About 10 years ago, when it was less well-known, you could find better raw leaf powder and it was helping people get off actual opiates.
IIRC there's an effect where the actual chemicals get stronger for older leaves. The bigger market has caused the harvest period to shorten, making the powder worse quality, and creating room for the concentrated extracts and stuff like 7-Oh.
Tragedy of the commons I guess. I knew people who started taking way too much, but also people who were able to use it responsibly. People say "let doctors prescribe", but that ignores how in order for that to happen, a pharma company will need something they can patent, pay for the years of testing, get sole control over it for a period, and years later a generic can come about. All when you can dry a leaf and use it as-is. There should be room for plants to be consumed. Screw it, enjoy poppy, cannabis, kratom, tobacco, etc.
It probably shouldn't be sold in gas stations but it probably also shouldn't be outright banned, as we'll just get new, more dangerous analogues.
> People say "let doctors prescribe", but that ignores how in order for that to happen, a pharma company will need something they can patent, pay for the years of testing, get sole control over it for a period, and years later a generic can come about.
Is there not universies that could just do this research on the leaf itself?
Actually reasonable decision from the DEA under RFK. Scheduling concentrated/semi-synthetic kratom products while leaving the weaker leaf-based products alone is a good compromise to reduce harm without criminalizing kratom (which has beneficial uses for opioid recovery and maintenance therapy) in general.
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.
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.
Prescribing opioids in the US is heavily monitored and scrutinized now. Doctors (and NPs, of which my mother is one) have to document the justification, meet state law restrictions, verify the prescription drug monitoring checks with their state, and complete the EHR workflows[†] that need to be completed. There are more checks after that too that the pharmacist has to complete, and the insurance company will have oversight checks they'll do as well.
Not saying people can't or won't get addicted to the drugs prescribed by doctors, but there's a lot more checks and oversight to it (these days) than there is for kratom right now.
[†] At least in my mother's case, their EHR system will also flag opioid prescriptions for review by a board.
This is a very overblown assertion about kratom. I've heard of people getting addicted, but no one I've known personally has ever had any issues.
I have been using kratom almost daily for about a decade, and it has been one of the most useful substances for managing my physiology in response to my environment. It's great for stress reduction, but my most common use is actually ADHD treatment (which I doubt would be "on-label" if it went through the healthcare clusterf*dge)
The ability to self-titrate is one of **the most important parts**. I know how much I need, and when I need it. With doctors or psychiatrists, you gotta schedule appointments and then try out a dosage for a while, then schedule a recheck and refine the dosage, etc etc etc. I have not had much success with prescription drugs, and I have tried many
> but my most common use is actually ADHD treatment
Glad it's working out for you. My partner's brother had been trying to do the same and it has completely changed him for the worse. Blown up his job, marriage, relationship with his young children, and he's damned fortunate that his siblings were raised better than me 'cause if it were my brother we'd be done already.
Adderall had always worked fine for him but we're living in a world where it's exceedingly difficult to keep a Schedule II drug prescription active and fulfilled.
You cannot prescribe a schedule 1 substance (which is what the temporary schedule has placed into), and even if you could, you need FDA approval of the substance unless it is medical marijuana which recently had a specific carveout making it federally legal to non-FDA dispense through state licensed facilities.
Theres a guy Grant Harding on YT etc. who sends gas station pills for testing and some of the things he finds are scary. Seriously addictive drugs being sold OTC with no meaningful consumer warning or guardrails
This was happening during the early 2000s, though in more "reputable" places (like nutrition and supplement stores; different "drugs" and chemicals, though). Not really surprised it is still going on in the weird little label producers.
Salvia is great if you're in the right setting and headspace. Its been years since I used it, but I'm glad I did. There's one trip in particular that I sometimes think about and has remained a meaningful part of my life.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in existence and it is sold everywhere. If governments actually cared about addiction risk, a whole lot of things would have to disappear from normal stores.
