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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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @03:09PM
They'll tell you you can't use plant X and now you're suddenly in jail after your walk through the hills and collecting something from nature.
It's very unnatural but you'll soon forget all about your troubles as you meet your big cell-mate in prison. He likes you, a little too much.
And just for shits and giggles, they sprinkled some coke on your shoulders before processing you.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday October 17 2016, @03:35PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 17 2016, @03:49PM
I see, when I issue "GET /" on port 80, rather than having a normal webpage just like the ones used by billions of people every day, I get some heinous child porn and driveby malware?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Monday October 17 2016, @09:34PM
Fine I'll humor you just once. Here's the blow by blow.
Lines 1-5 are (intentionally?) left blank.
Lines 6-13 are header stuff, 14 is a LF.
Line 15 is 13,094 characters long and is composed entirely of ecmascript and the surrounding <script> tags. This one line is the majority of the page returned, and contains no human readable text. Lines 16 and 17 are again LFs.
Why they are bothering to use LFs as if they care about readability at this point, after apparently locking up the entire text of the page in some sort of container buried in this massive run-on line which is the utter opposite of readability, but there you go. Incompetence without self-awareness.
Line 18-21 is more scripting.
Line 22 is CSS, 23 a LF, 24 is script, 25 and 26 are LFs.
Line 27 is a noscript tag! Hurray! We have found HTML!
Well, no, actually.
"
<noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-L8ZB" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>
"
Line 28 is a bit more script, then finally we get a title and close the header tag in line 32.
So... into the body, we try to abuse iframe to load more js, and then we get one more <noscript> tag.
"
<noscript>
<div style="width: 22em; position: absolute; left: 50%; margin-left: -11em; color: red; background-color: white; border: 1px solid red; padding: 4px; font-family: sans-serif">
Your web browser must have JavaScript enabled in order for
Regulations.gov to display correctly.
</div>
</noscript>
"
Apparently someone completely failed to grasp the concept of 'graceful degradation.'
Anyhow, that takes us to line 44, 45 is a LF, and then we have two more attempts at scripting and </html> on line 51.
There is quite literally no web page there.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:26AM
contains no human readable text
...complains Arik
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @03:37PM
The "ridiculous page which is driven by scripts" is basically the kind of page that 99% of people encounter every day, and they have no problems using such pages. Because it is hard for you with script blockers and such enabled doesn't mean that they are intentionally trying to make it tough.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Monday October 17 2016, @03:46PM
If there were no deep links I'd have some sympathy, however visiting https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DEA-2016-0015-0006 [regulations.gov] brings up a page which has an overview, a link to the "original printed format", a link to "comment now", and a link to related comments.
It looks like an amazingly competent website for a large organisation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @04:21PM
Regardless of what 99% of people want, these scripts make the site inaccessible. I can't use the site, because I don't run scripts. Anyone with a screenreader has very incomplete javascript support, if any. It doesn't matter if 99% of people like dynamic script content, because the few people who can't run scripts are completely justified in refusing to run them, and should not (and cannot legally) be disenfranchised like this.
There are laws preventing governments from doing this type of thing, but nobody follows them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @05:03PM
You can always file a complaint with the DOJ for most places. I've had fairly good results doing that. But one thing to note, the vast majority of the ADA doesn't actually apply to the Federal Government. And I don't mean in the "they just ignore the laws they don't like" sort of way; I mean in a literal "the law doesn't mention them" sort of way.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @05:36PM
Javascript should be only for web applications. Not for web sites.
Web 'sites' should have graceful degradation.
One of the presidential candidates, I won't name names, but who regularly degrades women; whoever he or she is, would like to learn about graceful degradation.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 17 2016, @06:39PM
Which screenreader stumbles on that site? Jaws works fine.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @05:49PM
You might not consider it a problem, but some do. [fsf.org] I consider the government's use of proprietary software to be completely unacceptable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:18PM
Maybe Lincoln should have been more specific and said "Government for ALL the people".
If your web page doesn't DEGRADE GRACEFULLY, such that it can be read using lynx, your page is BROKEN.
S/N, as an example, works completely for me and, by default, I block everything except readable text.
THAT is the way a site -should- work.
...and I've mentioned before that we have at least one Soylentil who is blind. [soylentnews.org]
I like it when what I point to is accessible to ALL Soylentils.
So, thanks for letting us know that the world revolves around YOU and that YOU should be arbiter of what is proper.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:51AM
they have no problems
...apart from getting pwned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:38AM
It's even harder for people without script blockers. As proven by how often their PCs stop working even though they have five anti-virus programs and 3 malware scanners, while paying for at least half of them.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 17 2016, @04:03PM
Former presidential candidate Rick Perry said 3 departments should be eliminated: commerce, energy, and, uh, interior, or was that education? Romney suggested the EPA.
