The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As a

Herbalist (by request)

You want to be what? A herbalist? You sure you're thinking of the right thing? You're not that boy who hangs out with those "wiccan" girls who keep burning incense in the back gym stairwell? Mind you, I'll admit it smells better now that... Oh, that's not you? Wait a minute--I remember you--you're that kid who got rushed to the hospital when they thought your appendix was going to burst last year, and you had the emergency surgery. What's the matter, couldn't get your hands on enough medicinal leeches that day?

I'm not completely up on this one, but I think you might expect a rather unusual career path. First of all, most of your relevant texts were likely written back when parchment and latin were a lot more popular. You'll need to know where to get the herbs in question, of course, and that means a lot of midnight trips to obscure locations under a full moon. It's still better than trusting the pharmacy's "natural" line--most of that crap is just placebo pills the drug companies have left from old research studies--kind of like how the big oil companies are buying up all the electric car patents so they can continue their monopoly.

You'll probably apprentice under "madame" something, and your duties the first six months will be putting herbal poultices on the various maladies suffered by her 57 cats. Over time you'll realize that you can only learn so much from her, and you're not really interested in crystal therapy and aura interpretation. One afternoon as she's doing her weekly tarot session down at the senior's center, you "borrow" a couple of relevant books, and open up your own herbal therapy spa in your small rental home.

This begins a regular cycle of interactions with police--the neighbors don't like you running a business from the house in the first place, and after each delivery from the hydroponics store, one of them calls the drug tip line and you are subjected to yet another raid. The police should give it up after the first few times, but your indiscreet remarks quoted in a local newspaper about the value of marijuana as a "nature's analgesic" convince the authorities that it's only a matter of time before they bust you on a narcotics charge.

Eventually, though, you make enough to buy a small farm and grow your herbs there. You develop your own product line, and soon you're selling natural remedies across half the continent. Unlike the competitors, which are all marketed by the same one or two multinational drug companies under a variety of brand names, your therapeutic herbs actually contain the ingredients listed on the bottle.

The drug companies don't like independent upstarts, and soon they're battling you with all three of their best weapons. They cut all their own products' prices to below cost--they can weather the financial beating better than you can, but you still have to drop yours to be competitive. Second, their huge advertising budgets make newspapers and magazines willing to do "exposés" on your operation, equating you with shyster "psychic surgeons" and those who peddle laetrile to cancer victims. It doesn't help matters when one of the writers in your own online newletter refers to the danger presented to our bodies by "free radicals" and the next thing you know, those two little words have the Department of Homeland Security running a full scale investigation on you and everyone who's ever worked for you.

The final tool of the drug companies is litigation. They have huge legal budgets and cutthroat lawyers on retainer--face it, these are the people that gave the world thalidomide and they know how to play hardball--and they'll saddle you with one nuisance lawsuit after another. They know they won't win most of them, but it's fiscal bleeding they seek, and eventually they'll push you past the breaking point.

You'll end up as sales clerk in a herbal tea shop. You won't get rich, but every christmas--sorry, I mean winter solstice--they'll give you a lovely bottle of hemp oil in thanks for your loyal but mind-numbing service.