DEA will ban chemicals contained in kratom, a popular herbal supplement
statnews.com
statnews.com
kratom is usually sold as a powdered leaf. you can't smoke it, you can't snort it. you can make a tea out of it if you're diligent. a spoonful is usually swallowed as a powder with a thick juice.
it is habit-forming. to an addict it can stop withdrawals in it's tracks, to an opiate naive person it can provide a buzz, nothing extreme and the subsequent withdrawals are also nothing too terrible.
to an opiate addict it is, frankly, a life saver. this is something with the potential to free a person of an opiate addiction, provided they want to be free badly enough.
it's quite easy to use kratom to replace your drug of choice, not for getting high, it'd be pointless. you simply use the kratom to keep the withdrawals at bay. then, simply get off the kratom after a few weeks of use. you do this because kratom withdrawal is more forgiving than something like heroin.
this is impossible with methadone and suboxone. once you go on methadone, you better plan on never getting off. the withdrawals can quite literally last months.
people have successfully transitioned from methadone/suboxone to kratom and then quit use of opiates altogether, being free from the prison of withdrawal in a week instead of months.
this ban will only serve to worsen the structure fire that is the opiate epidemic.
The article states that the DEA can put any substance into schedule 1 category. This is unfortunate because that schedule makes things much more difficult to study.
In any case, your reasoning is completely invalid. Here, for example, is an article from pubmed which argues:
"While several cases of toxicity and death have emerged in the West, such reports have been non-existent in South East Asia where kratom has had a longer history of use. We highlight the possible reasons for this as discussed in the literature. More importantly, it should be borne in mind that the individual clinical case-reports emerging from the West that link kratom use to adverse reactions or fatalities frequently pertained to kratom used together with other substances. Therefore, there is a danger of these reports being used to strengthen the case for legal sanction against kratom. This would be unfortunate since the experiences from South East Asia suggest considerable potential for therapeutic use among people who use drugs."
Your claims could very well be true, but if you can't support them, then I'm going to just file them into the 'Snake Oil' drawer and move on.
What gets accepted as the officially-sanctioned wisdom is too easily influenced by special interests ("bootleggers and Baptists"), power grabs, and political convenience (marijuana laws and minorities).
I'd think it goes the other way too. I've worked in a lab as a data entry helper for studies of opiods on different tissues. They had no problem getting funding for their studies. I would imagine it was because it was related to War On Drugs. So there was an element of "let's show the world how terrible these drugs are, here is some money".
Experiments used fentanyl and naloxone. Aside from keeping fenanyl locked and logging/auditing its usage and waste, don't remember professors or grad students complaining about it being hard to study.
The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical treatment use in the U.S.
There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or substance under medical supervision.
Schedule I drugs:
Heroin (diacetylmorphine)
LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide)
Marijuana (cannabis, THC)
Mescaline (Peyote)
MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine or “ecstasy”)
GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid)
Ecstasy (MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine)
Psilocybin
Methaqualone (Quaalude)
Khat (Cathinone)
Bath Salts (3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone or MDPV)Ulterior motives aside, how about if you wanted to run that same study with LSD?
Would a Schedule I drug have been as accessible as a Schedule II drug?
Of particular interest is that these alkaloids are G-protein-biased agonists of the mu-opioid receptor - which also do not recruit β-arrestin[1] following receptor activation. It is β-arrestin recruitment that is responsible for the main side effects of opiates - respiratory depression, constipation, histamine release and build up of tolerance (which is what leads to withdrawals upon cessation). This is a very big deal.
I am a kratom user myself, using it to treat bad neuropathic pain. I am prescribed opiates, but kratom doesn't space me out like they do, there is no respiratory depression, no apparent histamine release, the constipation is much less, and I've been at the same dose for over a year. Honestly, for me it's a wonderdrug.
[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b00360?journalCode...
a lot of people, including myself, get very itchy from kratom, and i've always attributed that to histamine release. could it be something else?
