[Today journalist Nathan Hall reports on a national concern that is affecting Pagans and magic-workers. If you enjoy articles like this, please consider donating to The Wild Hunt. We are now at 43% with 11 days left. You make it possible for us to continue to provide a platform for our communities’ important news. What better way to celebrate the October season: Donate to a news organization that is, in part, for and about modern Witches. Donate today.]
UNITED STATES – Kratom is an innocuous medicinal plant, a drug, and herb used in religious ceremonies, or a killer, depending with whom you speak. A woman in Florida blames the drug for her son’s suicide; addiction recovery advocates say that it can be a useful harm-reduction tool; journey-workers believe that it’s good for relaxing the mind and aiding in trance work. Additionally, there are a growing number of people who find kratom to be an enjoyable intoxicant. They drink it rather than going to a traditional bar and ordering alcohol.
![By ThorPorre (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1024px-Green_Kratom_Leaf-500x333.jpg)
[Photo Credit: ThorPorre / Wikimedia]
Liz Johnson is the owner of Magus Books, a store serving the Pagan and magick-using communities in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The store sells kratom.
“As with all the herbs we sell it is supplied for the use that the person sees fit to use it for. Our intent is to provide magickal tools and resources and that herb, like all the other herbs, certainly falls into that category,” she said.
Johnson explained that one of the issues that creates problems for the herb is that there are different strains.
“Each of them have their own effects, each of them have their own purposes. This is one of those reasons for that regulation, a preponderance of people will have a typical reaction to a given strain. This doesn’t mean it will be your reaction to that strain, which is a typical thing with any herb,” she said.
There are a number of reactions that are considered to be standard, or what you would expect to see. However, since people each have their own unique body chemistry, there will always be instances where unexpected reactions occur, she further explained.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency attempted to add the plant to the list of Schedule 1 drugs, or those substances seen as having no medical benefit, including heroin, MDMA, LSD and marijuana. On August 31, the DEA announced their intentions to schedule kratom as such by the end of September 2016.
The August announcement lead to a massive public protest, after which the DEA spokesman Melvin Patterson admitted, “I have been with the DEA for 20 years and have never seen this level of public response,”as noted by the Los Angeles Times,
In fact, 51 members of Congress, across party lines submitted their own protests to the proposed legislation, which forced the DEA to backpedal and open up a another 6 week period for discussion. That will close on Dec. 1.
At that point, the DEA will decide whether to move forward with the ban or begin discussing alternatives.
Sign in front of Magus Books in Minneapolis on Sept 27 prior to the DEA’s extension of the discussion period about the banning of kratom. [Courtesy Magus Books Facebook page]
“We’ll lose those sales; we’ll lay people off; there will be cutting of hours. It’s not an insignificant percentage. It will impact the business to lose that particular herb. But, it would impact the business [also] to lose white sage. [Kratom] is our most popular herb, make no mistake. It will have the largest impact the loss of a single herb would have. But at the same time with the number of herbs we sell, any loss we would have a noticeable impact,” she said.
As a tool for journey work, Johnson said that if kratom were made illegal, most of those folks would move on to another alternative. However, if people are using kratom to maintain a regimen where they’re attempting to not use opiates or synthetic opiates, there aren’t a lot of alternatives. Johnson said, “For the people who come looking to replace a physical pain reliever (that) they’ve become addicted to, I don’t have a great replacement for that. I have a protocol as an herbalist to help with the detox.”
Justin Kunzelman is the co-founder and director of Rebel Recovery, a nonprofit with several branches across the United States. He is based in South Florida.
“It could be used as a safer alternative replacement drug, but it depends on the individual. If an individual’s goal for harm-reduction is, ‘I don’t want to shoot heroin anymore,’ then our responsibility as a professional is to find the best way for them to do that. If it’s possible for them to do that in an abstinence-only setting then they should,” he said.
If they feel like kratom is a good alternative that could prevent them from being on heroin, then they should do that, he added.
“You also can’t tell people what their goals should and should not be and what they should believe. I don’t know that there’s really enough research to use it as a replacement therapy, but somebody that’s addicted is just looking to escape, could they use this to escape and use it as a replacement for heroin? Absolutely,” Kunzelman said.
Where he sees cause for concern is that it’s another drug and to people who suffer from addiction, trading one for another isn’t the ultimate goal.
“It has everything to do with the mindset behind using the drug,” he said. “Everything from caffeine, nicotine to kava, kratom, crack, heroin, it’s all going to set off the same cycle in their minds. It’s all gonna set off the same cycle in their lives.”
Kunzelman points to the openness of the internet as a likely source of fuel for the protests seen after attempting to ban kratom. The spread of information has lead to a lot of social change, including the attitudes of people who use kratom.
“I think a lot of them… understood the danger of putting another plant as a Schedule 1 narcotic and saying it had no value, while doing no research. […] Look at how many people could have been helped were we able to openly study marijuana in the 50’s. How many people’s lives could have been improved had we known then what we know now about CBD oil (cannabidiol, an extract of cannabis being studied for health benefits, including treatment of epilepsy)?” he said.
There’s a lot of potential research to be done with kratom, but having it as a Schedule 1 substance would prevent any of that from happening, Kunzelman said.
Liz Johnson feels that for Pagan or shamanic work, practioners should view the open access of plants and plant materials as a religious right.
“Every time we make a move to decide that we are not responsible enough as a society to handle these things, we take a step backwards evolutionarily, we take a step away from reaching those pinnacles of spirituality that we know create a better world,” she said.
