Late in 1981, a group of Australian Aboriginal men from a coastal community in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, visited Fiji where for the first time they drank kava, a psychoactive substance that had long been used throughout Pacific communities both as a ritual drink and for secular recreation. They liked it, and upon their return to Australia took steps to ensure continuing supplies. In the years since then, the use of kava has spread to a handful of other Aboriginal communities, all of them located in Arnhem Land. It has not been adopted throughout Aboriginal Australia as a whole, nor is it widely used by non-Aboriginal Australians, except among Pacific Islanders resident in Australia.

Despite the localised nature of its adoption, kava from the outset has generated controversy and sensational allegations. In the last few years, it has also been subjected to increasingly pervasive legal restrictions on its sale, supply and use. My intention here is, firstly, to trace the emergence of these restrictions in the context of the controversies surrounding kava and, secondly, to reflect on the implications of recent changes in kava policy with respect to the broader issue of Aboriginal substance misuse policy. Before addressing either objective, I shall say a little by way of background.

The Northern Territory (NT) occupies approximately one-sixth of the land mass of Australia, yet its enumerated population of 154,848 recorded in the 1986 census amounted to less than one per cent of the Australian total. Some 22.4 per cent of the NT population is Aboriginal - a higher proportion than that found in any other Australian state or territory. In turn, most NT Aborigines live in relatively remote communities, varying in size from former mission communities containing over 1,000 residents to isolated ‘outstations’ or ‘homeland centres’ occupied by a single extended family with as few as 20 resident members (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1990). In the past, Aborigines in many parts of the Northern Territory were employed in the pastoral industry. The introduction of equal pay provisions in the late 1960s, however, coupled with a general decline in rural employment opportunities, has effectively pushed a high proportion of Aborigines out of the labour market and into the social security system, where they are left to cope with high unemployment, poor living conditions and not surprisingly, a high incidence of problems associated with substance misuse, especially alcohol and, in certain areas, petrol sniffing.

It was into this setting that kava was introduced. The scientific name of kava is Piper methysticum, which means ‘intoxicating pepper’, a reference to the fact that kava is prepared from the crushed root of a pepper plant.

Traditionally, in South Pacific communities, the fresh root of the plant was first chewed (according to some accounts, by young virgins) and the mixture of kava and saliva then mixed with water, strained and drunk - usually by older men. Christian missionaries in the 19^th Century condemned not only the heathen connotations of kava use, but also the manner of its preparation. Today, these practices are confined to parts of Vanautu and New Guinea; elsewhere, the root is pounded or ground to a powder, which is then infused in a bowl of water rather like a giant tea-bag and the resulting mixture consumed (Lebot and Cabalion 1988, 13-14; Frater 1958, 32; Gregory, Gregory and Peck 1981). So far as is known, the kava plant is not grown in Australia, although it has long been used in the Torres Strait Islands (Brunton 1989). Australian users purchase a commercially-produced dried powder, which is imported from Fiji and other Pacific countries (Alexander, Watson and Fleming 1987, 2-5).

The effects of drinking kava depend on a host of variables, including the part of the plant used, the conditions under which it is grown, the manner of preparation and the circumstances of consumption.

However, the main actions are those of a mild, centrally acting relaxant, including generalised muscle relaxation and, ultimately, a deep natural sleep.

It also has local anaesthetic properties, manifested in a numbing of the mucous membrane of the tongue and mouth (Alexander, Watson and Fleming 1987, ¢). One evocative early account of the experience of drinking kava describes ‘a state of happy unconcern, wellbeing and contentment’:

"At the beginning conversation comes in a gentle, easy flow and hearing and sight are honed, becoming able to perceive subtle shades of sound and vision. Kava soothes temperaments. The drinker never becomes angry, unpleasant, quarrelsome or noisy, as happens with alcohol ... When consumption is excessive, however, the limbs become tired, the muscles seem no longer to respond to the orders and control of the mind, walking becomes slow and unsteady and the drinker looks partly inebriated. He feels the need to lie down. The eyes see the objects present, but cannot or do net want to identify them accurately. The ears also perceive sounds without being able or wanting to realise what they hear The drinker is prey to exhaustion and feels the need to sleep more than any other sensation. He is overcome by somnolence and finally drifts off to sleep" (Lewin 1927, quoted in Lebot and Cabalion 1988, 11).