If any part of the US government should be eliminated, it's the DEA.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @04:30PM
I think we can do just fine without the DEA, FBI, and CIA. To the chopping block!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday October 17 2016, @05:30PM
Republicans suck. (So do Democrats, but this comment is about Republicans.) Those other departments are actually very useful: the EPA gives us clean cars so we don't smell car emissions the way we did back in the 70s and before, when cars were noticeably stinky and smog was a huge problem, much worse than today even though we have more cars now. The Department of the Interior gives us the best parks in the entire world. DOE makes sure we don't have a Chernobyl incident here. Commerce is a rather important part of our economy. But do these Republican morons ever propose eliminating the DEA? Nope. (To be fair, the Dems don't either.) That's one agency that, instead of doing something positive for the nation, only hurts the people and the economy, for no good reason. We spend a ridiculous amount of money imprisoning people for non-violent offenses, we create violence through prohibition (even though we should have learned that lesson back in the 20s during alcohol prohibition and all the violence that created), we ruin people's lives with criminal records and lengthy prison terms for stuff that never should have been criminalized at all, and instead should have been treated as a public health issue. Many other countries are finally figuring this out and legalizing non-harmful drugs (marijuana mainly) and decriminalizing others (treating them as public health problems, and providing treatment services to addicts to rehabilitate them), to great success. But out Republican (and many Democrat) politicians refuse to acknowledge any of this and continue to push for harsh penalties and criminalization.
It's no wonder Trump is so popular. Our politicians on both sides are clearly out of touch with the people. Trump is no savior on this issue to be sure (honestly his positions on the issues are terrible; he's spouting a lot of populist talk but his policies are mostly the same-old-same-old "low taxes for the rich" and deregulation BS), but it's understandable that many voters are voting for him just to stick it to all the establishment politicians.
(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
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(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.
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 17 2016, @05:54PM
The Department of the Interior
I've heard they're the only department that runs a net profit because of international tourist bucks spent around the national parks. Its not much, but its a profit. Like it costs $20B to run DOI for a year but foreigners alone spend way more than that per month in the USA and when you multiply surveys of foreign travelers who claim they visit our national parks up against total trade figures the NPS causes enough foreigner money to get spent to run the entire DOI not just the national park service. I wonder if some of that is double counted entrance fees, which could be a problem.
Like the royal family in England which supposedly runs a net profit due to anglophile tourism despite the royal family not being cheap.
Frankly I think we're better off with the parks.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 17 2016, @08:52PM
Absolutely, if for no other reason than making our citizens happy and preserving a lot of natural areas and species. But the economic benefits are tangible too: that's great that the DOI is making an actual profit (something mostly unheard of in government outside of the IRS of course), but that doesn't count all the additional benefits to the local economies caused by those tourists: they buy airfare, they rent cars, they rent hotel rooms, they eat at restaurants, they shops at trinket shops, they pay for vacation packages and tour guides, etc. If we legalized marijuana, we'd have even more tourist money coming in! (Just look at Colorado's economy lately.)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday October 18 2016, @11:58AM
doesn't count all the additional benefits
I was counting that, there's some trade or customs or treasury thing which I cannot find today that boiled down to foreigners on travel visa or admitted for travel purposes spend something like tens of billions per week and some survey that claimed X% of foreign visitors plan to visit a national park, some multiplying and there you go.
I'd certainly agree with the expense. At glacier the cost of a car pass is increasing to $30. Assuming cars cost 50 cents/mile thats 60 miles. I'm orders of magnitude further away than 60 miles. Of course there's two amtrak stations, also not free, etc etc. I'd spend a lot of money on food nearby the park but thats just money I'd not be spending back home, so only the foreigners money counts. I don't want to sit in a car as my vacation for 20 hours nor do I want to pay a bazzilion bucks for mass transit options, so ...
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Monday October 17 2016, @10:41PM
Well fair enough they do both suck, but your supporting points mostly fail to support.
"the EPA gives us clean cars"
The hell they do. The EPA provides cover to polluters, just as they were intended to.
"DOE makes sure we don't have a Chernobyl incident here."
No, they make sure that if we do no one important will take the fall for it.
"Commerce is a rather important part of our economy."
Exactly why it shouldn't be meddled with like that.
Anyway, you're right of course, the DEA should be abolished, it's entire reason for being is to enforce unconstitutional laws.
The BATF is another one to think about. I mean sure, you look at the name and think 'what could be more American than that?' But the sad thing is as long as they have existed they haven't done a darn thing I am aware of to make alcohol, tobacco, or firearms more easily accessible and inexpensive for US Citizens. In fact if I didn't know better I'd swear they were trying to do the opposite!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @05:41PM
Forget squabbling about commerce, energy, education, etc.
If I could eliminate any three departments of the government, they would be: executive, legislative and judicial.
Oh, wait, you didn't say branches?
Would a Dyson sphere [soylentnews.org] actually work?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday October 20 2016, @08:19AM
Department of Environmental, I mean the DEP, is killing us environmentally. It’s just killing our businesses."
--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heuifqzSpBs [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:48PM
Google's cache is currently available. [googleusercontent.com]
The mobile version of the page is too. [washingtontimes.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(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