As a recovery advocate and a person in recovery himself, Kunzelman sees the drug war as a failure, and the current heroin epidemic as a product of that.
“The last thing we want to do is add to that. Add one more thing to the list of things that we can kick in your door for, seize your home and your car,” he said.
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Disclaimer: I am libertarian, although I do not drink or use.
The only thing in the Constitution that gives the Federal Government any authority over drugs is the commerce clause.
Let people choose for themselves and accept the consequences. That’s what we expect adults to do.
You need to refine your last sentence to read “let ADULTS choose for themselves… etc.” Children are not mature enough to make those choices, whatever those choices are, and the human brain doesn’t mature until around age 27-29.
You make a good point. I should have said legally adult.
There are people who are forty that I wouldn’t trust to tie their shoes. And there are fourteen year olds that I would trust with my life.
It seems to me that we should stick to the age of legal consent.
Yes, 21 is a good enough cutoff legally. As it is, our culture has let the definition of “adolescence” stretch in to the mid-30s!
21 works.
I’d say 18, but that is me.
Very good article, with one correction: cocaine is not a Schedule I drug in the U.S. It is Schedule II because topical cocaine is used as a numbing agent in some medical procedures.
Yep, that’s right folks. Marijuana is Schedule I and cocaine is Schedule II. The world of drugs is nuts in the U.S.
Alcohol and especially tobacco are the perfect manifestations of the definition of Schedule I drugs. As has been said, this is just a way for the DEA to justify its existence, which it and its predecessors have been doing since alcohol prohibition ended. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that they’re going to lose their biggest moneymaker as marijuana becomes legal, so they have to scrape up a new “threat to America’s youth”. When I have time I’m going to dig into it a bit further, but I would not be at all surprised to find Big Pharma’s grubby paws in this someplace. After selling billions of prescription painkillers which ultimately fueled the heroin epidemic, they’re making big money in addiction substitutes – suboxone and Vivitrol and the like. Those drugs run up to $1,000 or more per month.
Government is not your friend.
May be, but the population of the US votes those Senators and Congressmen/women into office who make those laws and then the bureaucrats are required to come up with regulations that embody the law. (It’s not the fault of the bureaucrats – it’s CONGRESS that makes the law). So the question becomes: why do American continually vote folks into office who are beholden to corporate interests and how can the people demand that change? Voting them out of office doesn’t work. That was shown in the early 90s when the idea of “throw the bums out” ended up with a whole new crop of senators/congressfolk who then ended up doing *exactly* what the ones thrown out did – take money from lobbyists, corporations, PACs etc. Maybe term limits (which I have been advocating for decades) is the answer: six year term, can’t run for re-election until at least 2 more terms have passed, and shut down all monies going into “re-election” campaigns.
Hmm, WH really doesn’t like links anymore. Reposting without the link.
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Well, I wasn’t going say much, but yes, Congress needs to be controlled. So do the technocrats, who usually act without Congressional knowledge or approval. It’s plausible deniability built into the system.
As it happens, I just put up a piece at my mainstream blog about four Constitutional amendments I would like to see. I talk about some of those issues there.
“DEA…have to scrape up a new “threat to America’s youth”.” That’s their business model.
You will not have to look far to find both the FDA and BigPharmas big shadow in this story. Of course BigPharma cannot capitalize on kratom because you can’t patent a plant. However there are already a few patents for the synthetic version of some of the components in kratom already being worked out. They want to ban the whole plant – saying it has no medicinal value, it’s harmful and dangerous – then they will make their own version, claim it’s a miracle drug, and charge hundreds of dollars for it.
Stars above, yes!
NeoWayland wanders off to a far corner so as not to disturb anyone else with his mumbled libertarian rants.
Dang, can’t believe that one got by me! Thank you for pointing that out, Verity. I’ll get it fixed shortly.
I’ve been involved in trying to jeep kratom legal since the American Kratom Association warned of the Dea’s latest attempt to justify it’s existence. I’ve used kratom for years to manage the pain in my bad knee without risking liver or stomach damage from otc pain relievers and I don’t want to take prescription grade pain meds. I was panicking when the ban was anounced and the brief hold they put on it was a huge relief. I work 2 very physical jobs and am in constant pain, the kratom enables me to walk and work and I don’t know that I’ll be able to keep my jobs without it. It’s also really good for controlling my anxiety, do the ban will have a negative impact on my mental health as well. The kratom community has countless stories like mine and worse. I hope that our efforts will pay off in December and they don’t ban it.
Have you tried accupuncture?
Yeah, but it didn’t help. All that’s ever helped is kratom during the day and a henbane ointment at night.
Thanks. I have a similar problem. I tore up my inner thigh muscles 30 years ago and it’s been getting progressively worse. Then I was taking care of my neighbor’s goat who decided that my knee (the bad one) was a good place to butt and that has also exacerbated the pain. Then (!) I fell off my deck and mucked up my sacro-illiac joint which has exacerbated the thigh and knee problems. Some Iron Palm medicine (from my tai chi class) helped somewhat. I also tried acupuncture and it didn’t work for me either. Last night I stopped at Walgreens and got one of those “electro-therapy” pain relief thingies for muscle and joint pain. I was in acute pain and unable to complete my tai chi class (bad! Bad! BAD!!). At first I didn’t think it would do anything for me since the pain is chronic, not acute, but this morning I’m actually able to move around which surprised me greatly. So I’m going to combine the Iron Palm medicine with the electro-therapy and see how that works. You might want to consider it as well. Good luck!