Plant collecting in Thailand - Special Section: Plants as Teachers

Plant Collecting in Thailand

JANUARY 1989

BANGKOK: The worst traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, and homely third-world "prosperity" architecture imaginable, yet with jewel-like temples tucked in the cracks, water buffalo in the alleyways, and barefoot saffronrobed monks withdrawing money from automatic teller machines. A vast working class still working as the future has risen around them and strangled their so recently exquisite aesthetic. Addiction abounds: the Marlboro Man rides a billboard above a golden Buddha. The traditional opium habit has degenerated into heroin, PCP, methedrine and acute alcoholism. To go outside one's hotel is to take a breath and dive in. To cross a boulevard is to risk one's life. To get from here to there and back again is a daily Asian odyssey. Soon one tires of observing contrasts, wishes the reason to be there would finish, simply wants to escape to the islands or the mountains, or to another reality. I had heard about "kratom" for some months: A tree, Mitragyna speciosa, native to Thailand and Malaysia, the leaves of which have been used as an opium substitute by some when the poppy supply is low, but also well known as a folk cure for opiate addiction. It apparently minimizes the nightmarish symptoms of withdrawal, making a phased self-imposed release of addiction possible. In addition, the rural working people -- rice farmers, truck gardeners, fruit pickers -- use it to diminish hunger, to extend physical energy for labor, to reduce the effects of extreme heat. Much as the raw coca leaf is employed in South America by those native people who have no use for a refined product, kratom has remained a folk medicine, with strengthening and healing properties, as well as the now-ubiquitous abuse potential. Two New Zealand researchers (Jansen and Prast, 1988*) who are hard at work on M. speciosa feel that it has great promise as a non-debilitating addiction treatment, better than methadone. The plant, containing twenty-two alkaloids, seems to be more effective and benign than the extracted dominant alkaloid, mitragynine. While publishing their studies, they have issued a call for more attention to this plant, yet there are very few, if any, trees outside Southeast Asia. In fact, M. speciosa has been illegal to possess in Thailand for some years, but is still widely grown in garden compounds or amidst banana or mango groves by the many who value it. We decided it would be worth trying to collect and establish some saplings. Soon after that, a traveler was able to send back seeds, but they proved very difficult to germinate. When an opportunity arose to spend two weeks in Bangkok in January of this year. I decided to make it my mission to find the plant and investigate its use. Knowing that the plant was found in the vicinity of Bangkok, it was the first time I'd searched for a plant in a metropolis, and I had to be careful how and whom I asked; I was somewhat intimidated, but challenged. I rendezvoused with an old traveling friend there, and together she and I researched possibilities and negotiated taxi fares. Knowing that a good place to look is often in the usual Royal Botanical Garden, I was perplexed that nothing of the sort existed in the entire city. I finally deduced that since Thailand had never been colonized by Europeans, no such artifact of colonization was left there. We found a medicinal plant information center, and through them a very fine professor of pharmacology. Walking into his classroom, we saw long rows of uniformed university students, each bent over his or her microscope, making notes. When I asked what they were doing, the professor told me that they were analyzing medicinal plant compounds, of course. I only wished such a sight were common in the States. It turned out that he, with the help of his department, had started a small ethnobotanical garden some distance outside the city, and a few days later he graciously toured me through it and we agreed to trade species. He was very excited to think he might obtain some South American species without having to go there, which of course was outside his modest budget. On the other hand, his garden is maintained by a staff of fourteen for the same amount it costs our project for a staff of two, and is as manicured as a golf course. I tried several approaches in my search: Combing the weekend plant market, a bazaar which displays edible and ornamental rooted specimens brought in from the countryside, along with hilltribe crafts and racks of used men's dress shirts from California (very popular with the teenage girls). I found an unusual roseapple there, medicinal tamarinds, and betel-nut chewers, but it was becoming clear to me that M. speciosa was just underground enough to be elusive. Next, we spent a day outside the city, at a Buddhist monastery that specializes in treating drug addiction (CQ #33, p. 76). Addicts -- mostly young urban men -- come willingly to the program, which consists of powerful plant purges, herbal steambaths and dharma teachings. The monks would not reveal what plants were used in the purge, but it was made clear kratom was not among them. On my own again, beginning to feel frustrated, and not yet having found the perfect taxidriver to trust my request and myself with, I fortuitously bumped into an American friend who had sampled the leaves previously. He was willing to track down a sapling, and knew a guide he felt could lead him to it. They traced a rumor to a road into a rice paddy, to a country herbalist who found for them a strong rooted cutting and many seed pods. I used the hotel shower to cleanse the plant and several other species I had collected of all soil, carefully packed the roots in damp shredded newsprint and plastic bags, boxed them, included permits, and sent the package on its way. Small amounts of money crossed palms at every juncture. The fact that a now-devoted taxidriver was able to arrange international express service showed me that Thailand is indeed on the verge of the 21st century, come what may. Several days later the plants arrived in Hawaii (the home of our nursery) in fair shape, considering the journey they had undergone, and are now being nursed in a tropical shadehouse. There, germination and propagation efforts will continue, researchers will be notified, and plant material will be made available for study. Mission accomplished, botanical contacts initiated, I left Bangkok and entered my holiday.

(*) Jansen, Karl L.R., and Prast, Colin J., "Ethnopharmacology of Kratom and the Mitragyna Alkaloids," Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 1988, issue 23, pp. 115-119. Jansen and Prast, "Psychoactive Properties of Mitragynine (Kratom)," Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 1988, Vol. 20 (4), pp. 455-457.

PHOTO : (Left) Medicinal herbs being propagated, Thailand.

PHOTO : (Right) Kat McKenna interviewing Buddhist monk, Tham Krabok Wat, Thailand.

COPYRIGHT 1989 Point Foundation
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