Today’s episode explores how ancestral plant knowledge can help reshape the future of healthcare and the economy. Clinical herbalist, educator, and consultant Laura Ash joins us to discuss the cultural, scientific, and economic power of herbal medicine—and what is required to protect Indigenous knowledge while advancing modern research.

Laura currently serves as the Director of Operations at the Beneficial Plant Research Association (BPRA), where she works on biodiversity conservation, Traditional Knowledge preservation, and equitable research partnerships. In this conversation, she explains the ongoing impacts of biopiracy, the challenges nonprofits face in funding clinical research, and why whole-plant medicine is fundamentally different from isolated compounds.

We also explore how herbalism reconnects us to community and place, what plant allies can teach us about interdependence, and why legalizing coca is not just a drug policy issue but a cultural one. Listeners will come away with a deeper sense of how plants, people, and economies are intertwined—and what it looks like to build a healthcare future rooted in both science and ancestral wisdom.

Key Points From This Episode

Clinical herbalist, Laura Ash, describes who she is and her path in herbal medicine. [0:01:42]
How she became the Director of Operations at BRPA. [0:09:37]
The modern reality of biopiracy and how it continues to impact Indigenous communities. [0:11:58]
Understanding what brings Laura energy and hope in her daily work. [0:17:38]
How Indigenous wisdom and scientific research can support one another in the future of healthcare. [0:20:48]
Why funding models for nonprofit clinical research need major change. [0:23:14]
How the body reacts differently to plant compounds versus whole-plant medicines. [0:24:28]
The cultural, economic, and social patterns revealed through deeper relationships with plants. [0:30:26]
Plant allies, connecting with ancestral roots, and coca legalization. [0:34:26]
Final reflections, words of hope, and how to connect with Laura Ash and BPRA. [0:41:30]

Quotations:

“Entrepreneurship is a disease and there’s no herbs to cure it.” — Laura Ash [0:01:57]

“You have to understand the weight and the power that you have as someone who can come in with funding or come in with a promise, that your ideas can change the minds of people even if it’s not aligned with their cultural values.” — Laura Ash [0:17:20]

“What’s alive for me most right now is connecting people, in-person, with plants, with nature, and with one another.” — Laura Ash [0:18:22]

“As much as science and research and new technology have come up, I think it’s going to be even more important, especially with AI showing up, for us to dive deeper into our traditional ways.” — Laura Ash [0:20:05]

“Research is our ally, traditional medicine is our foundation, and in our modern research, we get to do things that we have never been able to do before.” — Laura Ash [0:21:30]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode