Some people may think that the Kratom fight reached its crescendo in 2016 when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced its intention to make Kratom a Schedule 1 illegal drug, at which point millions of Kratom users stood up to let legislators and the DEA know that Kratom is life saving, and ultimately the DEA decided not to schedule Kratom.
However, the Kratom fight is just as extreme and serious as it was back in 2016. First off, multiple states tried to ban Kratom this year, including Maryland, South Dakota, New Hampshire, and Mississippi, and these bans were only defeated by the vigorous efforts of the American Kratom Association and the Kratom community. The only reason these attempted state bans stopped rolling in is the Coronavirus pandemic.
That being said, the threat to Kratom has gotten even more serious than attempted state bans.
What happened is the American Kratom Association is attempting to pass the Federal version of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA), with the KCPA being a law which ensures that only safe, pure, and natural Kratom reaches Kratom consumers, helping to prevent contaminated or laced Kratom products and therefore helping to ensure that Kratom remains legal long term.
Up until now the American Kratom Association has been getting the KCPA passed on a state by state basis, but now they have created a Federal KCPA, and the draft of the Federal KCPA is circulating through Congress.
In response to this, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has been spreading misinformation about Kratom for years, has told Congressional legislators that they are adamant about getting Kratom made illegal, and that they are pushing the DEA to finally pull the trigger on scheduling Kratom.
The fact of the matter is that the DEA could pull the trigger on scheduling Kratom at any time, and the only safety measure left for the Kratom community if that happened is there would have to be a 30 day comment period, during which time the Kratom community and the American Kratom Association would have to fight aggressively.
It gets worse. Not only is the FDA claiming that the DEA is about to make Kratom a Schedule I illegal drug, the FDA is now saying that Kratom is an unapproved food additive, and pulling Kratom off the shelves in Ohio.
Essentially, the FDA is saying that adding Kratom to a pill or putting it in an extract shot makes Kratom a food additive, and they have convinced the Ohio Department of Agriculture to go around and tell all Kratom vendors and retail stores to stop selling Kratom or face penalties and the seizure of their Kratom products.
The American Kratom Association is now working hard to show that the FDA’s stance is illegal, and is trying to convince the Ohio Department of Agriculture to change their mind.
This is actually a critical fight, since if the FDA succeeds with calling Kratom an unapproved food additive in Ohio, then the FDA will launch the same attack nationwide and effectively get Kratom banned.
Thus, the FDA has launched a two pronged attack on Kratom, and if either of their attacks succeed Kratom will become illegal in the United States. Now is the time to stand up and fight to keep Kratom legal, and the best way to do that is by joining the American Kratom Association and donating at this link. The American Kratom Association needs all the funds possible to turn back the FDA’s attacks, and the fate of Kratom, and the millions of people who depend on Kratom as an alternative to dangerous synthetic opioids and opiates, hangs in the balance.