Kratom has been the victim of false information. In ignorance, or due to various forms of Big Pharma propaganda and pressure, some governments think kratom must be criminalized due to supposed dangers.
If you can legally obtain kratom where you live, consider yourself fortunate. Some people aren’t so lucky. Why is kratom legal in some places, but illegal in others?
Hopefully, kratom is legal where you live.
Be careful, though, if you travel with kratom on you. Do some research to find out the laws regarding kratom in every place you travel through and to. Some places have death penalties for smuggling what they, rightly or wrongly, consider to be “narcotic drugs.”
Even though kratom is just a plant, a member of the coffee family, it is feared as competition to opioids and benzos. Kratom has proven itself, for many generations in Southeast Asia, to be safer and more effective than opioids like heroin, Oxycontin, and Fentanyl. They tend to chew fresh leaves, or pour boiling water on the leaves to make a tea, or ferment and dry it for crushed powder products.
The original ban against kratom was done in Thailand in the 1940a. The Thai government was making a lot of tax money off sales of opium. When the poor could no longer afford opium, they turned to kratom as a much cheaper and easily found alternative. Opium sales began declining, along with the tax revenue from it. Kratom was suddenly viewed by the elites as a trouble-maker. So it was made illegal.
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According to Thai Law Forum
When the Thai government started levying taxes rom users and shops involved in the opium trade many users switched to kratom to manage their withdrawal symptoms.
The Greater East Asia War in 1942 and declining revenues from the opium trade eventually suppressed the opium market competition by making kratom illegal.
The Kratom Act, passed in 1943, makes planting the kratom tree in Thailand illegal while existing trees can be cut down. Many of the poorer classes in southern Thailand have continued to pick and use the leaves that continue to grow in the jungles of the southern provinces. Leaves may be sold illegally to other parts of Thailand but a majority of workers use them for their own personal use.
In 1979 kratom was included in the Thai Narcotics Act along with cannabis and mushrooms, reducing sentences and punishments from those guilty under the act. An increase in the number of arrests and seizures related to kratom were reported at the beginning of the 21st century. Around this time kratom was rising in popularity as stronger narcotic ‘cocktail’ from boiling the leaves and adding cough syrup, Coco-Cola and ice.
The drink puts users in a sleepy stupor and the low price-20 leaves, which can make several cocktails-cost the equivalent of US$3.
This cocktail, called ‘4×100’, is becoming abused by younger locals especially young Muslims in Bangkok. Because the kratom drink causes a similar feeling to drinking alcohol, which is prohibited in Muslim religious regulations, a number of Muslims have reverted to drinking kratom. In the U.S. there have been no reported cases of death due to kratom, however, a corpse autopsied at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Police Hospital, The Royal Thai Police Headquarters raised suspicion that the death was caused by ‘4×100’ intoxication.
According to Donald G. Barceloux, a study of Thai kratom users showed that almost all were men and that 90 per cent either chewed fresh leaves, ate the ground dried leaf, or drank an infusion of the dried leaves. At low doses, the leaves act as a stimulant, whereas higher doses give the user more of an opium effect of relaxation.
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The war against kratom has raged in various forms ever since.
NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) remains ignorant about kratom: “In recent years, some people have used kratom as an herbal alternative to medical treatment in attempts to control withdrawal symptoms and cravings caused by addiction to opioids or to other addictive substances such as alcohol. There is no scientific evidence that kratom is effective or safe for this purpose; further research is needed.”
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/kratom
Many powerful forces in this world are opposed to sources of pleasure or healing that are not originating with the elites and their corporations. If you can grow it in your backyard, or someone in Indonesia can grow it and ship it to your country, mega-corporations have a problem. Kratom, like cannabis, threatens to reduce consumption of alcohol, Xanax, crystal meth, heroin, crack, Adderall, Ritalin, and other substances.
Where politicians are enlightened about natural solutions to human problems, kratom can become a hero in a wide range of medical issues. If corporate powers have not imprisoned the officials, kratom can be a great solution for drug addicts, alcoholics, and those patients suffering from many different ills and ailments.
Humans were meant to be happy most of the time. Happiness depends largely on health and peace of mind. Kratom should be legal everywhere because it has so many benefits to offer, in a less risky way than so many pharmaceutical medicines.
For information on kratom legality in the United States of America:
