Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
The prohibitionist impulse is strong. When confronted with a newly encountered psychoactive substance, there are always special pleaders to sound the alarm and politicians willing to reflexively resort to the power of the ban. Whether it is something with serious potential dangers, like the "bath salts" drugs, or something much more innocuous, like khat, the mild stimulant from the Horn of Africa, doesn't seem to matter; the prohibitionist impulse is strong.
mitragyna speciosa (kratom) tree (photo by Gringobonk, courtesy Erowid.org)
Of course, any psychoactive substance has its good and its bad sides, but kratom's downside doesn't seem very severe. Erowid lists its negatives as including a bitter taste, dizziness and nausea at higher doses, mild depression coming down, feeling hot and sweaty, and hangovers similar to alcohol. There is no mention of potential for addiction, and while fatal overdoses are theoretically possible, especially with its methanol and alkaloid extracts, in the real world, ODing on kratom doesn't appear to be an issue. No fatal overdoses are known to have actually occurred.
On the other hand, some of kratom's alkaloids bind to opioid receptors in the brain, making it an opioid agonist, and it is now being sold in the West and used to treat pain, depression, anxiety, and opiate withdrawal. Sold in smoke shops, herbal supplement emporia, and on the Internet, it is now apparently being lumped in with synthetic cannabinoids and the "bath salts" drugs by treatment professionals, law enforcement, and others who make a habit of searching for scary new drugs.
Kratom is not listed as a banned substance in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs or its successor treaty, and has been banned in only a handful of countries, most ironically in Thailand itself. It was banned there in 1943, when then Thai government was taxing the opium trade and opium users were switching to kratom to aid in withdrawals and as a substitute.
Arrests for kratom possession have jumped in recent years, from more than 1,200 in 2005 to more than 7,000 in 2009, even though the Thai Office of the Narcotics Control Board recommended to the Justice Department in 2010 that it be decriminalized because of the lack of any perceivable social harms.
In the US, the DEA added kratom to its list of drugs of concern in 2010, although that doesn't mean that a federal ban is necessarily imminent. Salvia divinorum, for example, has been a drug of concern for more than a decade now, with no action taken. But while the feds haven't acted, there were efforts to ban kratom in several states in the US this year, although only Indiana actually succeeding in outlawing it. In Louisiana, age restrictions were placed on its purchase.
The experience of Iowa, where legislation to ban kratom is still pending, is illustrative of how bans are created. The Iowa effort happened after state Rep. Clel Baudler (R) heard about kratom on a radio program. Within two hours, he was moving to ban it.
"Kratom is a hallucinogen, addictive, and can be life threatening," he said at the time, in complete contradiction of all that is actually known about kratom.
It's not just states that are considering bans on kratom. Pinellas County, Florida, was about to enact one this week, but the prohibitionist bandwagon hit a bump in the road in the form of perennial drug war gadfly Randy Heine, owner of Rockin' Cards and Gifts in Pinellas Park, who told the Chronicle he had been selling kratom in his store since 1981.
Seeing what was coming down the pike, Heine alerted the Kratom Association, a group of users, producers, and vendors dedicated to keeping kratom legal, who flooded county commissioners with emails. He also addressed the commission itself.
Randy
"I have been selling kratom for over 30 years out of my store on Park Blvd. I challenge anyone to find any problem originating from my store selling kratom," he wrote in a letter made available to the Chronicle. "Do not lump in synthetic chemicals with an organic plant material. This is like comparing apples to oranges. I would like to see kratom be sold only to persons over the age of 18, similar to the proposal being made in our sister state of Louisiana."In the conservative county, Heine also appealed to the ghost of Ronald Reagan in his letter to commissioners. What riles up the Reagan in him, Heine wrote, is "growing the bureaucracy by creating another board to regulate what I and others do in privacy of our own homes."
"I got letters back from two of the commissioners," said Heine. "They read my Ronald Reagan letter out loud, and one of the GOP commissioners thanked me for sharing my thoughts. The commission has now deferred this item so we can take a closer look at the issues involved."
Many of his kratom customers are using it as an opiate substitute, he said.
"We have a drug rehab place here, and my feeling is that a lot of their clients are purchasing kratom instead of methadone. It's competition; I'm taking away money," he said. "Some of my customers say methadone is worse than heroin and keeps you addicted. Kratom weans them off heroin. A lot of them say they just do less and less kratom until the craving stops. I have a couple of senior women who say they're tired of taking prescription pills, that they make them nutty, and kratom works for them."