With kratom I don't notice much extra itching at all, but I suppose we all act differently to things.
I have heard of that being used to treat neuropathy, but also anecdotes of it being abused recreationally.
And FWIW I code all day long.
I imagine this is a likely scenario.
Its continued use could threaten all sorts of business models.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2015/02/13/how-to-resc...
Kratom is more of a thing that tickles the right receptors enough to stave off opiate withdrawals (or stand in as a less potent agonist of those receptors with fewer side effects) so it's less about a safer delivery method and more like a "light" version of more potent opioids.
Far be it from me to recommend drug dependence, but this substance didn't hurt me despite my hard-headed attempt to become dependent on it. It kept me away from benzodiazepines and alcohol, the former of which gave me such severe amnesia that I ended up in the ER not knowing where I was or who I was.
It's a tree that grows in the wild and will never be eradicated. The DEA's burning garbage pile of a weed eradication quest is still smoldering. Profoundly misguided policy.
For the record, I haven't touched the stuff in years, and have no financial interest in it. But the reality is that this stuff is not worth locking people in cages over.
Interestingly enough, the related links at the bottom of the article point to another article from the same site: "Poison control centers are getting a surge of calls about ‘natural’ painkiller kratom"
https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/28/kratom-opioid-overdoses?...
What I said was that Kratom is far less addictive and dangerous that typical opioids. A Kratom overdose is most likely to result in nausea and stomach irritation, not in death, and quitting a daily Kratom addition is far easier than quitting a daily oxy habit.
The article you said linked there were a few hundred calls to poison control centers around the nation during a year. Just last week, 174 people overdosed on heroin derivatives in Akron, Ohio in six days. Twenty one people died. Ohio's Governor just declared a medical emergency in the state the epidemic has gotten so bad.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-he...
I's say it at least disproves any notion that their decisions are scientific.
The DEA held a hearing for the scheduling decision, and their argument for schedule 1 was that it had no medical value because no pharmaceutical company had applied for an FDA license for it. The judge ruled that MDMA didn't meet a single criteria for schedule 1 status, and the argument about FDA licensing was secondary to whether or not the medical community at large thought it was useful.
Despite this ruling, the DEA unilaterally made it schedule 1. They were sued by a Harvard psychiatrist, and the DEA lost again, with the court ruling that the drug only met the standard for schedule 3. Again, the DEA summarily dismissed the court's ruling and rescheduled it as schedule 1.
The crux of the issue that this whole process danced around was that MDMA's patent had expired, and no pharmaceutical company was going to take on the FDA costs to make a drug that was dirt cheap, easy to manufacture, and should only be used at most five times throughout a patient's life. Especially when the alternatives (Prozac and SSRIs) were making a billion dollars plus annually.
Veterans in the US have a nickname for PTSD: Paid Till Suicide or Death. Right now drug companies are treating the VA as a huge cash cow and are dumping vast quantities of opiates and in-patent SSRIs on it, when there is a far more effective treatment that is extremely cheap. It's a multi billion dollar scam that's killing people, and the DEA is purposefully helping them maintain this charade.
They're working to get MDMA therapy out to those veterans suffering from PTSD.
I've heard too many anecdotes from well-adjusted ex-opiate users regarding the value of Kratom. Also, I fundamentally do not trust any research the DEA produces, since their continued existence is owed to their ability to pervert the scientific method using political power and vestigial "tough on drugs" thinking.
Automatic national voter registration when turning 18 would be a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure it would convince people to actually go to the polls. In certain states just registering to vote in the first place can be a real hassle, and having to do it every time you move punishes the more mobile generations.
Kratom is much better than Methadone as you are then addicted to Methadone and withdrawal from Methadone is MUCH worse. I have seen someone who was mildly dependant on Opiates given a much higher dosage of Methadone that actually increased their tolerance to opiates and pushed them further into opiate dependence.
