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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: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Monday October 17 2016, @08:37PM
Fellow Soylentils,
I've never before been motivated enough to get involved in something like this. I don't smoke (tobacco) or drink (alcohol) and rarely even drink coffee (caffeine) much less have a history of using any other substances. Not because I'm morally superior to anyone but probably mostly because I was just never around the right crowd of people. But even as a veritable teetotaler I am deeply tired of the economic and social devastation that has been directly caused by the eternal War on Drugs. The idea that the DEA wants to not just continue refusing to acknowledge that they never had a good reason to put something like marijuana on Schedule I, but that they want to expand the drug war with yet another natural substance that seems to be almost entirely harmless, absolutely infuriates me. The drug war needs to be winding down in the 21st century, not ramping up. It costs taxpayers billions of dollars a year and devastates many other nations around the world.
I hope that as many people as possible on this forum will go leave a comment on this (and spread the word on any other forums you might frequent). I have nearly zero hope that the DEA will be forced to change their minds on this, but the fact that they even temporarily backed off their original proposal already seems like a minor miracle, so who knows. Even if it doesn't seem like it could possibly make a difference, I feel like I have to do something to actively oppose the expansion of the DEA's insanity. This is the comment I'm leaving. It's not very well written and provides no links to supporting data. Maybe some of you could do much better. There's a 5000 character limit on the text box.
I went to the link in the summary and couldn't even find the right page using the given search term. So I used the deep link "isostatic" posted above: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DEA-2016-0015-0006 [regulations.gov] .
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