Among both the Aboriginal people who were initially attracted to kava, and non-Aboriginal individuals and groups who encouraged its adoption, kava was viewed primarily as a preferable alternative to alcohol, the heavy consumption of which was then (as now) associated in many Aboriginal communities with violence, family disruption, violations of customary law, road fatalities and a host of health problems. Proponents of kava claimed that its use generated an affability which enhanced community well-being. At the same time, opponents of kava claimed that it was turning Aboriginal people into virtual zombies who did not even have the energy to feed themselves or their children, let alone perform occupational roles. It was also claimed that drinkers were paying good money to unscrupulous dealers and were even, in some cases, meeting sudden, untimely deaths apparently caused by heavy kava use.

It was not only the nature of kava itself that gave rise to controversy. Allegations were also made concerning the role of various people and institutions in promoting kava use. Rumours about senior public servants using government-funded transportation and communication facilities to sell kava for their personal profit regularly circulated through the Top end of the Northern Territory. The harshest allegations, however, were directed at the Uniting Church. Mostkava-using communities have historical links with the forebears of the Uniting Church and individual Church members have been associated with the introduction x of kava. Critics charged the Uniting Church with having duped Aboriginal people into adopting kava, for imputed motives ranging from the diabolical to the merely misguided. For its part, while individual Uniting Church members have made no secret of their belief that moderate kava use should be available as an alternative to alcohol, the Church has denied any direct involvement at an institutional level with the promotion or sale of kava (d’Abbs, 1990a).

It was in this context of innuendo and anecdote that the Northern Territory Government looked to its Health Department which in turn referred the matter to its Drug and Alcohol Bureau (DAB) for a policy on kava use. The DAB, determined not to be stampeded by the climate of claim and counter-claim into making hasty judgements, attempted to monitor the impact of kava use through health personnel working in the communities, and also established contacts with kava suppliers. Between 1983 and 1985, a Departmental position on kava took shape, which, in outline, asserted that:

 kava was not a drug and, in the absence of clear evidence of its having addictive properties, should not be defined or treated as such;

 the only adverse health consequence that had been shown to be kava-caused was a dermatitis-like skin condition which only occurred after regular heavy consumption and which disappeared when consumption stopped or was reduced;

 a number of social and economic problems did appear to be associated with consumption patterns in Arnhem Land, such as absenteeism and disruption to eating routines; these, however, were problems arising out of the manner in which kava was being used, and could not be attributed to kava per se;

 kava also appeared to have beneficial consequences especially with respect to alcohol-related problems.

 while further monitoring and research into the impact of kava on the health of Arnhem Landers was needed, there was no justification for banning or restricting kava. Communities should be left to make their own decisions. (Alexander 1985).

Despite these relatively sanguine assessments, reports of increasing kava-related problems continued to accrue through 1985 and 1986. Health workers in the East Arnhem region filed reports of malnutrition among young children resulting, it was claimed, from parents spending large sums of money on kava. The sister-in-charge at one community health centre described several instances in which adults had seizures after drinking kava for two or three days and eating little or no food. She also reported having observed people begging for food or eating clay after having spent all their money on kava. A regional nursing of ficer reported weight loss among kava drinkers, as well as sore red eyes, chest pains and hypertension. She also cited five cases where people had collapsed suddenly after kava-drinking binges, three of them subsequently dying (d’Abbs, 1990a) .

What little follow-up investigation could be done after the events indicated that none of the effects observed could be ascribed unequivocally to kava drinking. Nonetheless, a departmental assessment made in mid-1986 concluded that, over the preceding 12-18 months there had been a marked increase in the quantity of kava being imported. It also emphasised the urgent need for investigation of the long-term health effects of the high consumption levels being reported (d’Abbs 1990a). One psychiatrist with experience in one kava-using community expressed alarm at what he saw as consumption levels much higher than normal South Pacific levels. ‘One cannot consider’, he wrote, ‘that kava consumption is safe at these dosages or be confident that a very high dose might not lead to respiratory paralysis and death’ (Cawte 1986, 75).

At this time, the kava user normally purchased kava in bags of around 270gms, for prices ranging from $12 to $20, the norm being $15 per bag - equivalent to about $55 per kg (Alexander, Watson and Fleming 1987, 26). Early estimates of the costs to suppliers vary. Alexander (1985, 19) states that the cost of purchasing a kilogram of powdered kava from Sydney and landing it in an Arnhem Land community was about $30; however, one leading Sydney importer of Fijian kava claimed to be supplying kava at $13.50 per kilo plus freight (d’Abbs, 1990a:8).

