What Will Happen When…?

Abstract

What will happen? When everyone is excited with the tempo of modernization and globalization of an indigenous medical system, when new findings and inventions are making the headlines, when business in herbal trade is booming, and when patients are converted to believe in the salvation power of herbalism… but botanicals are not properly grown, handled, processed, manufactured and traded? When plant and animal populations in the wild are dwindling down due to over-exploitation, when endangered species are illegally poached for herbal preparations, when botanicals are substituted by threatened taxa, what will happen? When farming of medicinal plants is fragmentary making it difficult to ensure quality consistence, when mercury is fumed into a botanical to increase its weight for a higher price, when flour is mixed into an herb to make it twice as large for a better sale, when processing and manufacturing procedures are reduced to save expenses regardless of toxin concentrations, what will happen? When prices of botanicals are fixed and investments of talents and financial inputs cannot be recovered, when regulatory agencies can be bribed, when advertisements merge with con artist, what will happen? The answer, my friend, is glowing in the science, the economics and the politics.