You have to provide ID and be over 21 to purchase nicotine. You can't advertise nicotine products. You have to be licensed to sell nicotine products.
Same for alcohol. Restrictions on who can buy, who can sell, and how you can advertise and market.
These are not the same as some random pill from a gas station sold to anyone with cash with zero regulations, safety, restrictions, or even any requirement to tell you what's actually in it.
Better regulation, better enforcement, anti-smoking advertising campaigns, banning public smoking, and drastically reduced amongst youth and the general public.
Cigarette regulation to reduce smoking starting in the mid/late 90s is the poster child for public policy done well.
Kids can still order wine and cigars from the internet without ID. When I was a child I did it. The law doesn't require signature on delivery, and the deliveryman has no idea what's inside and thus will accept signature from anyone including me when I was a child.
The regulations on selling tobacco in person AFAIK are only for cigarette and cigeratte labeled type rolling tobacco. You can still order perfectly cigarette smokable "pipe" tobacco online straight from an internet "vending machine" and probably a real one. Very few people know this though because it turns out to not actually be a much of a problem.
This is always mentioned when people talk about addictive substances being widespread. However, I think the key thing to think about isn't whether somethings addictive or not, but if said addiction comes with significant negative consequences/attributes. I don't think you'll find many people saying Caffeine is GOOD for you, but it just doesn't have significant negative outcomes like Tobacco.
There's lots of evidence for positive influences of Caffeine on the body (some negative as well), especially the brain. In particular, there's active and promising research on the neuroprotective effects for Alzheimer's [1] and Parkinson's [2].
"There is a wealth of accumulating biological, epidemiological and clinical evidence to support the further investigation of selective adenosine A2A antagonists, as well as caffeine, as promising candidate therapeutics to fill the unmet need for disease modification of PD."
Psychology in general tends to make the same distinction. There are lots of behaviors which may be considered abnormal but do not have a meaningful impact on the quality of life of the person or those around them, and so there little reason to pathologize it. The goal of medicine (and, in my mind, well-designed public policy) is to prolong quality of life and not to ensure everything adheres to strict standards.
caffeine addictions are good for you? so i guess all of the people taking stomach meds are doing it for fun and not how much coffee wrecks your stomach. also the number of our teens/young adults addicted to energy drinks is insane and no one can argue that stuff isnt a net negative to the body
Huh, i should look at this. I've been an aggressive drinker for most of my adult life (2 pots a day at my height), but for kicks i decided to cut all caffeine for about 9 months. No real issues aside from very short term headaches, though even those i mitigated by gradually moving down in quantity.
Aside from the headaches what addictive effects are you referencing?
Huh, don't think i had any of those. Though arguably i had "Lack of focus", difficult to say how much is due to the lack of caffeine or due to undiagnosed ADHD though.
Generally i felt fine. I'll keep it in mind, thanks
Sugar in moderation is a fine thing the issue the US has is more focused on how pervasive sweeteners have become in what looks like savory food. A ban would be a very silly thing but at some point America needs an FDA with teeth to actually crack down on labeling requirements.
The parent was the same category of statements as, "I don't eat food that has chemicals." While they sprinkle it a chemical based, flavor enhancing, preservative.
Nicotine is far more regulated and generally won’t lead you to pass out behind the wheel of a car or drown in a hot tub. You can’t even smoke in the vicinity of many buildings, but kratom? It’s basically an unregulated opiod that anyone over 18 can get and use wherever, whenever, with little to no control over what’s actually in it because it’s not food, medicine, etc.
Also you can just walk in a farmer's field, pick a mushroom out of a cow patty and boom - you're high AF! Someone should regulate cow shit, there's little to no control over it!
Not really but great talking point. The exact quote is it's as hard to quit smoking as heroin. But in reality getting off heroin cold turkey can kill you, where you need to be locked in room sweat it out. People quiting smoking still go to work but their mood is poor. Not the same at all.
