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The Washington Times reports [Link no longer available]
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] will hold off on a previously-announced ban of the herbal drug Kratom while soliciting additional input from the public and the Food and Drug Administration [FDA].
A DEA announcement in August that it planned to add the psychoactive compounds in Kratom to the list of Schedule I drugs[1] banned under the Controlled Substances Act drew outrage from individuals who believe the herbal supplement, which is derived from trees indigenous to Southeast Asia, can help individuals struggling with opioid addiction.
"Since publishing that notice, DEA has received numerous comments from members of the public challenging the scheduling action and requesting that the agency consider those comments and accompanying information before taking further action," states a notice[PDF] issued [October 12] by the DEA that it will withdraw its proposal to ban the substance.
[...] In addition to accepting public comments[2] on Kratom through December 1, the DEA has also asked for a scientific and medical evaluation of the drug by the FDA. [DEA spokesman Melvin] Patterson said the DEA initially asked for such an assessment in 2014, but never received the results and opted to go forward with the ban without the assessment.
[...] Susan Ash, who founded the American Kratom Association in 2014 to advocate for users of the drug, said [...] "We believe Kratom should not be scheduled in any way, shape or form," Ms. Ash said. "It's been consumed safely for decades in the U.S. and world-wide for millennium, so there is no impetus to make it a controlled substance."
[1] Claimed to have no legit medical value and a high potential for abuse (as Cannabis is classified)
[2] Their directions are in the PDF, which tells you to go to a ridiculous page which is driven by scripts and use the code Docket No. DEA-442W. It's as if they want to make it as difficult as possible to comment.
Previous: The Calm Before the Kratom Ban
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @05:50PM
How can you be so anti capitalist? What you propose would empty out our 'for profit' prisons. Significant numbers of vacant cells would have substantial negative economic consequences. This would decrease executive bonuses and shareholder value.
What we need is a system that balances the need to incarcerate enough people to keep the prisons full, while leaving enough of the population working in order to support the costs of operating the for profit prisons. Just ask any of the business people running the for profit prisons.
One way of achieving this is with the help of our public education system. It needs to ensure that a percentage of graduates are destined to become inmates, while another percentage are destined to become productive workers.
/sarc
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Monday October 17 2016, @05:56PM
One way of achieving this is
Hillary for Prison 2016
Well, it would fill one cell. Or a couple I suppose, given how deep the corruption runs in the crime family.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 17 2016, @06:06PM
Destroying commerce is the one I find especially strange. Shouldn't the pro-business party be in favor of commerce? Sounds awfully anti-business to want to eliminate that one. But I think I understand. They want to get rid of the referees so market players can cheat^h^h^h^h^h compete to the max.
Maybe destroying the Dept. of Education helps grow the prison industry. Unfettered free markets and fettered high school dropouts! Prison, it's the new company town!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 17 2016, @08:55PM
Exactly right on all counts.
What's really awful is the choices we have in politics: we can either vote for the party that wants to destroy all these useful functions of government which keep this place from turning into an unregulated hellhole, or we can vote for the party that's up to its eyeballs in blatant corruption with its favored candidate (and worse, backs a lot of this crap too: Hillary's gotten a lot of "donations" from the private prison corporations, and the Dems in general haven't done much at all about drug decriminalization and legalization).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:14PM
If only we could have one party that was the best of both major parties with none of the bad.
The fiscal thriftiness of the democrats, and the social progressiveness of the republicans.
And the corruption of the democrats, and the corporate overlord deregulation of the republicans.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.