Ephedra ban hurts us all
Date: 12-06-2003
Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamUnited States |
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Some people become violent idiots or have health problems when they drink alcohol. Does that mean we should stop everyone from drinking?
Hardly.
There are a lot of people who drink responsibly and suffer no health problems whatsoever. To deny them access flies in the face of common justice and the principles of a free society.
The recent ban in Illinois on the sale of products containing ephedra is another story.
Because it causes health problems for some persons who ignore label warnings, Illinois is now on the radical edge of a movement to take an effective dietary supplement away from each and every American, regardless of whether it hurts only 1 percent of 1 percent of the people who take it.
The law is more dangerous than the substance itself.
Keep in mind that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not taken ephedra products off the market or defined it as dangerous, and does not appear willing to do so any time in the near future. It is neither illegal to possess ephedra products or to consume them. Nothing, including more than 55 clinical trials and FDA studies, has shown ephedra to be harmful when taken properly by healthy individuals.
Ephedra's primary effect is to boost a person's metabolic rate, much like jogging, and a person's body temperature, as is the case with other thermogenic substances such as coffee. A rise in blood pressure is expected.
But ignorance rules the day and a lot of people need something to blame when things go wrong.
Never mind that more people die each year from taking aspirin and common prescription drugs than from taking ephedra. Never mind that alcohol poisoning, smoking and skateboarding injure or kill more people by far.
We have to ban it because of a small minority and especially because it was implicated in the recent death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler.
Did they mention that Bechler is believed to have taken more than he was supposed to, was substantially overweight, and that he had a brother, Earnest, who died years earlier from an aneurysm while playing baseball, without taking ephedra?
Bechler should not have been taking ephedra -- and he wouldn't have if he had followed the directions -- any more than a person who is allergic to peanut butter should eat peanut butter.
I deeply sympathize with anyone who has lost a loved one through unexpected circumstances.
However, the fact is the world is filled with rightfully legal things which also happen to be deadly dangerous for some people -- like peanut butter.
If we banned everything that had the potential to hurt someone or to be abused, we'd be living in a totally insulated, totally safe, and totally inhuman world, lacking any kind of freedom.
Anti-ephedra lobbyists somehow convinced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich that a statewide sales ban made sense. They were wrong.
Banning ephedra is a huge overreaction that serves only to further erode the freedom which responsible people have to use products which benefit them.
It's Big Brother under the guise of Mother Theresa.
I've been fortunate most of my life to have very low to moderate blood pressure. It was 105 over 59 at my last check up.
I'm also a health advocate of sorts and have taken diet and energy-boosting products containing ephedra on and off for 10 years.
It has never caused me a single problem. To the contrary, it has helped me keep my weight down and my workout energy up. During college I took it along with a regiment of other nutrients and vitamins in order to increase my mental stamina for those marathon study sessions. It was very effective.
Gov. Blagojevich and those who like to play the blame game may think they're doing the right thing.
In effect, they're hurting us all.
