I DO NOT support a schedule 1 OR 2 legislation for this plant. Kratom itself has been turned down as a threat to public health on the world stage at the WHO once a few years ago, the FDA has failed numerous times on the national stage as well as the DEA. With this knowledge already widely known to kratom consumers and non users alike, this is very obviously another “Reefer Madness” ploy of the 1930’s Marijuana outlawrepeating itself. All of the “evidence” of overdoses of this plant are from people irresponsibly mixing illicit substances with it which should rule these “overdoses” from MULTIPLE substances, not just kratom. Furthermore, most of these comments supporting this ban are individuals from the medical field, who lose support of prescribing dangerous medications to patients that can simply use medicinal herbal healing of the kratom plant. Kratom in a State that is protected under a KCPA (Kratom Consumer Protection Act) has fewer problems and controls regulations within the State in question. This results in Kratom products that are put through extensive tests for any dangerous metals or bacteria within the packaged product. It sets age limits for consumers as well. Scheduling this plant will destroy more lives than it would “save”. It will greatly affect consumers who deal with mental illnesses, bodily pain that they might not want to seek help through medication or even addicts that have a more natural way of becoming clean.

I was once a 5 year opiate medication addict. Lost cause, absolutely no hope at all for ever living a normal life again but found Kratom and have been going on 5 years with no drugs at all. Not even a sip of alcohol. I can’t help but to say my piece on the matter because there may be somebody like me out there that needs the same help I needed. The same kind of help that rehabilitation or pharmaceutical opioid antagonists couldn’t give but that a natural plant somehow did. If the State of Virginia schedules this plant as some dangerous substance, it will doom thousands of Kratom consumers across the State of Virginia. Please take my comment into consideration and keep Kratom legal.