By the end of 1986 a number of commercial enterprises had begun moves to exploit what was seen as an expanding and still legal market. The most ambitious of these and one which was to have significant policy repercussions, was an attempt by Darwin based entrepreneurs to introduce kava to the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In June 1987, Aboriginal groups held a meeting and organised demonstrations in Broome to protest against the planned introduction of kava, following which the Western Australian Aboriginal Affairs Minister, himself of Aboriginal descent, imposed a three month moratorium on the sale of kava.

By now, the Northern Territory Government was coming under increasing criticism for its refusal to ban or restrict kava. A series of articles appeared in the journal Aboriginal Health Worker claiming that the NT Department of Health and Community Services was, in effect, promoting kava and denying people in comnunities access to information about its adverse consequences (Drury et al 1987, Assan 1987). In reality, the situation in the NT was less simple than in WA, where Aboriginal organisations spoke out against kava before its use has taken a foothold. In the NT, at least in kava-using communities, there was widespread (though by no means unanimous) support for kava use. Most of these communities, moreover, operated self-imposed bans on the consumption of alcohol. To act precipitately against kava in these communities would possibly make it difficult for community elders and others to maintain the restrictions on alcohol.

In order to provide a basis for policy making, three major research projects were initiated at about this time. Firstly the Drug and Alcohol Bureau commenced a survey of drug use in a stratified sample of Aboriginal communities in the NT (Watson, Fleming and Alexander 1988). Secondly, the National Health and Medical Research Council awarded a two-year research grant to Dr Alan Duffield, an organic chemist at the University of New South Wales, to conduct further investigations into the chemistry and pharmacology of kava. Thirdly, in November 1986 the Menzies School of Health Research was awarded a grant under the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse to examine the effects on health of kava use in Arnhem Land.

The DAB survey findings, insofar as they related to kava, were published in 1987 in the form of a revised version of an earlier 1985 monograph (Alexander, Watson and Fleming 1987). The authors reported that:

 of 11 communities that had been using kava in 1983, five had since imposed bans on its consumption;

 in those communities where kava was used, an estimated 71 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women drank it

 contrary to widespread reports, kava was not being drunk at more concentrated doses than normally prevailed in traditional Pacific kava-using societies;

 again, contrary to reports, there had been a decline since 1985 both in the number of communities using kava and the amounts consumed within communities;

 21 per cent of kava drinkers consumed kava every day.

 there was no evidence of kava currently being mixed with other substances.

 while expenditure on kava was considerable (estimated at $2,000 per week in one community; $2,800 in another), it was not dissimilar to expenditure on cigarettes and tobacco.

The report acknowledged that drinking practices entailed hygiene risks and that certain categories of people - notably children and pregnant women - should be actively discouraged from drinking. At the same time, it concluded that no major health problems or deaths could be attributed to kava and argued against the imposition of external controls.

While the survey findings lent support to what a member of the Department described as ‘a conservative but non-alarmist approach’ to kava (d’Abbs 1990), the findings of the Menzies School research, issued in a preliminary statement in November 1987 and in more detail in the Medical Journal of Australia the following June, cast a rather different light (Mathews et al, 1988). The researchers reported, on the basis of studies in one kava-using community, that kava drinkers were more likely than nondrinkers to suffer from general ill health, including shortness of breath and characteristic skin rash; from malnutrition, with 20 per cent loss of body weight, 50 per cent loss of body fat and other biochemical changes; from liver damage, with biochemical changes similar to those caused by large doses of alcohol; and other changes in red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. They concluded that, while further research was needed, it appeared that heavy kava consumption was harmful to health and should be discouraged, and that steps should be taken to prevent the introduction of kava into Aboriginal communities where it was not already available (Mathews et al 1988).

The Menzies School findings had an immediate impact on policy. The Western Australian Government, partly in response to the findings and also to the expressed wishes of local Aboriginal communities, in July 1988 invoked Section 22 of the Poisons Act to prohibit the sale, supply or promotion of kava in WA. In order to avoid imposing yet another externally defined offence on Aboriginal societ, especially at a time when moves were afoot to decriminalise drunkenness, possession or use was not made an offence, while in deference to Fijians and other Pacific Islanders who might have ritualistic or other cultural reasons for wishing to use kava, provision was made to enable such people to apply for exemptions (d’Abbs, 1990).

