Kratom is the safe alternative to opiates we need, and there is a conspiracy to ban it.
In 2019, it’s nearly guaranteed that you know someone who has struggled or is currently struggling with opiate addiction. It’s the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 years old and has single-handedly lowered the life expectancy of young men in this country. It’s an epidemic decades in the making, with the projected monetary repercussions dwarfed only by cost of human life.
To get out of this, we need to do two things. First, we need to radically re-think our approach to addiction treatment. Safe injection sites, needle exchanges and other forms of novel treatment are vital to keeping up with the mounting death toll. However, the second step in solving this epidemic is not as obvious. We must find a natural and safe alternative to opiates that does not cause addiction and respiratory depression. Real opiates are simply too dangerous for regular use. We’re hammering a nail with a jack hammer. Instead, we need something similarly effective without the danger.
Does such a thing exist? Yes, it does — it’s a plant called Kratom — and the government and pharmaceutical industry are working to ban it.
How this Started
In the late 1990’s, drug companies pushed extremely powerful formulations of opiates like Oxycontin to doctors across the country. Eager to treat pain while also getting people out of the door quickly, these drugs became widely over-prescribed. As insiders have described, it’s fundamentally flawed system that values the wrong things. Clinics and providers are run by people trying to make a profit instead of promoting actual well being. The same reason antibiotics are over-prescribed is the same reason opiates are also over prescribed. This is one of the main reasons people left the clinics with minor pain and four week prescription for 30mg Oxycontin.
Through the late 1990s and into the mid 2000s, these drugs remained popular with doctors, legitimate patients, and addicts. However, opiates were never meant to be used for long term pain management. Through doctor shopping and “pill mills” people were able to continuously refill prescriptions and the street supply of these drugs remained absurdly high.
It may have been worse than we even knew at the time. Stories are now coming out about how small town pharmacies dispensed large quantities of painkillers in key distribution areas. See, “Welcome to Williamson, W.Va., where there are 6,500 opioid pills per person.” There’s also the well known examples where suppliers slipped large quantities of pills into the market under fake companies. How nefarious this was; and who is criminally culpable are the two questions on many peoples minds right now.
Perhaps the most important milestone in the history of this epidemic occurred in 2010 when Purdue Pharma changed the formula for Oxycontin. Prior to this, Oxycontin was supposedly a slow release pill. If a person consumed the medication as instructed it would slowly dissolve in the stomach prolonging yet mediating the effects. However, nearly everyone abusing the pill could easily bypass this by grinding it into powder allowing for it to be injected or insufflated. A drug as powerful as Oxycontin should have never been released in it’s original formulation.
I believe that Purdue knew that the original pills could easily be abused, and they did nothing to stop it until they were forced to. In 2010, when they finally changed the formula the damage had already been done. Millions of people were now addicted, and Purdue had already made billions of dollars.
With Oxycontin gone, addicts easily made the switch over to street drugs like heroin. Doctors are now scared to prescribe pain medication, even in legitimate cases and of course profits have tanked.
Drug companies, determined to make money no matter what, shifted their focus to auxiliary drugs related to opiate abuse and addiction itself. Instead of selling Oxycontin, Purdue is now selling “opioid induced constipation” medication; or drugs aimed to treat addiction or prevent overdose. This is all too similar to a dystopian Philip K Dick novel where doctors, big pharma and our own government disguised a problem just so they could sell us the solution.
Looking into the past and trying to collect money from these drug companies is futile and will only distract from the current morphing, shape shifting array of side effects caused by massive opiate addiction. We now have to play catch-up for the people that are already addicted, and the original problem remains unresolved.
Treating the symptoms of the Epidemic
We must find a way to move away from opiates, but with millions of people already addicted we have to first figure out how to treat these people before they die. Treatment is key, but it is perhaps our worst skill. Rather, we specialize in shame and punishment.
Obvious measures that have worked in other countries like needle exchanges or safe injection sites are barely talked about. Or if they are discussed, it’s with contempt and horror. As Brendan de Kenessey, a fellow-in-residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University points out, we have a bad understanding of what addiction is. We think we are “enabling” addicts by providing them with clean needles or other services, when it’s the only method that can help them.
We treat addiction as a moral failure and it kills people. Instead of helping addicts cope with cravings, we think that they must hit rock bottom or cultivate a will to quit. Pushing people to “rock bottom” is a dangerous wager when you’re dealing with new opiates hundreds of times stronger than heroin.
