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Comment by dhouston | Hacker News Reader

could you please stop advertising (albeit usually indirectly or offhand) this shit on here?

Why? And why do you have such a hostile response? I usually mention Kratom whenever other drugs like alcohol or caffeine come up.

This specific submission was in response to this. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71368

There is a difference between a drug pusher and a pharmaceutical company. Both groups reap huge profits at the expense of their customers/victims, but the difference is this:

The pharmaceutical company says "Product A could help you with Symptom B. Why not talk to your doctor about it? Be forewarned, side effects can include fever, paranoia, and death."

The drug pusher says "Product A could help you with Symptom B. It's a great product! Why not buy some from me!"

I've seen you promote kratom on this site several times, and this is the first time I've ever seen you mention side effects and the need to speak to a physician. Recreational drug use should ALWAYS be discussed with a competent physician.

In addition, while kratom is currently legal in the US, it is illegal in the region of the world from which it originates. The US DEA says "there is no legitimate medical use for kratom in the U. S." and has placed it on its list of "drugs and chemicals of concern". You would do well to inform your prospective customers of these facts.

Lastly, I believe you misinterpreted the post to which you replied (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71262). Xichekolas wasn't talking about the benefits of alcohol or caffeine; he was pointing out the downsides to chemically altering your brain function, and then you come along promoting kratom. Take a step back and try to realize how this looks to the rest of us.

>The US DEA says "there is no legitimate medical use for kratom in the U. S." and has placed it on its list of "drugs and chemicals of concern".

This means nothing. Alcohol can also be said to have no medical use. The active ingredient in Kratom however, 7-hydroxymitragynine, is absolutely an opiate and consequently a pain killer. Therefore, it absolutely DOES have medical use.

so then by your definition heroin has a legitimate medical use? That is absurd.

Sure, heroin is very good at killing pain. At least as good as morphine. We as a society have chosen not to use it medically because it developed a reputation as being easily abused, but it's not like morphine is any worse as a recreational drug.

Who cares if things have a "medical" use or not? Heroin and alcohol both have human uses for which people want them.

well, for one, it's disingenuous for someone who sells it to couch its benefits in an "ask yc" post without any kind of disclosure (you'll probably edit your post now, but that's where the hostility came from)

That's true. Edited. Note that I'm really not trying to make a profit on selling kratom to the news.yc community. I have had two sales that I can specifically track here. Most of our business is coming from Europe now, the collapse of the US dollar is really helping us out.

That and the fact that we're way more tolerant about drugs. You really should focus on the european market.

But WHY do you seem to find this offensive? No one has any problems when other people advertise their startup; that's an accepted use of this site.

You title your post with "is it wrong to..." and then you go and ramble for the most part about

"Would kratom be ok if I was a pharmaceutical company and I told you that Kratom could help you lose weight, be happy, and be more productive? It is an incredibly viable alternative to oxycontin for pain management. How about as an alternative to SSRIs/Benzodiazepines as an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication? How about that kratom can seriously enhance productivity, more so than caffeine but less so than amphetamine and with fewer side effects than either?"

That looks like a disguised advertisement to me. If you want to advertise your startup that's fine, but that's different from trying to sell people a specific product on this site. If I created a site to sell cars I can mention it on YC. If however I kept posting about the benefits of this particular car that you should buy from me people would get upset as well. If you want cheap advertising find it somewhere else.

I'm not offended at all by you guys selling that stuff, but in terms of the "here's my startup" threads, you're a bit different. With a web based thing, I can go check it out, see how it works, and offer some advice. With your business, since I'm not really interested in purchasing this stuff, I can't really tell you much at all. Even with web based sites, I would be irritated if they were posted too often, so with yours, more than once is probably more than I'm interested in seeing.

Most other people aren't advertising things of questionable legality and ethicality.

(Note, I consider ALL recreational drug use where the recreator has not made himself aware of competent medical advice on the substances in question to be of questionable ethicality. But I let it slide a bit if you're only using it yourself, and not promoting it to others or otherwise endangering those around you.)

most other people use it to advertise websites (what this community is mostly about) not drugs

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