Kratom has almost no physical withdrawal symptoms and is a heroin addicts best option to try to kick the habit. This is the absolute worst thing that can be done given the amount of heroin addicts that were created by the DEA's crackdown on legal opiate prescription pain relief.
"It also cannot be abused and if a dose larger than about 20 grams is consumed, it will not provide any additional relief and only cause stomach discomfort."
Of course the fda requirement that drugs be single ingredients which is fucking apeshit means that when it returns it will be 1000x more concentrated and lead to lucrative abuse.
Americans pay so much more for drugs and transparently that money does not go to research. The FDA is responsible for the opioid epidemic and several other horrible murderous crimes. Reform the FDA.
Source: Im PhD prof of chemistry
Is that true?
I thought there was an ADHC drug that was combined with some kind of enzyme inhibitor or inducer? (sorry, forget the name!)
Also Sativex is undergoing Phase III trials in the USA, and it contains both THC and CBD (and I think terpenes and possibly CBN and CBG).
Which is unfortunate not least because some people prefer the fact that kratom (that is, mitragynine with all the other stuff that naturally comes with it) has been more safety-tested by thousands of years of use..
[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b00360?journalCode...
I strongly suspect this move to ban kratom is related to growing profitability in the US market of subutex as a dependence treatment. Unlike a botanical subutex is readily abused, often intravenously.
Manufacturers and the FDA know from basic epidemiology that prescriptions of all opiates far outpace the diseases they are indicated to treat. I have to believe somewhere on someone's email there is hard evidence pharma knowingly promotes abuse.
In cases like this and basically all opiates that's clearly a dumb policy since concentrating the active ingredient promotes abuse and probably eliminates the other ingredients which induce the nausea that prevents abuse and makes kratom safe :/
Few died in the opium dens of the past. Today opiate addiction gives you a decent chance of dying in an od and its due to this policy.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...
“Would the world be better off if all drugs were legal? Yes. The world would be better off, that 90 percent of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use related,” he said. “But what I’ve said is, look, let’s legalize marijuana first and when we do that, I think the whole country takes a quantum leap toward understanding substance abuse.”
http://observer.com/2016/02/this-presidential-candidate-thin...
The Libertarian party is much bigger than the Green party, and there are many people who sympathize with libertarians on a lot of issues even if they don't call themselves libertarian.
Johnson/Weld are real candidates -- both two-term governors from moderate states! I'm surprised they don't have more support considering how bad the major candidates are.
Regarding policies, Greens and Libertarians are also 99% in alignment on this particular issue (war on drugs), as well as some others. I know people have their preferences, just pointing out that there are multiple similarly-sized third parties of yet complete opposite ideological natures that would still be optionable for those wanting to vote on this kind of thing. It's even easier to not support this kind of behavior by the DEA.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/09/daily-c...
If a third party gets 15%, they get a third podium on that stage, which I think would be worthwhile and healthy for American democracy especially in the face of the two most hated candidates in history.
I don't particularly care if it's Johnson or Stein but I'd like it to be someone. Ideally we'd have both. Johnson is pretty close to breaking 15% in a lot of polls.
Of course this line of reasoning simply suggests that pre-debates, if anyone asks you should /claim/ to be voting Johnson (or Stein), not anything about where you should actually vote.
Not to mention the CPD would almost certainly change the debate qualifiers immediately to still keep Johnson out, same as the DNC did with Lawrence Lessig.
The article doesn't say that. They talk about the public health issues.
Plus, it's only a temporary ban. They have two years to study the drug and decide if the ban is justified or not. That doesn't seem unreasonable, especially if there appears to be a public health issue.
I like how the article ends saying the ban doesn't come into effect until the end of the month to give users time to dispose of their stockpile. Yeah... that's what's going to happen.
If the DEA can't come up with a study to show harm, the drugs come off the list in two years.
1) The stuff works.
2) There's already a refined clinical version of it in the works.
