Eighty percent of all medicinal drugs originate in wild plants. In spite of the technological and medical advances, only 2 percent of the world's plant species have been analyzed even for one group of plant chemicals, the alkaloids.
Most plants remain untested for their medical potential.
An example of a Pacific Northwest plant that is widely used in modern medicine is the Pacific Yew. The drug toxol, used in the treatment of cancer, is produced from the Pacific Yew. The native peoples of the Pacific Northwest did not have the corner drug store, large supermarkets or HomeBase. They had to rely on the forests, grasslands, and the animals to supply their food, materials, and medicines. Why not learn from their thousands of years of experience.