Please continue to do what is best for Americans and keep access to kratom legal. The repercussions of making it illegal are vast. Let me divulge, and please read carefully.

This is a benign plant — comparing it to opioids would be akin to comparing chamomile and lavender to benzodiazepine tranquilizer medications. It’s just too far-reaching. The [properly reviewed] science all consistently shows that there is nothing dangerous about the plant. Not to mention, it has such a low potential for abuse due to its many alkaloids that result in emetic (vomiting) unpleasant sickening side effects when taken in amounts above a therapeutic threshold. People who try to abuse it learn this lesson hard and fast. It is being horribly mischaracterized by lobbyists for big pharma, which is trying to patent the active molecules in it to capitalize on its distribution and profit from it, while removing it from the access of responsible consumers. Not to mention, if outlawed, all that will happen is the users of kratom will turn to unfortunately dangerous opioids because nothing else can help their pain in a way that is similarly benign to kratom — or — they will begin to purchase kratom from a black market of unregulated and potentially adulterated products, which is exactly what the KCPA is preventing from happening. Let me add that I have seen people whose lives were succumbed to the dangerous and deadly addictions to hard pharma opioids, fentanyl, and heroin … but when introducing kratom to them, they became functional, no longer sick or endangered, and have been given a new lease on life, becoming contributing members to the economy of America, with a quality of life that was absent without kratom. If you allow removal of kratom from being accessed, you will soon see the spike in dangerous opioid usage and deaths, because quality of life will be removed, and pursuit of happiness will be stunted by extreme pain paradigms that would no longer be possible to treat without dangerous alternatives. Do you want to lend to this outcome? I encourage you to realize that more people than you think are responding well to kratom and rely on it for the sake of pursuing a quality life that lends meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and safety — likely including many friends and family of yours you know and respect — and if not, then the people that your friends and family know and respect are using this and able to live with a semblance of quality of life, avoiding dangerous pharma and street drugs as a result of the KCPA. 

Know that IF kratom and its constituents are is banned, and that if official establishment & foreseeable continuity of the KCPA (kratom consumer protection act) is repealed or not established … THEN you will heavily contribute to the opioid epidemic by forcing people who prosper now, in good health, to soon suffer … as a direct result of your choice to ban it. We should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We should be driven by science, not twisted words or misinterpretations.

Pass the KCPA, keep it, never ban access to kratom or its constituents, and ignore the money-lobbyists for pharma who push agendas that involve no peer-reviewed scientific factual data to back up their propaganda they push as a result of aiming to capitalize on the kratom market (as opposed to eliminate it, like they claim they want). 

Support people, not the corrupt tactics of pharma, which have caused this false perception, ever since August of 2017, when they patented the active molecules of the plant and then attempted to ban the plant 30 days later, beyond their scope of power, by trying to make the DEA **legislate** (beyond their power) and enforce a ban, instead of simply enforcing laws already legislated. This has gone too far, in too many ways.

Become a good agent, do the right thing, save access to kratom, and preserve it. Pass the KCPA.

…Or else the repercussions of failing to do so will result in many bad outcomes, as a result of your failure to allow the KCPA to pass, and your choice to ban kratom, should you decide so poorly to act on the behalf of special interests instead of acting on the democratic behalf of the people you represent.

I highly encourage you to familiarize and educate yourself with the content brought forth by the American Kratom Association’s work, in order of obtaining the full picture, as well as direct access to the science. Focus on real issues, like fentanyl analogues and the more dangerous and exponentially more deadly (yet legal) nitazene drugs, instead. Focus where focus should be. Don’t exacerbate an epidemic by banning access to kratom, which prevents lives from being destroyed, and helps people gain their lives back (as well as economically contributing capacities).

Save kratom access. Never limit it.

Save lives. Stop the suffering of these bans, which only have been pushed by misinformation, propaganda, pharma lobbyists, and a total lack of scientific comprehension.

- An educated harm reductionist with foresight, and even more to add.