Herbalists and health-food shop owners claim the federal government intends to begin strict enforcement on July 1 of a long-standing regulation that requires importers of packaged natural health products to obtain a drug identification number under the Canada Food and Drugs Act. They fear this means that scores of common and easily obtained herbal remedies that have helped ease pain and heal sickness for thousands of years will be unceremoniously pulled from store shelves.

Dr. Alan Lee, president of the Chinese Canadian National Council and a Western-trained medical doctor, said the crackdown on Chinese herbalists smacks of paternalism and wrongly calls into question a widely respected form of medical treatment. Olivia Chow, a Metro councilor and federal NDP candidate in the riding of Trinity Spadina, said the federal Liberals arbitrarily decided to step up enforcement of the DIN system as a way to appease Canada's powerful drug and pharmaceutical lobby.

But a red-faced Liberal MP Tony Ianno (Trinity-Spadina) insisted that Health Minister David Collenette has repeatedly assured the health practitioners and herbalists that the government intended to scrap the July 1 crackdown date.

Instead, the Liberals have set up a blue-ribbon panel to look into alternative health therapies, medicines, packaged products and loose herbs.

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