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Comment by eldenbishop | Hacker News Reader

Raw leaf Kratom seems to be helpful for some with what I would consider a manageable and acceptable addiction danger. You can get hooked on it, realize there is an issues and cut back or come off it without it destroying your life. I see no reason to make it illegal. I've even seen is used by people to get off "harder" Kratom concentrates. Sorta like how we regulate beer and wine a bit differently than whiskey... same drug, same abuse potential in theory but massive abuse difference in practice.

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You have anything backing up the last bit? My intuition/life experience doesn't lead me to believe an alcoholic preferring whiskey is particularly worse off than an alcoholic preferring beer, nor that whiskey is more likely to lead one to alcoholism than beer. Claude surfaced this review tending to agree with me, with the exception of acute overdose being more of a risk with the hard stuff.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3888958/

I read the article and it's a bit tricky to tease out but the negative association with spirits does exist. To summarize:

1. The quantity of alcohol consumed per occasion is most strongly associated with harms.

and

2. "The more alcohol was drunk per occasion, the higher the proportion of it which was drunk in the form of spirits"

The choice of beverage and how much was drunk was more dependent on cultural, social, and other factors.

My intuition tells me it's physically more difficult to consume more alcohol from a lower-strength beverage.

My intuition tells me most people can't put down whiskey like they can beer. My guess is both of these are actual relevant things that affect behaviors, but I have no idea which is stronger.

Your intuition needs to meet a Russian. Most whiskey, unless single cask/malt, is ~ 40%, same as vodka.

Hard liquor is absorbed faster than beer which leads to a stronger rush effect. It's similar to snorting vs shooting cocaine. When the effect hits faster, the psychological association between the stimuli and the effect (sensitization) becomes stronger.

This effect has been demonstrated with rat studies using cocaine:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2005...

Why would liquor be absorbed faster than beer given the same route (drinking)?

It's easier to drink more units of alcohol faster when it's more concentrated, and not full of bubbles.

I don't think its so much that it's absorbed faster than it's just physically possible to drink 200 ml of liquor faster than it is to drink 1600ml of beer.

Let's go Polymark on this one. We have a race to alcohol poisoning.

Alice gets ∞ of the Champagne of Beers. Bob gets one bottle of EverClear.

Ready. Set. Go

I think Bob wins.

One could also be obnoxious and argue that liquor is more easily concealed, transported, etc, therefore facilitating alcoholism more effectively by allowing a larger landscape.

But HN.

Fick’s Law. The rate of absorption is proportional to the concentration gradient.

It has been helpful to me and many others. Some people do develop a habit. There are multiple subs on Reddit that are pro and con kratom. Personally, its all mental. I've used Kratom on and off, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. Once I'm done with my cycle, I drop it with no WD or anything. If I was using 7-oh, that would be a different story.

Or, for that matter—the whole thing where Quechua folks chew coca leaf all day, and have for eons, without obvious ill effect…

Coca : cocaine :: kratom : the stuff that just got listed, right?

Counterpoint - the Quechua who did have issues with it likely died out long before any of us would be aware of it.

Counterpoint: https://youtu.be/TLObpcBR2yw

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