It's kind of amazing that this took so long. On the other hand, this is just chapter 3025223 of the failed war on drugs and we can be confident that people will find something worse as an alternative.
My opinion is that long term daily kratom use is terrible for your health, but it doesn't carry an overdose risk so it should stay legal and the decision to use or not should be up to the user.
Ah yeah surely banning more substances will be the end of the problem this time! It definitely won't just push anyone who got hooked on this non-lethal opioid towards unregulated black markets filled with lethal fentanyl...
Fun fact, this is one of two """temporary""" opioid schedulings happening right now. The DEA is also banning 5,6-Dichloro Desmethylchlorphine (SR-17018), which has minimal to no recreational value and is the current most promising breakthrough therapy for opioid withdrawals. It is hard for me to read the combination of these two bans as anything but active malice.
> It is hard for me to read the combination of these two bans as anything but active malice.
Reading the document...
> In recent years, online forum users have begun to discuss recreational use of these four synthetic opioids and commonly compared these four synthetic opioids to other traditionally abused opioids, such as morphine and fentanyl (schedule II substances). However, unlike these two drugs that have FDA-approval for use in specific medical treatments, the four synthetic opioids have no currently approved medical use and, based on positive identifications of these four substances in forensic drug exhibits and toxicology samples, are likely to be trafficked and abused similarly to other synthetic opioids, such as brorphine (schedule I).
One of the big dangers I've heard of with 7-Oh is it seems like treatment centers don't really know how to treat withdrawal from it, which I've heard is extremely rough.
He's an odd guy who likes to investigate some really dodgy stuff. And I suspect many here on HN would appreciate him.
That led to 7-OH showing up in my feed at some point. In a nutshell, it's the strongest of the active compounds in the kratom plant, that binds to opioid receptors. 7-OH is the marketing name for the alkaloid 7-hydroxymitragynine that is being refined from kratom. It's not clear to me if it's simply extracted, or as some quick research suggests, it might also be a chemical alteration of the more commonly occurring compound in kratom mitragynine.
Anyway, this stuff looks super habit forming, and, of course, the refined version is that much more addictive.
Here in Canada you're not allowed to 3d print a modded grip for the rifle you're not allowed to buy, but in the USA you can get OPIOIDS at a GAS STATION! ... things are definitely different down there.
Kratom is a leaf that is primarily farmed in Asia which contains the active ingredient Mitragynine, which has some very mild partial-agonist opioid effects. When kratom is consumed, your liver converts a very small amount to a MUCH more potent molecule called 7-hydroxymitragynine. As with all natural drugs, some asshats in a lab decided to figure out how to create the latter molecule semi-synthetically and in bulk. They pressed them into pills and sell them in head shops and some gas stations. It's pretty addictive, nasty stuff.
I don't usually agree with prohibition, but 7OH is the kind of drug that spirals into a self destructive addiction VERY quickly. Most opioids require using for a number of weeks before you start to develop enough physical dependence to bring about withdrawal. 7OH has this weird withdrawal-like crash after even a single use that makes the user immediately feel terrible and often they seek more to make it go away. It's like the crack of the opioid world. On top of that, tolerance builds extremely quickly. Glad to see it go.
I’m not fully cognizant of the interaction between FDA and DEA, but I would’ve thought that following FDA’s announcement last year, kratom had already been outlawed.
Interesting that the drug enforcement administration can make it illegal to buy something as a chemical. Their name would suggest that they're merely the enforcement arm of the FDA regarding drugs.
The FDA and the DEA have no connection to each other.
The DEA is a law enforcement agency that aims to fight illegal drug trafficking. the FDA is regulatory agency that aims to ensure the food and medicine legally sold in the US is safe.