The cynical part of me also assumes that the clinical version will take the harmless natural version and refine it into a super addictive monster that will reliably kill elephants when slightly mis-dosed. Everyone will then abuse this as usual.
Edit: But looking at the side effects http://www.narconon.org/drug-abuse/kratom-effects.html - if any of that's true I guess DEA may be right in making in a controlled substance to save people the misery or possible death if nothing else.
Fast forward 20 years and shady chemists learn that it's possible to take the structure of cathinone (as a basis), tweak it here and there, and come up with purified "substituted cathinones". AKA: "bath salts" (MDPV), mephedrone, methylone, and countless others. Some of these were frankly nasty.
Today, the US decides to ban kratom, which has been naturally used for recreational purposes in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia for centuries.
I wonder if substituted mitragynines are in the future. Very possibly. If not from the pharmaceutical companies then from future sellers of "bath salt" type substances.
Either way, there's something very culturally insensitive about these type of bans, in my opinion -- these laws carry a whiff of "these are drugs that these other people do". In today's drug enforcement culture, apparently the khat cafe is horrible, but the pub and the coffee shop are a-okay. Personally it's hard for me to see what the difference is between the two, except the pub / coffee shop are accepted by well-off Western Europeans, and the khat cafe is mainly populated by poor Somali / Yemen / etc. immigrants.
Technically, barring any sort of breeding modification I doubt was done, those Catha Edulis plants in the US botanical gardens are quite illegal, being a "material" that contains cathinone.
Now, in practice, of course, no one is going arrest the Architect of the Capitol for growing Schedule I plants on their property for ornamental reasons. Heck, San Pedro cactii already set a murky, not-quite-defined precedent for this (https://erowid.org/plants/cacti/cacti_law1.shtml).
Then again, despite the relative obscurity of khat, there have been a few cases where people have been arrested for cultivating the plants. Such as this case here in 1998 -- http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Prunedale-Man-Charged-in-...
Of course, in that case, the arrestee's name was Musa Ahmed Gelan, not Stephen T. Ayers. So it goes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2016/08/31/dea-argues...
If you are an atheist you probably rest the bulk of your belief system upon science. These policies prevent science from studying the plants and even fly in the face of existing scientific evidence.
One has to conclude that these policies are in the service of money and interests other than the public's.
This is kind of a silly argument, though. Malaria, anthrax, and the black death are also natural, and you won't find many theists arguing that we should welcome those.
(I am absolutely in favor of legalization, I just don't like silly arguments.)
Or do they have an ulterior motive?
Why ban when they could just make FDA do their job? And maybe later make it Schedule II or probably even III where it belongs.
Can anyone point out evidence of harm from the use of kratom?
Probably the biggest issue with most (at present, all?) pharmaceutical opioids is the side effect of respiratory depression - this kills a lot of people. Because kratom's active alkaloids don't recruit β-arrestin interactions, side effects like respiratory depression, constipation and tolerance are absent or greatly reduced, which should make mitragynine and 7-OH-mitragynine perfect candidates for a new, safe opioid drug[1].
But patents are probably a huge barrier to this ever happening - you can't patent a plant. No new, patentable extraction methods seem to be required, and a patentable, stronger synthetic or semi-synthetic analogue may not exist[2].
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3926195/
[2] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b00360?journalCode...
If it is scheduled, does that increase the chance of a safe(r) opioid replacement being developed?
And can you kindly point me to some text books/journals or introductory chemistry in order to understand these interactions at a fundamental level?
- 10.1093/bja/aer29
- 10.1007/978-3-642-41199-1_22
- 10.1213/01.ANE.0000160588.32007.AD
- 10.1124/mol.106.028258
- 10.1124/jpet.105.087254
- 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5999-10.2011
I should add that I'm not a chemist, I just have a keen, self-vested interest in analgesic substances.
35 USC 161 specifically governs plants.
I had meant the 'original', 'natural' plant, but a fair point.
