David Winston, RH(AHG), founder and president of Herbalist and Alchemist, was honored by the American Herbalists Guild (AHG) for 31 years of service as chair and co-founder of the AHG Admissions Review Advisory Committee.
 
The committee ensures a core level of knowledge and experience in the practice of botanical medicine to all herbalists with RH(AHG) (Registered Herbalist, American Herbalists Guild) after their name.
 
“David deserves tremendous credit for adding his energy, passion, wisdom, and knowledge to helping grow the AHG with the many amazing professional members we have today,” said Christopher Hobbs, PhD, co-founder of the AHG.  “He has held to the highest standards while encouraging us to invite and review herbalists from many different backgrounds, thus confirming our diversity, one of the Guild’s greatest achievements.”
 
The American Herbalists Guild was founded in 1989 as a nonprofit educational organization to represent herbalists specializing in the use of medicinal plants. The organization states that it promotes clinical herbalism as a viable profession rooted in ethics, competency, diversity, and freedom of practice, and supports access to herbal medicine for all.
 
Founding members of AHG include: Michael Tierra; Cascade Anderson Geller; James Green; Roy Upton; Grace Marroquin; Mindy Green; Amanda McQuade-Crawford; Christopher Hobbs; Paul Lee; Mara Levin; Brigitte Mars; Jane Bothwell; Lesley Tierra; David Winston; Steven Foster; Kathi Keville; David Hoffman; David Bunting; Mark Blumenthal; Ed Smith; and Sara Katz.
 
“I was honored to be recognized alongside my colleagues and friends Christopher Hobbs and Michael Tierra for our long service,” Winston said. “The ARB has worked diligently for 32 years to create meaningful, relatively objective, and fair admissions standards and processes so that we can effectively gauge the qualifications and level of training of applicants for AHG professional membership. Our goal has been to honor all herbal traditions and find ways of understanding a practitioner’s level of competence, knowledge, and experience.”