Kava is a herbal drink with an earthy taste, made from the root of a pepper tree. It is a subtle psychoactive drug, a sedative hypnotic. It is supposed to promote calm and deep sleep. Footballers of Pacific origin use it to calm down before a match. It is also used by artists of Pacific origin to soothe the excesses their artistic temperament.

Kava is consumed throughout the Pacific Islands – Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia – except on New Zealand and the hinterland of New Guinea, due to the unfavourable climate. It is not consumed in the Torres Strait, and it was never adopted by the Aborigines of mainland Australia.

It was first observed by Europeans in 1616 and first described taxonomically on James Cook’s first voyage in 1770.

My interest in kava was sparked in 2022 when Australian politician Michael McCormack became ill after drinking kava while visiting the Pacific Islands as part of an Australian delegation. In a subsequent interview, he jokingly suggested that an International Kava Day should be instituted to commemorate the incident.

At that time I had never drunk kava, despite being a university-qualified Pacific researcher. I knew that there had been a scheme some decades ago to introduce kava to the Aborigines as a substitute for the “rivers of grog”. As someone who suffers from insomnia I was interested in a drug which might solve my problem.

I conducted an informal survey in Sydney, Australia, focussing on Parramatta, the so-called capital of Western Sydney. All Pacific Islanders I spoke to had taken kava, but kava consumption tended to decline since coming to Australia among the younger generation. F, a Tongan security guard, reported that his father took kava every weekend. He described the effect of kava as a “buzz”. E, an Aboriginal busker and activist, knew of kava but had never drunk it. He did not think that kava would help the Aboriginal community overcome their alcohol problem. White people generally had not heard of kava. The exceptions were a librarian and some pharmacy employees, one of whom had tasted kava in Fiji and said that it tasted like mud. J, a pharmacist with Islamic heritage, had a negative attitude to the drug, saying it had been banned for decades. M, a Samoan JW, had been introduced to kava by a Fijian friend. His lips had gone numb, and he’d never tried it again.

Kava products are available in vitamin stores and pharmacies. The products include:

• Kava 3800, Thompson’s
• Kava, Bioglan
• Kava Calm, Nature’s Sunshine.

Kava itself was available at Harris Park Liquor in packets imported from Fiji, but at no other liquor store in the Parramatta area.