Chronicle readers may recall that Pinellas County is where a drug reform-minded upstart Democratic candidate for sheriff is taking on either the scandal-plagued Republican incumbent sheriff or his challenger and predecessor, former Sheriff Everett Rice (the GOP primary is next week), whose supporters on the council were pushing the kratom ban. That Democrat, Scott Swope, is so good on drug policy that his candidacy persuaded Heine to drop his own bid for the sheriff's office.
"This looks like another unconstitutional intrusion into the lives of Pinellas citizens who aren't harming anyone," Swope said. "I've researched kratom and although there doesn't seem to be as much research available as cannabis, it appears to me to be a plant product that should not be banned. I think the purchase or possession of any of these things (cannabis, kratom, bath salts) by minors should not be allowed. Adults, however, should be free to do what they want as long as they aren't harming anyone else."
While Heine is currently bedeviled by the effort to ban kratom, as well as an associated effort to force smoke shops to put large signs on their doors saying they sell drug paraphernalia, the Swope candidacy has him hoping for better times ahead.
"Swope can win," he exulted. "We finally have a candidate who is talking about marijuana. Even the Republican candidates are now saying they wouldn't bust people for marijuana. When I was still a candidate, I went to many forums to talk about pot, and the media started asking these guys about it. Scott won't arrest people for personal use."
Whether it's relatively unknown substances like kratom or now familiar substances like marijuana, the battle lines are drawn in what is ultimately a culture war. On one hand, the forces of fear and authoritarianism; on the other, the forces of free inquiry and personal liberty. It's been a long war, and it isn't going to end anytime soon, but perhaps now there are hints that the correlation of forces is changing.
Stopping unnecessary prohibitions before they get started is part of the struggle; undoing entrenched prohibitions with powerful interests behind them is another part of the struggle, but even though the substances are different, it's the same struggle.
(This article was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
Pain relief
Kratom once saved me thousands in ER bills by allowing me to treat a hyper-extended quadricep without an uninsured trip to the ER to get synthetic opiods. I had some Kratom in the fridge, and it knocked the pain down long enough to let me stay in bed and heal.
I suffer from chronic pain
I suffer from chronic pain and was dependent on opiods for years. I was able to switch to a very low dose of Kratom and I have not had to use opiods since. I was hoping this day wouldn't come but now I'm going to have to buy a few bulk orders and cryovac them just incase. Thanks America for trying to push me back to opiate addiction.
Banning is all that legislatures do
The problem is that legislatures know only how to ban things. In fact, banning things is the essence of any legislature's existence. There are rarely ever times that legislatures expand our rights, or repeal bad laws. No. Once a law gets passed, it stays forever. Then, fifty more laws get piled on top of that. Substances, or any other perceived "bad" item/activity for that matter, is able to realize a ban in a year or two, but it takes DECADES to make it legal again (e.g. marijuana) when the public realizes the ban was originally a mistake in some cases.
The laws that "ban everything" simply mount and mount and mount and NEVER sunset or face repeal. Its like the governments can't exist unless they are passing laws against the general public 100% of the time. I love my government, but I think more liberty-minded approaches should be explored.
In reply to Banning is all that legislatures do by Anonymous578 (not verified)
I love my country, but I hate
I love my country, but I hate my government.
Invasion of the Know-Nothings
People such as Rep. Clel Baudler (R), who know nothing about drugs or much of anything else it would seem, are usually in the forefront of prohibition. The know-nothings react to common herbal remedies like kratom as if it were a snake making a noise in the grass. It’s a basic fright or flight reaction. People who take the time to know a few things, Sheriff's Candidate Scott Swope in particular, will investigate the noise to see if it really is a snake, or one that’s poisonous.
People who make it their business to know a few things will further observe the snake and test its venom to determine if either could be useful for something. As it turns out, snake venom and its chemical analogues are incredibly useful in medicine and research. Knowledge derived from snake venom chemistry has saved many lives.
So in terms of evolution, survival of the fittest and all that, on the savannah, or in the rural or urban setting, the question is: which group survives?
Will it be the know nothings, the intellectually lazy who bolt at strange noises and sit in caves all day picking lice out of their hair? Or is knowledge the ultimate tool of adaptability and survival?
There can be no doubt that prohibitionists are among the un-evolved, or maybe the devolved.
Marijuana, it’s not just about drugs anymore.
Giordano
The Kratom Leaves are beneficial to people's health...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratom
Kratom has recently become more known and used in Europe and North America where it has been used for its applications to treat or aid in many conditions and ailments, such as pain, depression, anxiety, and opiate withdrawal. Just recently, Kratom has been found to also Lower Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, Blood Sugar, and also helps your immune system with its antioxidant/antiviral properties.