But I do think some substances should be somewhat controlled. Antibiotics, for example, should be used only when necessary. Another category of control is to have things only available after talking to a pharmacist. Birth control and the morning after pill probably fit this category. And I think some supplements fit in this category as well, as some have safety concerns and some interact with medications. St Johns Wort, for example, interacts with some things. Melatonin can have unwanted side effects. You can overdose on some vitamins. And some things, I just think there should be much greater control so that folks are getting what they are paying for and the packaging is honest. Most supplements are in this category.
And the just of this plant, it seems, is that there are a few downsides and a few good things as well. It seems to be addictive and cause physical discomfort if not overdose. On the other hand, folks say it does quite a bit to help with heroin/opiate and alcohol addiction withdrawals, which can be deadly. Plus it helps folks with severe pain. These things are really positive benefits, somewhat safer than alternatives.
I don't know what the reasoning behind the ban is, but if it can be one of those things you simply need to get from a pharmacist, I think that'd be grand. No doctor needed and hopefully increased safety while still keeping the substance available for widespread use.
But if it means that it can't be studied in a meaningful way, I think they are doing a grand disservice to society.
Lots of everyday foodstuffs can also mess with metabolising enzymes, such as grapefruit, pepper and turmeric. Without real evidence of large scale risk or harm, I don't think we should be banning any substance.
Some of the difference here is with warnings. Get a medicine that interacts with grapefruit, and you'll be warned with the medication. Warnings aren't as likely with supplements on either end. Since they are on the counter, folks see them as safe, and often don't tell their doctor or pharmacist.
By itself, however, many of these aren't harmful substances. St Johns Wort is fairly safe by itself, for instance. I don't think folks should have to get a prescription for it, honestly, but speaking to a pharmacist seems like the best way to overcome the public education bit of it.
>Without real evidence of large scale risk or harm, I don't think we should be banning any substance. I'd generally agree, but I also think we should require the research into the substances to verify basic safety, especially if we are selling them as health aids plus have oversight for some time after they are on the market.
There is a problem though; These addicts with little knowledge of Kratom will attempt to get high and overdose. This is definitely a problem and Kratom should require some license or warning, but to ban the chemicals is crazy counter-productive when we have a real epidemic
I'm not aware of a single case where taking too much kratom has caused any lasting ill effects (please do correct me if wrong). There have been cases of harm when kratom is combined with a cocktail of other drugs that are known to cause harm when combined with each other (e.g. multiple respiratory depressants).
Kratom doesn't cause respiratory depression; 'over dosing' on kratom just causes nausea, vomitting and dizziness.
[1] http://entheology.com/news-articles/why-kratom-was-banned-in...
The shocking part for us was during the next day and a bit of the day after, we found ourselves unable to perform basic math, and reasoning in general felt fuzzy. Thankfully, by Monday, we were able to function normally. We came to the common conclusion that this is a truly stupefying substance in the proper sense of the word, and that usage should be avoided if you have anything important to think about in the next several days.
Perhaps you and your friends are a "stupefying" group of humans in the proper sense of the word, and this group of humans should avoid misuse of any mind-altering substance if they have important things to think about over a few days?
If what you had really was an extract, and not plain leaf, there is no way you would need to swallow 'an uncomfortably large number' of caps. Extracts are much more potent than plain leaf, and taking too much would cause nausea and vomiting.
Really though, you can't get high off kratom. There are three levels: you take too little, you don't feel any different. You take the right amount, you feel kinda good for a little bit (like having a beer and a coffee). You take too much, you throw up. There is no high. There is no outsize health risk. Why make it schedule I?
But yeah, all told, kratom is very mild, and I’d wager it has even more of a “valid medical use” than marijuana. I’ve found it very useful for nerve pain, sleeplessness, anxiety, and staying off alcohol. To me, marijuana and kratom are wonder-drugs, and it’s a shame they’re so restricted in this country. At worst they should be Schedule II and available by prescription.
