Following the DEA’s most recent instance of egregious federal overreach – the ban on Kratom – and the subsequent public outrage, the agency has been left with no choice but to rethink its choice.

Kratom is a natural substance, made from the leaves of a tree that is native to Southeast Asia, and widely used for its medicinal purposes. Kratom leaves are often used as a replacement for opium and other addictive drugs; they have pain-relieving properties, but are not considered addictive by many people. As The Daily Sheeple reports, it is nearly impossible to overdose on kratom, and it is a fairly innocuous plant.

Unsurprisingly, the DEA is doing its best to shift the blame off the agency itself and onto the people speaking out against them. The Sheeple reports that DEA spokesman Melvin Patterson said: “Shame on everyone who wasn’t researching it before. Now you start hearing the stories about how it’s benefiting someone suffering from arthritis,” in response to the enormous uproar.

Oh really, Mr. Patterson? People are just now starting to speak out about the benefits of kratom? Natural News reported on the potential benefits of the plant in 2012 – four years before the agency made its announcement.

A case study led by Dr. Edward Boyer from the Department of Emergency Medicine at University of Massachusetts Medical School investigated the use of kratom for self-treatment of opioid addiction back in 2008. The case study noted that kratom successfully attenuated the symptoms of severe opioid withdrawal, but cessation of kratom was associated with very minimal effects. In other words, kratom helped prevent the effects of opioid withdrawal, but did not produce any significant negative effects in and of itself. While this study featured only one patient, it is surely an example of kratom’s health benefits, since a man was able to end his opioid addiction with this plant. And, it was published by the peer-reviewed journal Addiction eight years prior to the new DEA ruling. Perhaps it is the government agency which should have done its research – not the American people.

There is plenty of research and many anecdotal stories of kratom’s benefits and potential for medicinal use available for anyone who cares to look, as is confirmed by a simple web search. While the DEA blames the public for “not speaking out soon enough,” the truth is that it doesn’t matter how many people speak out. Plenty of people did – before, during and after their tyrannical ruling. The DEA has simply chosen to ban another natural healing substance, not for our own safety and benefit, but rather to appease the pharmaceutical industry.

Sources:

TheDailySheeple.com

OrganicFacts.net

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov