Is kratom a drug, a medicinal herb, a dietary supplement, a “safe food”, a tea? These terms have a whole lot to do with social perception, a little to do with legal issues, and nothing to do with science. Kratom is a shrub that grows natively in Southeast Asia. Botanically, kratom comes from the Rubiaceae …
An audio version of this interview can be found here. Dr. Marc Swogger is an associate professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Swogger is a social scientist and psychologist who studies substance use. He has co-authored multiple studies on the individual and public health effects of the use of …
Interview with Marc Swogger, University of Rochester social scientist Read More »
My guest is Wade Harman from Richlands, Virginia. Wade is a former coal miner, now a freelance writer, kratom consumer of 18 years, and host of the podcast The Botanical Resistance. We talk about FDA links to big pharma, marketing in a kratom-restrictive social media world, and how Wade survived an opiate addiction with the …
15. Marketing in a Kratom-Restrictive World with Wade Harman Read More »
My guest this week is Amy Wike from Kansas. Several years ago Amy worked at a meat processing plant. The physical strain of the job left her with permanent chronic pain. Her medication was latered tapered off by her doctor. The pain didn’t go away until Amy discovered kratom… Written and produced by Brian Gallagher. …
Nick Clark’s military career didn’t end well, but he says he’s earned a “Junkie Badge of Honor” for dancing at a New Orleans strip club for men to earn money to buy drugs. Nick was addicted to opiates and homeless by the age of 17. His father was a crack addict, and his girlfriend (now …
October 3, 2019 In the past few weeks, we’ve seen tactics implemented once again by FDA and media recognizable by people who follow the kratom issue. This time, the tactics are applied to vaping. The Prohibitionist propaganda model works as follows: Some unfortunate illnesses and a few deaths occur related to, but not caused by, …
Oh, I never! Scott Gottlieb was hired to the board of Pfizer? Puh-Fizer? What? This is so out of left field for a healthcare venture capitalist! Next you’ll be telling me that the only reason he got his degree in internal medicine is for street cred with Big Pharma, and to cash in on the …
In a recent article published in International Journal of Drug Policy, leading kratom researchers called on the FDA, DEA, and legislators to keep kratom legal, as placing kratom on Schedule 1 would impede research and cause damaging public health consequences. Authors included Chris McCurdy, Andrew Kruegal, Jack Henningfield, and the late Bonnie Avery (who passed …
Leading Kratom Scientists Call on FDA, DEA to Keep Kratom Legal Read More »
Slowly but surely, government is responding to the relentless advocacy of the kratom community and the American Kratom Association. In addition to the state governments of Georgia, Utah, and Arizona (that recently decided to regulate rather than ban kratom), the House of Representatives and the National Institutes on Drug Abuse are listening to our calls …
We’ve been seeing in the news again lately that poison control centers are receiving an increasing amount of calls about kratom. We’ve seen stories like this in 2016. CNN ran a story yesterday. In 2018 three of CNN’s top ten advertisers were drug dealers (Humira, Otzela, and Neulasta — how do they come up with …