Comment: I guess "Kratom Leaves " might divert people to use natural substances as a new way of Life...!!; for example Drinking black tea (costs about 5c if you buy the teabags); "lowers Cortisol and increases Gaba (Gaba is what Lunesta is made from and you can get Gaba for 5c...health hint: Oolong Tea has highest Gaba for "relaxation !!
Lord knows
We certainly don't need anything that can be an opiate agonist.Especially one that has no addictive property's.Where's the fun in that?I have stopped wondering why there's this knee jerk reflex amongst the prohibition people in the US.It's just there and they've long ago quit trying to even justify their actions.It's like a disease and there seems to be no cure for these people.Even with the stats out of Portugal showing a reduction among the youth of all drug use.The prohibition people just stand back and insist that that couldn't happen here?They never explain why.They never explain anything.Statistics,although they are easily manipulated and can be used to show almost anything,have shown that if anything,drug use has exploded under prohibition.Even that doesn't discourage these people.In Europe,they have legalised,or at least decriminalised heroin and begun programs but only Portugal has taken the step towards a complete decriminalisation of all drugs.The heroin addiction rates in these countries have stabilised and in some cases been reduced.Of course that can't happen here either?The perpensity to ban any and everything that comes along is just a part of a larger strategy that is the same old prison and punishment programs that have more Americans in prison per population than any country in the free world.Worse than South Africa under apartheid.I guess that has created a huge infrastructure that has now dug in and will fight to the death to keep their cash flow.Even though it does nothing to solve anything and destroys more lives than any drug in history.
I'm the direct opposite of
I'm the direct opposite of prohibitionist and think all drugs should be legal, including kratom. I've used it extensively in the past, both to get high as well as to suspend withdrawal from opiates. It's a fantastic and underrated compound, which provides a smooth caffeine-like invigoration (it is in the coffee family, after all) in conjunction with it's opiod activity, and is all around quite euphoric and uplifting (unless you have a considerable opiate tolerance, in which case it only provides the stimulant effect and helps to stave off withdrawals). It is an excellent resource for addicts looking to taper their dependence, and is fairly self limiting as a recreational drug in that if you do kratom every day, after about a week the euphoria quickly diminishes; this tolerance issue also happens with opiates of course, but with kratom the high seems to drop off much quicker, and won't come back until you take a break from it. All that said, one thing I would like to correct is the impression that kratom is not addictive, and physically at that. It's not quite as addictive as the strong opiates, but there are kratom junkies who do go through withdrawal when they run out. A lot of addicts use kratom to get them off harder narcotics and end up dependent on the kratom. It's hard to imagine any compound that would have significant agonist activity at the opiate receptors that would not result to some extent in physical dependancy. To be fair, one can use kratom extensively without ever getting hooked if it is used at intervals. To become a kratom addict takes long periods of consistent, dedicated use. An opiate naive person using kratom would have to use it every day for over a month to get even the mildest addiction, whereas an opiate addict switching to kratom is switching one addiction for a more benign and easier to quit version of essentially the same addiction. None of this is meant to be an argument to ban kratom, of course, but I do feel that erroneously stating that it doesn't cause addiction is a little dangerous. The benefits clearly outweigh the drawbacks and I hope it remains under the radar as it were as long as possible.
Only the educated suffer from other's ignorance.
IF the governemnt bans kratom
He would ban it until its
since 1981
If Randy Heine can prove he's been selling kratom since 1981 it will get it out of the FDA's cross hairs.
Supplements sold before 1994 were grandfathered into the DHSEA. I hope someone will look into this.
Kratom has saved my life
Kratom is amazing for pain
Like many others I was pushed into "pain management" after the $50,000+ of medical crap care did nothing to help my chronic pain from a car accident i was rear ended in twice. I was prescribed opiates for 4 years before getting tired of the way the system is run. Doctors and pharmacys basically legal drug dealers and it ends up costing a fortune to try and relieve the pain. Kratom is amazing for pain relief and Im happy to say I've been off opiates for 4 months and an functioning much better due to the pain relief I get thanks to this all natural plant. It seems the government would rather keep us hooked on extremely addicting opiod medications rather than allow something that actually helps without the insane side effects caused by prescription drugs. I guess next they will be banning tea as well. It would be a severe injustice to the many of us who have found the use of kratom to be nothing short of a life saver.
Marijuana should never have been made illegal
Here is what I wrote (handwritten and emailed to the President and my Senators today...