People who are not addicted- deep down - believe that they could not be capable of becoming dependent on drugs due to their unwavering moral character. This sort of thinking extends throughout our entire society including the criminal system, which directly profits off the opiate epidemic. There’s too many examples of this type of flawed thinking to recall them all, but reporter German Lopez described many of them in coverage of the epidemic. I highly recommend following his work:
One example of this thinking that hits too close to home was Denver 9news “exposé” on how the downtown library was essentially become an injection site. They plastered images of desperate addicts and homeless people all over the television, criticizing the city and library officials.
Instead of funding places where these people can go, they have to make do with what is provided. We’ve let our Librarians become the last line of defense against overdoses. Who should be shamed here? The people living in utter desperation or perhaps you regular people who refuse to even discuss the idea of helping them. Needle exchanges and safe injection site are not only the right thing to do morally, but they also save money and make sense from a financial standpoint. You can prevent overdoses, crime and disease all at once.
I hope that we can overcome our collective shame and do the right thing to help these people that are already addicted. Novel thinking will be more and more necessary, but here again we are woefully behind the rest of the world. And still, the original problem of how we treat pain in our society remains unaddressed. As long as opiates continue to be our only solution to pain, we will never solve the fundamental problem. We need to find a safe and inexpensive way to treat physical and mental pain in this country that will not result in addiction and death.
Moving Away from Opiates
Why are Opiates are not the solution to pain or depression? They indeed work to eliminate pain, that is certain. Also, the vast majority of people prescribed opiates do not actually become addicted. So what is it about them that makes them so dangerous? It’s my belief that they actually work too well in eliminating all forms of pain, including psychological suffering. To those who are prone to addiction, it’s nearly certain they will find continued use of opiates attractive. Now, continual use of medication isn’t always a problem, after all, some people remain on prescription drugs throughout their whole live. But with opiates, they possess two physical qualities that make them dangerous for long term use:
- Tolerance increases rapidly.
- Opiates cause respiratory depression.
These two things combined create a deadly feedback loop. As a user requires more and more of the drug to feel the same effect, they get closer and closer to the line where an overdose becomes likely or even inevitable. Now, as elicit fentanyl gains popularity- a drug thousands of times stronger than heroin — this margin between “being high” and “being dead” will only shrink.
The fact is, opiates are simply too strong and too dangerous for regular use. We need to find something that can help pain without the same potential for abuse. Surely, if a substance existed like this, it would be widely known and sold by pharmaceutical companies already?
Enter Kratom
There is in fact a substance that can mediate pain without causing deadly side effects like respiratory depression. However, it is not a pharmaceutical. It’s a plant that grows in South West Asia and has been used for at least hundreds of years.
Mitragyna speciosa or commonly called Kratom is a natural substance that I believe can transform our society and move us away from our reliance on opiates. Kratom, unlike real opiates, is not related to the poppy plant. Rather it is related to the coffee tree, and has markedly similar effects to a very strong cup. In moderate doses however, it actives opiate receptors but does so in a way that is much weaker than traditional opiates. The pain killing effects are real, but mild. It’s not the intense euphoria that comes from real opiates. You many wonder how this could be safer than a real opiate if it affects similar receptors, but it is very important to note these two characteristics:
- It does NOT cause respiratory depression.
- Tolerance does not increase rapidly due to the ceiling effect
The very things that make opiates deadly are absent from Kratom. The FDA has claimed that respiratory depression is indeed a side effect, but this is a patently false. Yes, kratom does indeed activate the same mu-opiate receptor as drugs like morphine, but it does so strongly biased against the recruitment of beta-arrestin. The recruitment of beta-arrestin via mu receptors is what is known to cause respiratory depression and escalating addictive behavior. Kratom does not activate beta-arrestin and is thus extremely safe compared to morphine derivatives. No one, including legitimate scientists have any idea where the FDA is sourcing its claims. The president of the American Association of Pharmacuetical Scientists told CNN in 2017:
“We’ve never seen respiratory depression in the animal studies that we’ve conducted, and we’ve never seen or heard reports of respiratory depression in the human population that’s been using. And this is something that’s really amazing when you start thinking about a potential treatment for opioid addiction or opioid withdrawal”
Further, Kratom has a self mediating effect where “less is more”. People that consume kratom, even regularly, do not rapidly increase their dosage as is the case in real opiate addiction. There needs to be more research on this effect as the full mechanisms are not understood, but it seems to have something to do with antagonist alkaloids that cover the mu receptor from actual agonist alkaloids. Due to these antagonist alkaloids, an overdose on Kratom results in nausea and dysphoria. This is certainly preferable to an overdose on actual opiates which most likely will result in certain death. Again, research needs to be done here. We could be looking at a natural plant with all the pain killing and mood lifting power of opiates, without any of the abuse potential or danger. What is clear though, is that kratom has the potential to move us away from a reliance on opiates.