The DEA enforces FDA regulations though through criminal and civil prosecution of those using otherwise DEA-legal and properly prescribed substances that are not FDA approved. Except for medical marijuana which had specific executive order to place state-licensed cannabis exempted from FDA regulation, a legally prescribed controlled substance becomes a DEA enforceable illegal substance when it is dispensed without FDA approval of the material.
Feel Free (and similar) extracts like this are especially onerous. It's no longer Kratom powder that takes a lot of effort to get into trouble with.
These extracts are not very well studied, and may be stronger than many Schedule II opioids. Especially for certain brain chemistries.
In no world should Feel Free execs not be in prison at this point. They know precisely what they are doing, and their marketing is especially nasty since they market it towards addicts as a safe alchohol alternative.
Kratom powders of 15 years ago can be defended in many ways. These extracts have absolutely no leg to stand on. They are an end-around opioid scheduling.
I am quite familiar with it. It’s supposedly fermented leaf. Either way the impact is similar, and nothing like the natural leaf in effect or potency. Fermentation is its own form of chemical alteration.
It’s certainly not ground up leaf put into a water bottle as implied.
It’s wild that this stuff has remained unregulated for so long. Usually that can be attributed to the demographics (perceived or real) of the users though.
This is the only sane and reasonable thing RFK has done while in office, but also possibly ever. You can't ignore that he's a completely insane dug addict.
It's a not-opioid that just plays with the opiate receptors in your brain and can be purchased in a concentrated form at your nearest gas station in a lot of US States.
This is different. There’s the plant. Contains about 1.5% mitragynine.
Then there were purified extracts of the active alkaloids in the plant. Started around 30% mitragynine years ago now in the 85% range.
Then there were synthetic derivatives of mitragynine (7oh, mgm-15, etc.). These are much more fun/addictive and surprisingly safe. Almost all “overdoses” involved a mix of alcohol or other drugs. Much safer than fentanyl or traditional opioids because it doesn’t meaningfully trigger respiratory depression leading to asphyxiation. Unfortunately, they’re also addictive. The harm level, imho, was somewhere around alcohol or nicotine.
I used to order it online in like 2005. Crude extracts were available maybe since 2007. The plant almost got banned several years ago. Then over the last few years all these extracts and derivatives have been coming out. MGM-15 is stronger than heroin from what I've heard. Strongest stuff I ever tried was a mitragynine gummy and it felt like hydrocodone. That one gummy had the effects of what I used to get from a couple cups of tea. Good stuff but not risking addiction to try it again. Made me nauseous too
Bath salts were synthetic cathinones. Sold online as plant food and bath salts because they were not for human consumption ;) And then they started getting sold in head shops and gas stations. Some are highly addictive, some are more benign. Methylone was a great cheap MDMA alternative and is one of the drugs that Trump signed an executive order to fast track studying for PTSD.
As a guy posting on a nerd message board, you'd probably enjoy the nerdiness of the guys on Bluelight and places like that getting money together to have Chinese labs synthesize the chemicals they theorized would get em high.
I know very little of this but it seems like not all things kratom are affected.
> This temporary scheduling action does not apply to botanical kratom products that contain naturally occurring 7-OH below the specified threshold. Instead, it targets synthesized products and those containing elevated concentrations of 7-OH as outlined in the temporary scheduling order. DEA believes these substances pose an imminent threat to public safety given their effects are highly unpredictable.
> Any botanical material of the plant Mitragyna speciosa, also known as kratom, and contains more than 0.050 percentage of 7-hydroxymitragynine on a dry weight basis
Indeed, thanks for catching that. No maximum for an actual kratom leaf but leafs cannot be too potent, right?
Everything in moderation. I know a few successful adults who have tried crack. Personally, I'd never want to try it but people can do what they want. I've been around people high on powder cocaine a few times and they were incredibly annoying.
This is the proper response. I'm sure heroin feels really really really good. The amount of addicts in this thread defending their addiction is surprising.
