healthcare. Biopiracy - plant knowledge is expropriated from indigenous peoples to be patented and trademarked. Big pharma simply dont make money from well people! In capitalist systems these companies function solely for profit, with relentless domination of nature and human communities. By separating people from traditional holistic self-care practices and by dubious medical interventions with drugs and surgery, modern medicine may cause as much disease as it cures. - Jerry Mander

ANARCHA HERBALISM A society of people who are responsible for their own health and able to gather or grow their own medicines is a hard society to rule. These days we are dependent on the power structure of industrial health care - the secret society of the doctors, the white-male-dominated medical schools, the corporate decision makers with their toxic pharmaceuticals and heartless greed and labs full of tortured beings. That dependence is one more thing keeping us tied down to the State and unable to rebel with all our hearts or even envision a world without such oppression. With a new system of healing, based on self-knowledge and herbal wisdom, we will be that much more free. - Laurel Luddite RE-LEARNING & RESISTING Learning about plant medicines, their actions and ecologies is empowering and life-changing, as is unlearning everything you have ever been told by this culture about your body. *Learn about plants & medicine making *Take responsibility to learn about your body and your health *Stay nourished for struggle *Support your local herbalist *Organise to defend communities, plant and human, at risk from industrial medicine & pollution *Grow herbs, save seeds, wildcraft sustainably, look out for your plant allies! RESOURCES
www.wildheartpermaculture.co.uk www.rhizomeclinic.org.uk The Lost Language of Plants, Stephen Buhner, Healing Wise, Susan Weed Find a good herbal that is right for you. Laurel Luddite, This is Anarcho-Herbalism: Thoughts on Health and Healing for the Revolution

PLANT MEDICINES Have been used safely, all over the world, for thousands of years. Plants are our ancestors. Plants are ecological medicines. They do not require expensive factories to make them. They do not discharge pollutants into our ecosystems. Have far fewer side effects. Knowledge of their use in not held in the hands of the few. They will meet health needs beyond industrial civilization as their existence is not tied to fossil fuels or global markets. Are unexpensive. Are empowering to use and craft. Are diffused through cultures, unique to place and ecosystems. Plants act as medicines in their own communities, sending chemical to each other if one is diseased. Animals also self-medicate with herbs. Plant medicine is based on relationships between plants and people and ecosystems. They are the ultimate manifestation of mutual aid!

The average person can recognise 1500 corporate logos but can barely name more than 10 plants and animals native to their bioregion.