Yea, I get involved. Especially when they ban something because it's addictive. Caffeine, Sugar, Salt, Fat, sports, exercise, tv, video games, alcohol, e-cigs, cigarettes, whatever becomes "addictive". The key to addiction is the person. If they don't get addicted to one thing if they are an addictive personality is that they will find something else unless the spend the rest of their lives in recovery. Trick is, fine a less dangerous addiction. I've been to AA meetings ad nauseam and I can tell you most addicts just switched their addiction for sugars and salts and even cigarettes and coffee. Go to any meeting and the old timers will tell you ice cream helps curb the craving for alcohol. That's simple chemistry. There is now a direct link between alcoholism and sugar and how the human body processes the chemical amino acids. Simple. Anyway, I wrote about the appeal to reverse the 2014 rescheduling of opiates, legalizing marijuana and how safe Kratom is as one scientist did do a controlled study and did find that Kratom has a built-in safety switch. Makes you sick if you take too much. It is better to take daily breaks from it. But Doctors are so scared of the DEA now, they can't effectively treat the patient:
Here is what I wrote.
To whom it may concern....
I predicted back in 2014, November - Like clockwork, break-in and other crimes rose dramatically in just 2015 alone due to the irresponsible DEA rescheduling of Opiate bases pain killers from schedule III to schedule II. Heroin and other seriously deadly drug use has skyrocketed since and even good, law abiding, hard working, tax paying citizens are now doing the only things they can to stop pain. They have switched to other drugs that help with pain illegally or are now full-blown alcoholics.
My mother was a casualty from a decision like this in the early 1980's so this is personal for me on so many levels. She had severe, debilitating back pain due to ruptured disks. Yes, surgeries have come a long way since, however, many surgeries to correct the spine are still at a 60-70% success rate. My oldest brother for twenty years has suffered horribly due to a bad surgery that according to the MAYO clinic is permanent and there is nothing they can do to fix him. He suffers every day. My Mother did what she thought was the right thing legally believing the propaganda about marijuana, a medicinal herb that was given to us naturally by God. We would now rather trust big pharmaceutical companies to play God with people's lives and heath. Because of Nancy Reagan\'s drug war policy and Anslinger\'s, Dupont\'s and Hearst\'s false and misleading propaganda about Marijuana starting due to simple racism and Anslinger's desire only to keep his job as a prohibition officer since Alcohol was made legal again, chose another “drug” and began his demonizing campaign against marijuana. The first real test of efficacy came from NYC Mayor Laguadia in the late 60's. He found none of the accusations to be actually true except that marijuana makes one lethargic, calm and not able to operate heavy machinery. Marijuana is not a gateway drug. I personally do not care for it, but it should be finally legalized in America as we now have so much more to worry about. We, as taxpayers can not afford an agency that is just bent on keeping their jobs and we can not keep funding their gross incompetence. Marijuana has been basically proven to have 200 known and completely safe medicinal uses despite what the FDA and DEA have said to "save us Americans from ourselves" especially when the FDA and DEA authorizes highly deadly and expensive medications like Cymbalta, Lryica, SSRI's and MAOI'S that either damage the liver with hepatoxic chemicals that cause hepatoxcicity.
Because of the DEA, and the illegality of marijuana during the 70's and the effective but false marijuana propaganda, my Mother went from being a kind person with heart of gold to a full-blown, binging alcoholic who heavily abused me physically and verbally. So naturally, I'm furious over the rescheduling of the opiates in 2014 that has ruined millions of lives and has probably and most likely lead to many taking their own lives. Their blood is on the hands of everyone who backs up this dangerous rescheduling. The DEA, the endless drug wars started in the early 70's from the formation of the DEA to Nancy Reagan's war on drugs has over the last 43 years, cost us tax payers $1 Trillion dollars and countless lives, only to increase the capability of the drug leaders. Due to the rescheduling, we now have a full-blown and seriously unprecedented epidemic of heroin use on our hands. That means exponential rise in deaths, and blood born diseases due to needle sharing. What I predicted about high crime, exponential heroin and alcoholic rise along with Dr/Patient relationships deteriorating, the 99% percent of Doctors practicing that are careful are now terrified of losing their license to the DEA watching them, so many people can no longer get opiate painkillers that are effective. Pharmacists are having to deal with the madness as well and they are furious. Millions of Americans are furious and are suffering like one can't imagine thanks to the hype of the media for ratings and misleading overdose data from the few thousand who abused the drug illegally every year versus the highly responsible normal American. Suicides have also skyrocketed.