I have never used kratom, and I don't plan on it. But automatically assuming anyone who isn't hellbent against it is just a junkie "defending their addiction" is pretty close minded lol.
About 10 years ago, when it was less well-known, you could find better raw leaf powder and it was helping people get off actual opiates.
IIRC there's an effect where the actual chemicals get stronger for older leaves. The bigger market has caused the harvest period to shorten, making the powder worse quality, and creating room for the concentrated extracts and stuff like 7-Oh.
Tragedy of the commons I guess. I knew people who started taking way too much, but also people who were able to use it responsibly. People say "let doctors prescribe", but that ignores how in order for that to happen, a pharma company will need something they can patent, pay for the years of testing, get sole control over it for a period, and years later a generic can come about. All when you can dry a leaf and use it as-is. There should be room for plants to be consumed. Screw it, enjoy poppy, cannabis, kratom, tobacco, etc.
It probably shouldn't be sold in gas stations but it probably also shouldn't be outright banned, as we'll just get new, more dangerous analogues.
With no evidence of efficacy that the aforementioned expensive years of testing/trials provide.
Is there not universies that could just do this research on the leaf itself?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3888958/
Not saying people can't or won't get addicted to the drugs prescribed by doctors, but there's a lot more checks and oversight to it (these days) than there is for kratom right now.
[†] At least in my mother's case, their EHR system will also flag opioid prescriptions for review by a board.
I have been using kratom almost daily for about a decade, and it has been one of the most useful substances for managing my physiology in response to my environment. It's great for stress reduction, but my most common use is actually ADHD treatment (which I doubt would be "on-label" if it went through the healthcare clusterf*dge)
The ability to self-titrate is one of **the most important parts**. I know how much I need, and when I need it. With doctors or psychiatrists, you gotta schedule appointments and then try out a dosage for a while, then schedule a recheck and refine the dosage, etc etc etc. I have not had much success with prescription drugs, and I have tried many
Glad it's working out for you. My partner's brother had been trying to do the same and it has completely changed him for the worse. Blown up his job, marriage, relationship with his young children, and he's damned fortunate that his siblings were raised better than me 'cause if it were my brother we'd be done already.
Adderall had always worked fine for him but we're living in a world where it's exceedingly difficult to keep a Schedule II drug prescription active and fulfilled.
My brother in law has a horrible kratom addiction. He now lives in a car with no insurance.
> I have been using kratom almost daily for about a decade
Hmm...
All the cannabinoid analogs are a good example too, people just want to get high.
I do miss salvia extracts though. Being able to pick that up in a head shop was nice before it got banned.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances in existence and it is sold everywhere. If governments actually cared about addiction risk, a whole lot of things would have to disappear from normal stores.
Same for alcohol. Restrictions on who can buy, who can sell, and how you can advertise and market.
These are not the same as some random pill from a gas station sold to anyone with cash with zero regulations, safety, restrictions, or even any requirement to tell you what's actually in it.
I am not that old.
Better regulation, better enforcement, anti-smoking advertising campaigns, banning public smoking, and drastically reduced amongst youth and the general public.
Cigarette regulation to reduce smoking starting in the mid/late 90s is the poster child for public policy done well.
The regulations on selling tobacco in person AFAIK are only for cigarette and cigeratte labeled type rolling tobacco. You can still order perfectly cigarette smokable "pipe" tobacco online straight from an internet "vending machine" and probably a real one. Very few people know this though because it turns out to not actually be a much of a problem.
Voters tend to get what they want, and a sizeable fraction of voters smoke or drink.
"There is a wealth of accumulating biological, epidemiological and clinical evidence to support the further investigation of selective adenosine A2A antagonists, as well as caffeine, as promising candidate therapeutics to fill the unmet need for disease modification of PD."
1: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/6/967 2: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33349580/
Aside from the headaches what addictive effects are you referencing?
