Kratom Redux

Kratom is back in the news. 

Long story short...

During the summer of 2016, the DEA moved to place kratom (mitragynine/7-hydroxymitragynine) into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Almost immediately there was a massive outcry from advocates of the plant, as well as members of Congress, toxicologists, and physicians. I initially wrote about this here. In an unprecedented move, the DEA rescinded their Notice of Intent in Fall 2016. In the Withdrawal, the DEA stated that they would accept public comment on the scheduling of these substances until December 1, 2016 as well as request a scientific/medical evaluation of the substances from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). During the approximate 2 month comment period, the DEA received around 20,000+ comments, with near 100% having positive comments on the plant.

The FDA has now released their report on Kratom. If you want to read the 164 page document, you can find it here.

I'm not going to go into much here, because other folks have covered it comprehensively.

Nick Wing, a senior reporter with the Huffington Post, covered the FDA report and methodically looked at the case reports where Kratom was associated with cause of death that were covered in the FDA report. You can find his article here.

Dr. David Kroll at Forbes covered it as well and his excellent work can be found here.

Kratom researchers in academia from across the USA and Canada also penned a letter to the DEA and the White House's newly established Opioid Commission. The letter can be found here.

I highly recommend reading the links as they are all spot on.

When the DEA initially moved to schedule Kratom in summer 2016, I said the move was misguided. And farcical. And that the DEA hadn't thought it completely through. 

And after reading the FDA's report, I still believe that.