Last month the Commissioner of the FDA Dr. Scot Gotlieb issued a press release concerning Kratom. Who would have thought a piece of government propaganda would be full of lies, misrepresentations and authoritarian arrogance.
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm584970.htm
Kratom must be something really horrible and dangerous if the FDA and DEA want to ban it, right?
Kratom is a plant that grows in Southeast Asia. There are many different strains that have helped people relieve pain, fatigue, depression and manage the symptoms of opioid withdrawal for centuries.
I personally have used Kratom as a adjunct pain reliever and to help with opioid withdrawal symptoms. I have found it very effective with no side effects.
What’s ironic is that I started taking Kratom because of the DEA and the FDAs actions last year. If the DEA hadn’t attempted to classify Kratom as a Schedule I drug I wouldn’t have found the hundreds of compelling and passionate videos of folks telling their story about how it’s changed their lives for the better.
The entire recent press release from the head of the FDA has no specifics about why Kratom should be illegal. He stresses it should be illegal because of a smattering of calls to Poison Control, 36 deaths which weren’t caused by Kratom and the fact that there is no scientific evidence for its efficacy and safety.
There is in fact evidence that it is safe and effective. In fact you can go online right now and do what I did before deciding to take Kratom and see the thousands of videos online in which individuals detail how they’ve greatly helped by it. I don’t think the commissioner did this. For thousands of years this plant has been used safely.
Dr. Gotlieb doesn’t want individuals to take Kratom because it’s unapproved. Well Cannabis is also unapproved but it’s used by millions of people everyday and has been used by humans for at least 5000 years. How long has the FDA been around?
Kratom is no different. In fact every adult has a natural right to choose what he or she consumes. We don’t need his permission to do so.
I trust thousands of years of indigenous use and the thousands of testimonials online that Kratom can help with serious conditions like pain and depression. The internet has destroyed the monopoly on medical information once held by those in power. He does however fail to talk about the thousands and thousands that have died from approved drugs since the FDA was created.
Thirty six deaths have been blamed on Kratom. Of these the autopsies are problematic and others will not be released to the public. Millions of people in this country and around the world take this plant medicine without dying. If were as unsafe as he claims hundreds or thousands would be dead. That’s just not the reality.
He further implies that only the FDA can keep Americans safe and ensure they are taken care of by the medical system. He fails to talk about the 250,000 deaths caused by medical errors each year by government licensed healthcare providers. He might want to spend some time on that.
This entire press release besides attacking Kratom is also an attack on anyone who desires to exercise medicinal freedom. This press release and the actions it describes are meant to keep people within government controlled healthcare and the pharmaceutical pipeline so they become dependent on the power of the prescription pad.
The hysteria around the risks of Kratom and the so called opioid crisis is being spread as a way to rebrand the immensely unpopular War on Drugs.
The compounds that make Kratom effective are in fact being being studied because they don’t have the same abuse and addiction potential as prescription opioids. That being said the rate of actual addiction with opioids is less than 3% of users.
If Dr. Gotlieb wanted to help those with addiction and with managing opioid withdrawal he would be encouraging the use of Kratom. There is nothing I’ve found and thousands and maybe millions of others have as well, a more effective means of alleviating the misery of opioid withdrawal symptoms.
All Dr. Gotlieb needs to do is spend an hour watching the videos of people crying when they explain how Kratom helped them kick heroin. There is a quote that I heard Dan Carlin say and that is “quantity has a quality all its own”. Even though those people and myself weren’t part of a double blind placebo study we know it has helped eliminate opioid withdrawal symptoms.
He believes along with the upper echelons of the FDA and DEA to determine what I should ingest and that I am too stupid to figure out what dosages to take. I figured out the right dosage of Kratom through personal experimentation, from the advice from the local health food shop and from those sharing their experiences in online videos. People aren’t as helpless, stupid or incompetent as the FDA Commissioner fears
Throughout the press release he admonished we the public that we should only go to government licensed health care providers and only use approved drugs. I myself have been chronically ill for 30 years. In that time I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals and going to doctors. Today I’m still sick and in chronic pain everyday. I like millions of other Americans are tired of the traditional paternal Medical system and know that we can make our own health choices without government interference.
In the press release he misleads with statistics. He cites the tenfold increase in calls to poison control. In reality there were 26 calls in 2005 and a whopping 660 calls in 2015 representing about .003 percent of the 3 million total calls to poison control per year. And 93% of those calls were concerning minor side effects.