Generally i felt fine. I'll keep it in mind, thanks
Fun fact, this is one of two """temporary""" opioid schedulings happening right now. The DEA is also banning 5,6-Dichloro Desmethylchlorphine (SR-17018), which has minimal to no recreational value and is the current most promising breakthrough therapy for opioid withdrawals. It is hard for me to read the combination of these two bans as anything but active malice.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/01/2026-13...
Reading the document...
> In recent years, online forum users have begun to discuss recreational use of these four synthetic opioids and commonly compared these four synthetic opioids to other traditionally abused opioids, such as morphine and fentanyl (schedule II substances). However, unlike these two drugs that have FDA-approval for use in specific medical treatments, the four synthetic opioids have no currently approved medical use and, based on positive identifications of these four substances in forensic drug exhibits and toxicology samples, are likely to be trafficked and abused similarly to other synthetic opioids, such as brorphine (schedule I).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5ixJIqbGY&t=267s
He's an odd guy who likes to investigate some really dodgy stuff. And I suspect many here on HN would appreciate him.
That led to 7-OH showing up in my feed at some point. In a nutshell, it's the strongest of the active compounds in the kratom plant, that binds to opioid receptors. 7-OH is the marketing name for the alkaloid 7-hydroxymitragynine that is being refined from kratom. It's not clear to me if it's simply extracted, or as some quick research suggests, it might also be a chemical alteration of the more commonly occurring compound in kratom mitragynine.
Anyway, this stuff looks super habit forming, and, of course, the refined version is that much more addictive.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-and-...
I’m not fully cognizant of the interaction between FDA and DEA, but I would’ve thought that following FDA’s announcement last year, kratom had already been outlawed.
The FDA can say you can't sell it as a supplement or food. But they can't stop you from possessing it or selling it as a chemical.
When the DEA schedules it, it is illegal to possess or sell in any capacity.
The DEA is a law enforcement agency that aims to fight illegal drug trafficking. the FDA is regulatory agency that aims to ensure the food and medicine legally sold in the US is safe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLObpcBR2yw
These extracts are not very well studied, and may be stronger than many Schedule II opioids. Especially for certain brain chemistries.
In no world should Feel Free execs not be in prison at this point. They know precisely what they are doing, and their marketing is especially nasty since they market it towards addicts as a safe alchohol alternative.
Kratom powders of 15 years ago can be defended in many ways. These extracts have absolutely no leg to stand on. They are an end-around opioid scheduling.
It’s certainly not ground up leaf put into a water bottle as implied.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRZqHzDG_c8
It has opioid-like addiction tendencies.
Lots of people who used kratom to wean themselves off opioids are now addicted to 7-OH. This includes many people over the age of 30.
Then there were purified extracts of the active alkaloids in the plant. Started around 30% mitragynine years ago now in the 85% range.
Then there were synthetic derivatives of mitragynine (7oh, mgm-15, etc.). These are much more fun/addictive and surprisingly safe. Almost all “overdoses” involved a mix of alcohol or other drugs. Much safer than fentanyl or traditional opioids because it doesn’t meaningfully trigger respiratory depression leading to asphyxiation. Unfortunately, they’re also addictive. The harm level, imho, was somewhere around alcohol or nicotine.
As a guy posting on a nerd message board, you'd probably enjoy the nerdiness of the guys on Bluelight and places like that getting money together to have Chinese labs synthesize the chemicals they theorized would get em high.
> This temporary scheduling action does not apply to botanical kratom products that contain naturally occurring 7-OH below the specified threshold. Instead, it targets synthesized products and those containing elevated concentrations of 7-OH as outlined in the temporary scheduling order. DEA believes these substances pose an imminent threat to public safety given their effects are highly unpredictable.
Indeed, thanks for catching that. No maximum for an actual kratom leaf but leafs cannot be too potent, right?
PS: Is that a Mr. Show reference?
Downvoters must not know that when the DEA says they're temporarily banning something they mean permanently