However, just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. I, thanks in part to my upbringing and my genetic makeup suffer horrible debilitating anxiety, OCD and depression to the level of selective catatonic depression and I can not work. A friend suggested a year ago a new amazing power/leaf called Kratom. Reluctant to put anything into my body without full, extensive research as OCD people Kratom was placed on the list of concern a few years ago by the DEA and I'm suspicious of why. Like most testimonials I read on the internet, most Americans feel it's corruption and lack of scientific evidence pushed and motivated by the mega corporations that stand to lose billions in market shares if Kratom is kept legal in America. Big Pharmaceuticals are the primary suspect of the “devil on the shoulder” the “acting” president of the DEA – Rosenberg. Over the several years of being watched, the plant has been connected to 15-25 known deaths (connected) which means people could have taken anything with the Kratom and Kratom is not the culprit, but the other offending drug. The other reason cited by Rosenberg for his sudden 1 month announcement to turn millions of known users into criminals of a felony of drug use thinking that the herb is legal; is that the Poison Control Center had in 5 years from 2010-2015, just 660 cases of poisoning by Kratom. Nobody is alike and some people are sensitive to Kratom. 99.5% of the cases were nausea, heart palpitations, dizziness and headache. One man took an amphetamine with Kratom and had a seizure. That's it! Kratom has been listed as causing a few minor side effects normal on just about any plant herb or pharmaceutical drug when first taken. In one recent test about 2 years ago 2 people out of hundreds developed a rise in hepatic levels of albumin and bilirubin, but their numbers went back to normal after cessation from the plant Kratom. Because of this minute data where the benefits far, far outweigh any dangers, the DEA put Kratom on the list to move to schedule I on October 1st! One man will decide the fate of millions and said when he announced the plan that public concern and opinion will not sway his decision. How can one man be more powerful than the President of the United States and basically negate our freedom of speech, our first amendment. Based on the extensive data that I have probably done way more than the CDC, FDA and DEA combined, Kratom is 99.99% safe for most everyone. Some people will react to it, but that is a far, far safer level then the prescriptions that are killing people prescribed by Doctors and created by big pharmaceutical companies by a margin of 1000 to 1. The SSRI I take, kills liver function (so why is that not schedule I or illegal? The statins I was on, kills the liver. Other medications kill other organs and for patients suffering fibromalgia, the new “drug” of choice as the FDA now uses Americans' for their end stage studies isn't right. But take a miracle plant, given to us by God, that has very, very few side effects compared to the medications given to us by our Doctors and suddenly, the “acting” head of the DEA decides for millions, possibly billions, declares that in less than 15 days that a competitor medicinal herb is suddenly dangerous and a life killer. Even since Alabama banned it several months ago, heroin has risen 127%!
Kratom is, after a huge amount of research, safe, far safer for the human CNS and Organs than most prescription medications. I would say Kratom is one of the safest digestible herbs, vitamin, health care products known to humans and the DEA and possibly the big pharma does NOT want it legalized and by putting it on schedule I so irresponsibly and recklessly, is not working in the people's best interest. Doctors are now afraid to give us opiates for fear of doing their job effectively as not the DEA is breathing down everyone's back. Along comes Kratom and suddenly that's bad. It's a catch 22, damned if we do and damned if we don't situation and I protest paying privatized prisons to incarcerate “illegal” drug users. Americans are “sensing” major corruption on a scale they have never seen. One of my friends told me today that due to Lyrica because he has fibromalgia, his memory is going which means it's highly dangerous for the CNS (Central Nervous System) and possibly is a drug of concern to cause alzheimiers and parkinsons disease. Now, in just 15 days, the \"acting\" head of the DEA is going to ban a scientifically proven 99.9% safe plant in the same category as caffeine which is also highly addictive btw. Kratom is a plant big pharma is scared of and with good reason. Kratom, kills depression, anxiety, pain, PTSD, eases withdrawal from other drugs like heroin with no suboxone or methadone. Rosenberg want's to ban it based on false data and the whole ban seems awfully suspicious for connection to help big pharmaceutical companies. Kratom is a safe Godsend, and now, once again what God has made is not good for us thanks to the decision to play God by one man.
I am appealing to you to keep Kratom safe, reschedule Opiates back to schedule III as in the end, You are responsible for whatever decision you will make and the decision in 2014 to God. Stop Rosenberg from putting Kratom on Schedule 1 that will never be \"temporary\" and reschedule Hydrocodone and other opiates back to schedule III now. Please for the sake of millions, the people, need I remind you, that you serve.
May God Bless you and America/Americans.
Best Regards,
James Christopher Hill
.
Add new comment