Traditional Uses
The history of kratom goes back at hundreds if not thousands of years. It became especially relevant in the mid-19th century when East India Company Botanist Pieter Willem Korthals noted its usefulness in treating opium dependence during the period of the Opium Wars. Indeed, Kratom as a remedy for opiate addiction has a long and storied history. Grown Thailand and Myanmar, it was even banned by local governments who were exporting heroin. Even then, kratom was cutting into drug dealer’s profits.
In the United States, it became popular in the early-2000’s when the opiate epidemic really started to take off. Unfortunately, it was mostly sold through “head shops” as a legal high with outrageous markups. This initial introduction is one of Kratom’s most enduring problems. If it had been viewed as legitimate medicine, we could have saved lives and it would not have been targeted by the FDA and DEA. The truth is that Kratom is not ideal for producing a drug high; Instead, it has found purpose within small, quiet circles of people struggling with addiction and physical pain.
Even today, Kratom may be a safer alternative to other manufactured “maintenance” solutions like methadone and suboxone. I’m unwilling to criticize either of these substances because it’s factual that they save lives. However, each has their own particular baggage and price tag. For one thing, they’re both opiates and cause respiratory depression. Also, the barrier for entry is quite high. Meaning, people are unwilling to admit their addiction in the early stages, and thus these drugs are often prescribed much later into the development of the disease.
Kratom also has benefits for regular people that are living in pain. If you search #IAmKratom on social media you will see hundreds of people that use this natural plant as an alternative to synthetic pharmaceuticals. In every way, it’s a preferable option to real opiates for pain management. It’s not nearly as addictive, it’s cheaper, it’s natural and does not cause a “high” or put the person into an opiate stupor. The effects of this plant are mild, but that small boost in mood and dulling of pain are vital to those suffering mentally or physically.
The Conspiracy Against Kratom
Over the past three years, the federal government and the pharmaceutical industry have worked in conjunction to conspire against kratom. The idea of empowering farmers in South West Asia is not a very attractive proposal to Big Pharma who produces legal heroin and its auxiliaries; or our government that collects income from arresting drug addicts.
In 2016, the DEA attempted to put kratom on the list of Schedule I drugs but had to back down due to massive protests. I was one of the millions of people who signed the successful petition and reached out to my local government to voice my concerns with the issue. One thing that became clear to me at the time, is that many people people have no idea what Kratom is and how it helps. The government and the Pharma industry can use this to their advantage to spread false information.
And yes, the FDA and DEA are peddling false information through the media. It’s obvious propaganda and it’s leaving many scientists dumbstruck. Their latest move has been to classify kratom as an opiate despite 100% of the science disagreeing with their assessment. A group of diverse scientists in fields of Pharmacology, Psychaitry, Chemistry and others wrote a letter to the government stating:
“We believe strongly that the current body of credible research on the actual effects of kratom demonstrates that it is not dangerously addictive, nor is it similar to ‘narcotics like opioids’… A ban on kratom that would be imposed by CSA Scheduling would put them at risk of relapse to opioid use with the potential consequence of overdose death.”
It’s not just the “science” behind kratom that is being fabricated by the federal government, but the statistics too. You’ll see various numbers thrown around regarding supposed deaths linked to kratom use, all of which are misleading and irresponsible. They claim that 44 deaths over the last decade have been linked to kratom use, but what they have not mentioned is that 43 of these people also had prescription drugs or illegal drugs also in their system. Even if this number was true (it’s not), it’s a number that is remarkably low. Especially considering that we see over 100 people die every single day from opiates. If this epidemic doesn’t slow down, we may see over a million people die every decade in this country from overdose or related causes.
Kratom is a solution to the opiate problem. It’s less addictive, safe and cheap. If you listen to what people are saying you’ll hear amazing stories of how they were able to get off suboxone or get their life back together thanks to kratom.
Final Word
Opiates are too good, allowing people to escape all physical and mental pain while simultaneously and paradoxically destroying their lives. The cost of addiction knows no end and it will not stop until we open our eyes to natural alternatives not controlled by pharmaceutical companies or government entities. We need something different and we have found it. Kratom may not be as powerful as opiates, but it’s just powerful enough to cultivate the strength to escape addiction; or go on through life without physical pain.
Next time you or someone you know is suffering from pain (be it physical or the crippling mental anguish of addiction) - please - for your own health and the well-being of society at large consider kratom over opiates. It can save lives, and I know, because I’ve witnessed it happen.