To further put these 660 calls concerning Kratom to Poison Control in perspective, they received this year alone 9996 calls for kids being exposed to laundry detergent and 17,000 calls about kids and hand sanitizer. He deliberately mislead the American people to gin up support for this immoral and criminal attack on Kratom.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6529a4.
http://www.aapcc.org/alerts/laundry-detergent-packets
He also mentions the 32 deaths associated with Kratom. What he doesn’t mention is that zero deaths have been linked to Kratom being used by itself. All of these deaths occurred when a individual ingested multiple substances.
Next he laments the lack of research and urges those who support the uses of Kratom to submit drugs containing Kratom through the FDA approval system. This was before he bragged about how his agency has overseen the voluntary destruction of hundreds of shipments of Kratom and vowed to stop them all.
It’s a catch-22 for researchers. Do the research but without the plant. It’s the same issue researchers have dealt with since Cannabis Prohibition was passed. The FDA would also love to have supporters of Kratom abandon their position that its a safe and natural supplement and not a drug. If those who support Kratom they need to keep it out of the FDA Machine.
How can anyone trust the FDA or the DEA? They have constantly lied to the public about Cannabis, MDMA, and psilocybin Mushrooms.These same institutions are using their tried and true playbook to stop individuals from taking safe and effective natural medicines and driving them by force to doctors who have the power of the prescription pad.
The evidence is mostly anecdotal now but more and more research is showing it is effective at pain relief, helping ease anxiety and depression as well as treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. If the DEA and FDA bam Kratom it will be almost impossible for researchers to study its effects.
Here is a scientific analysis using the DEA’s own 8 Factor criteria from The American Kratom Association. In it Kratom clears all 8 categories and proves using their own criteria that it should be legal and left alone.
The FDA urges supporters p Kratom to use their botanical drug products approval process which in reality is designed to allow big pharma to patent compounds found in plants. This is a clear attempt to stop individuals from buying Kratom and forcing people to buy instead pharmaceuticals based on the plant.
The same process is going on with Cannabis. Just like with Cannabis I believe that taking the whole Kratom leaf is the best way to go instead of using extracts. Kratom has many different compounds that work in my opinion synergistically just like the cannabinoids do in Cannabis. Kratom is a plant medicine that people have been using for thousands of years. Millions of people have taken it and the safety profile far exceeds the majority of drugs approved by the FDA.
The real point to his entire speech is that the American people are too stupid to make their own healthcare decisions. Only government licensed doctors dispensing government approved drugs can be used by those who are sick and suffering. There is no public. There are only individuals. And thousands of individuals have found Kratom to be effective at easing their suffering and making life more tolerable.
Do you think politicians have your best interest at heart? Do you think the FDA is not in league with pharmaceutical companies?
Do you think that the FDA’s arrival process is meant to protect individuals or protect the profits of pharmaceutical companies?
What if I don’t want the FDA to have the authority to protect me? What if I want to live in a country where my natural right to consume what I choose is respected and I can buy any man made compound or natural medicine to ease my suffering or assuage my symptoms as I see fit? He doesn’t address this question.
I don’t want him or any other bureaucrat helping to prevent a substance I know to be safe and effective from getting a grip on me. What he is definitely not concerned about is what does have a grip on me which is chronic pain and a medical system that treats me like a child and a criminal at the same time.
As an adult in the so called land of the free, a nation built on the bedrock of natural rights which includes along with the Freedom of Speech the Freedom of consumption, I like every other adult own myself and I can choose to ingest a substance and bear the consequences.
The oxygen you’re breathing right now and the food you ate today will eventually kill you. The oxidative stress metabolism causes creates free radical molecules that reek havoc on your body. They destroy enzymes that protect your DNA and cause lipid peroxidation which is linked to causing over 200 hundred diseases including Heart Disease and Cancer, the two biggest killers in this country.
No one gets out of this world alive. While we are here we shouldn’t be restricted in what substance we use to make our stay here on Earth more enjoyable. When you are sick and suffering the last thing you need is Dr. Scott Gotlieb or any other bureaucrat of the FDA or DEA or any other agency standing between you and relief. Keep Kratom legal and legalize all drugs!
Brad Miller
Advocate of Medicinal Freedom
healthier2day.com 