For the first time, also, the Commonwealth Government became involved, through the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy (MCDS), a body on which all states and territories, as well as the Commonwealth, are represented. Late in 1987 the NT Government presented a report to MCDS, following which a working party was established. Four months later MCDS endorsed the recommendations for the working party, which called for the discouragement of kava use, education about the effects of kava, and restrictions on advertising. The working party stopped short of recommending a national ban, however, urging instead that states and territories be left to make their own decisions.

More recently, and again at the behest of the NT, another Commonwealth body - the National Health and Medical Research Council - has also considered the status of kava, and late in 1990 placed it on Schedule 4 of the Commonwealth Standard for Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons. This schedule encompasses poisons "that should, in the public interest, be restricted to medical, dental or veterinary prescription or supply, together with substances or preparations intended for therapeutic use, the safety or efficacy of which requires further evaluation" (National Health and Medical Research Council 1989).

Under the Australian federal system, the NH&MRC declaration does not take effect in individual states and territories until the latter also place the substance on their own Schedules. The NT Government has yet to do this; in the meantime, however, it has introduced its own controls on the sale and supply of kava. This followed a review of policy options, in which one option - that of banning kava altogether was considered and rejected, on the grounds that, even if a ban were to prove effective, it would probably do little more than create a vacuum that would in turn be filled by increased alcohol abuse and/or petrol sniffing, both of which almost certainly do more harm than kava users and their communities alike. If on the other hand, the ban proved ineffective, the result would be a black market even less amenable to control than the existing legal market. (The fact that most kava-using communities are not only remote, but lack resident police of ficers, made it seem likely that the ban would be far from effective.)

Instead of banning kava, the Government has invoked consumer protection legislation to prohibit the sale and supply of kava, except in accordance with any approvals which the Minister for Health and Community Services might issue. This last clause has been used, both before and since the measure came into effect in June 1990, to allow those communities which wished to continue having access to kava to do so, but not under the unregulated conditions that hitherto prevailed.

Throughout1990, consultations have taken place involving, in the first instance, public meetings in the communities  concerned aimed at determining whether or not the communities wished to ban kava; in the event of their not wishing to do so, community members were advised of the terms and conditions which the Government would insist upon being met as part of any approvals that might be given. In communities wishing to continue using kava, further lower-key meetings have occurred as part of negotiating arrangements for the approved supply of kava.

To this point, three communities have elected not to allow kava to be sold, while in another five communities, mechanisms have either been established or are currently being set up, under which the local council controls the supply and sale of kava, subject to terms and conditions attache: in writing to their formal approvals. In general, these conditions set minimum ages for sales, maximum amounts to be sold and record-keeping requirements.

The debates in recent years about kava in Aboriginal communities have occurred, in the main, with little input from the people most involved: Aboriginal residents of kava-using communities. Rather, they have been conducted in legislative assemblies, the media, and in the same forces that usually govern debates in these contexts: constituency pressures, political priorities, administrative constraints.

Events which occur in one context, however, and have certain meanings and purposes within that context, may, in the course of being experienced within other contexts, have very different meanings. It is these latter meanings that will shape people’s responses to events, not the meanings attributed to them in the policy-making context. I wish to end this article with some reflections on the inter-relationships between the events associated with kava policy as they have evolved in a political-administrative context, and the meanings which these events have within kava-using communities.

These reflections are no more than tentative ideas; they have arisen largely from my involvement in recent months in identifying and proposing new kava policies, explaining the policy selected to people in Aboriginal communities, and trying to understand the varied responses of Aboriginal people to the changes. They apply, however, to other substances besides kava.

From the policy making perspective, kava is a public health issue. Recent restrictions on the sale and supply of kava arise out of concerns with the effects of kava on health, and the single most influential piece of research behind the restrictions is an epidemiological study.

Aboriginal people recognise the importance of health issues, and although many Arnhem Landers do not subscribe to Western notions of disease aetiology, they are aware of links between substance issue and ill health. At the same time,

Aboriginal access to recreational drugs is a highly political issue. The history of European control over Aboriginal society is in no small part, as Barber, Punt and Albers (1988) remark, a history of external control over access to alcohol and other drugs. Throughout most of Australia, Aboriginal people acquired the legal right to purchase liquor and drink it openly in the 1960s, at about the same time as, and in conjunction with, the removal of wide ranging restrictions on their day to day lives and the granting of citizenship. Consequently, any action taken which affects access to recreational drugs is likely to be highly charged with symbolic meaning, which may well take precedence over concerns about health.