Whatever the US can do, the UK can do better! We've got a the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016[0].
The act is so broad it can be applied to many things. And it's so broad it's functionally unenforceable.
A quote from Wikipedia:
'The law has been criticised as an infringement on civil liberties. Barrister Matthew Scott described the act as an attempt to "ban pleasure", saying it could drastically overreach by banning areca nuts, additives used in vapourisers and electronic cigarettes, hop pillows, and the sale of toads and salamanders that naturally produce psychoactive substances. Scott went further and suggested it may also ban flowers and perfumes as the scents can produce an emotional response'[1].
You know...
* Think of the children.
* It's good for society.
* The social contract.
* And all the other BS people like to come up with to trample on individuals.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_20... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_Substances_Act_20...
I look forward to someone trying to get things like that tested in court. Tough it'd be tricky, given that the Crown Prosecution Service would presumably not want to push a case like that and end up looking like idiots, and while the UK allows for private prosecutions I'm not sure if there'd be a viable avenue to use this act for that (trying to find a way of giving you standing to e.g. sue a florist sounds like inviting contempt of court).
This is a big problem - the law is so broad that it'll be incredibly easy to abuse if government wants to charge someone, or add additional charges.
Of course, he's pointing out the absurdity of the law.
> This is a big problem - the law is so broad that it'll be incredibly easy to abuse if government wants to charge someone, or add additional charges.
This highlights a more sinister side to government—rather than incompetence. One could deny this until it happens. I'm sure state apologists will (& continue once it does happen).
[1] http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v7/n4/full/4000976a.html
Steve Jobs was know for eating fruit high in phenyalanine (well tyrosine)[1]. It may have contributed to his high performance.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylketonuria#Genetics [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrosine
A.) Foreigners don't label their kratom correctly when they export it to the US.
B.) Calls to a poison control center involving kratom have spiked by a factor of 10 in the past few years.
C.) Foreigners are exporting medical products that make claims not validated by the FDA.
It's being placed in Schedule I rather than more permissive classification because (according to the notice) "A substance meeting the statutory requirements for temporary scheduling, 21 U.S.C. 811(h)(1), may only be placed in schedule I". It seems unlikely it'd be classified as Schedule I permanently.
Drug use can be a matter of national security, so the DEA should have the power to act in these cases. I'm thinking of the Opium Wars, where the British got the Chinese hooked on opium and then went to war to force them to legalize it when they banned it. Widespread drug use being imposed by foreigners can harm a country.
I'm not sure this kratom qualifies. It doesn't seem that bad. I can see banning imports and production for foreigners, but I can't see a good reason to ban US citizens conducting research on the drug. It seems like it's only like this because of the restrictive law.
And if the manufacture, sale, and consumption happens entirely in a single state by US citizens who are residents of that state, I don't even think the DEA should be constitutionally allowed to regulate it on a permanent basis.
On the whole, I guess I support this ban, though they should amend the law to allow a milder response.
660 calls to poison control over a 6+ year span does not sound like an "imminent public health risk" to me.
> It seems unlikely it'd be classified as Schedule I permanently.
Worked well for Marijuana's temporary scheduling.
Are you saying that this same process has been used to permanently classify Marijuana as schedule I? That means you're implicitly claiming a few things:
* That the DEA issued a temporary classification on Marijuana that would've expired after 2 years.
* That the DEA has the power to - by itself - schedule a drug permanently. (If it went through Congress, that's a different process)
* That the DEA has the power to schedule Marijuana freely. In particular, there are no treaties forcing it to be classified a certain way.
* That the DEA used its power to freely classify Marijuana, and chose to label it as schedule I. (As a consequence, they could relabel it at any time.)
I don't know the history of marijuana or which of these is true or not. If all true, I'd like to see a different government agency do the classification(maybe the FDA? or some Congressional committee?) and the DEA do the enforcement.