From: judgeparker23x@gmail.com   
      
   DRUGS   
      
   Still Mostly Legal: Kratom May be a Better Choice for Heroin and Pain Pill   
   Users?   
      
   The stuff eases pain and opiate withdrawals and is almost impossible to   
   overdose on. Banning it seems like a step in the wrong direction.   
   By Phillip Smith / AlterNet   
   January 30, 2016   
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   COMMENTS   
      
   Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons   
      
   A Southeast Asian herb is gaining popularity among addicted heroin and   
   prescription opiate users, pain sufferers, and hipsters looking for a nice   
   buzz, and it's legal--at least for now. It's usually consumed as a tea, and is   
   now available at non-alcohol    
   kratom bars in several states, as well as in powdered from in specialty shops   
   and on the Internet.   
      
   It is regulated as an herbal supplement, not a controlled substance, but it is   
   coming under some scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators. The FDA banned its   
   import in 2014, and the DEA has it listed as a drug of concern, but has not   
   yet moved to criminalize    
   it. It is illegal in four states, though--Indiana, Tennessee, Vermont and   
   Wyoming--and similar laws are now being proposed in Florida and New Jersey.   
      
   The stuff is called kratom, and was traditionally used in Thailand and   
   Malaysia to help endure physical labor, relieve pain, and stop diarrhea. It   
   was also good for relieving the symptoms of opium withdrawal.   
      
      
   That's because it acts like an opiate. Its active ingredients activate the   
   same opioid receptors heroin and prescription pain pills do. And it behaves   
   like an opiate--with a couple of exceptions, one interesting and one quite   
   important.   
      
   Like other opiates, it relieves pain, slows bowel activity, produces euphoric   
   feelings, and creates physical addiction and a withdrawal syndrome. But unlike   
   other opiates, it causes a pleasant, caffeine-type buzz in small doses and,   
   more significantly,    
   it is apparently very difficult--if not impossible--to overdose on it. The few   
   deaths where kratom is implicated include poly-drug use, or as in a case   
   reported by the New York Times, suicide by a young kratom user who was also   
   being treated for    
   depression.   
      
   "Direct kratom overdoses from the life-threatening respiratory depression that   
   usually occurs with opioid overdoses have not been reported," says Oliver   
   Grundmann, clinical associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the   
   University of Florida, told    
   journalist Maia Szalavitz at Vice. Grundmann should know; he just reviewed the   
   research on kratom for the International Journal of Legal Medicine.   
      
   "It's a fascinating drug, but we need to know a lot more about it, Dr. Edward   
   W. Boyer, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts   
   Medical School and a co-author of several scientific articles on kratom, told   
   the Times. "   
   Recreationally or to self-treat opioid dependence, beware -- potentially   
   you're at just as much risk" as with an opiate.   
      
   Well, except for that whole fatal overdose thing. And like the kratom high,   
   the physical dependence appears much milder.   
      
   Szalavitz consulted Mark Swogger, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the   
   University of Rochester Medical Center, who with his colleagues analyzed 161   
   "experience reports" posted by kratom users on the drug information site   
   Erowid.org for a recent    
   study in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs .   
      
   "I think it's pretty safe to say that kratom has at least some addiction   
   potential. The data is fairly strong on that and our study also found that   
   people are reporting addiction," but "overall, we found that it's really mild   
   compared to opioid addiction    
   and it didn't seem to last as long."   
      
   About one in six of the users reported nausea or stomach pain and 6% actually   
   vomited. There have been a handful of other handful of reports of liver   
   problems.   
      
   All this makes kratom something like opium's mild-mannered little sister. And   
   that is apparently something a lot of people are looking for.   
      
   One of them was Susan Ash, 46, who told the Times she began taking kratom   
   while being treated for dependence on prescription pain relievers and now   
   takes a small dose daily to ease chronic pain and depression.   
      
      
   She was so impressed with the results that last year, she founded the American   
   Kratom Association to represent consumers. The group now has more than 2,000   
   members and lobbies against bills to ban the herb.   
      
   "We know from all our experiences that kratom has the potential to be a   
   wonderful medicine," she said. "We're all experiencing that it's changing our   
   lives. We do agree that more science is needed to actually prove this   
   potential that we know it has."   
      
   Yes, more science is needed, and kratom does have its disaffected users, as   
   the Times was quick to dig  up, but so far, it looks like we have a drug like   
   opium, but with attenuated effects. If people are taking kratom to get off   
   heroin or prescription    
   pills or to treat pain or just to get a nice buzz, and they're not overdosing   
   by the tens of thousands, as they are with the opiates, that would seem like   
   an overall good thing. If we want to reduce harm from heroin and prescription   
   opiates, kratom    
   should be studied and, perhaps, embraced, not proscribed.    
      
       
      
   Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug   
   War Chronicle.   
      
              
   http://www.alternet.org/drugs/kratom-better-choice-heroin-pain-pill-users   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)