An illustration of this occurred very recently at one community in north-east Arnhem Land which has elected to retain kava use. Under the terms and conditions that apply in this community, purchasers until now have had to sign their names whenever they buy kava. Many people dislike the condition because, they say, it takes them back to the "mission days". The condition is being removed. Even when the issue of public health is given paramount place, many Aboriginal residents of kava use communities express scepticism towards a government which is apparently deeply concerned about the health effects of heavy kava use, but which at the same time is seen not merely to tolerate, but actively to promote the consumption of alcohol, by issuing liquor outlet licences, allowing the advertising of alcohol, and so on. "Which drug do you believe causes more harm to Aboriginal people, nganitji (alcohol) or kava?" I have sometimes been asked. And of course, I have to reply "nganitji". The implications, having been exposed, are usually left unspoken. The fact that the Northern Territory Liquor Act has more provision for community control of alcohol than any equivalent legislation elsewhere in Australia does not negate the perception of selective attention. Sometimes the point is put more bluntly: "Kava is yulngu (Aboriginal) drink, so the government wants to stop it. Alcohol is a balanda (white person’s) drink, so they don’t stop it".

Kava is also, in many communities, al important entrepreneurial issue. In settings marked by a dearth of meaningfi employment opportunities, the selling of kava offers particularly attractive opportunities. A ready made local marke is available, access to which requires no advertising or promotion. Kava offers high profits, at the cost of few organisational demands or overheads. Prior to the present system being introduced, a person in an Aboriginal community could, in effect, clean up in a game of cards one evening, telephone a kava dealer in Darwin next morning, if need be sending advance payment in on that day’s plane, and have a consignment of kava delivered within a day or so, whicl he could quickly turn to a handsome, tax-free profit. Kava does not require refrigeration, or particular care in handling, and has never in the past attracted the interest of officials such as health inspectors.

It is not surprising that kava dealing in some communities has become an important element in local political alliances and factions, with contemporary entrepreneurial practices being combined with traditional modes of authority in a manner that is sometimes intriguing, and not always apparent to outside observers. Under these circumstances, the way in which a community responds to restrictions on kava may be governed as much by local political forces as by residents’ views about kava.

Policy makers often expect and hope that Aboriginal communities will exercise indigenous social controls over the use of recreational drugs. When, as often happens, the communities are seen not to do so, there is a temptation on the part of the policy makers to see only social disorganisation in Aboriginal communities and to brush aside those local control mechanisms that do exist and impose mechanisms of their own. This, I believe is a mistake.

It is true that, in many Aboriginal settings, informal social mechanisms for the control of recreational drugs are not working effectively. This is not an indication, however, that Aboriginal societies are in a state of disintegration.

Rather, as Edmunds (1990) has argued in a recent paper prepared for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, indigenous forms of social control, developed in a context of small mobile groups structured in terms of religion and age, are no longer adequate in modern large settlements, whether in remote or settled Australia. Ironically, the apparent ineffectiveness of these control mechanisms sometimes drives exasperated Aboriginal groups also to turn to government and ask it to take over the problem, as it were, by imposing external, preferably draconian, measures. To accede to such pleas would also be in my view, a mistake. Rather, the goal of policies should be to strengthen rather then over-ride local informal control mechanisms. This requires maintaining balance: too little intervention, and already ailing mechanisms will be further weakened; too much, and they will be undermined. If we fail to maintain that balance and, notwithstanding our intentions, contribute to further erosion and indigenous mechanisms, we shall thereby achieve little more than further demoralisation, which in turn will precipitate yet more substance misuse.

It is also sometimes argued by policy makers that substance misuse is merely a symptom of other problems such as unemployment and therefore not amenable to useful intervention until these other problems have been solved.

Again, it is true that the dearth of meaningful roles and opportunities in many Aboriginal communities, especially but not only with respect to young men, creates a setting conducive to excessive use of mind altering substances. It is also true that policies concerned with minimising the harm caused by such substances must articulate with other policy arenas, such as those bearing on employment and recreation. But I do not know a single Aboriginal person who would suggest that the problems associated with substance misuse, especially alcohol, should put aside pending solutions to other problems such as unemployment - important though these issues are.

If our policies are not to amount to anything more than the usual well-intentioned, unproductive meddling by non-Aboriginal people in the lives of Aboriginal people, we need to give due recognition to the connotations of these policies within the local community context - in particular the symbolic political and entrepreneurial connotations - and maintain the balance, referred to above, between insufficient and excessive intervention. And all this has to be reconciled with the imperatives of the political/administrative context in which policies are forged.

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