Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 127 posts

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#91

Post by madaxe_again »

Fargren wrote: post #81
nikcub wrote: post #68

> Schedule I substances are those that have the following findings: > 1. The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. > 2. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. > 3. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision Kratom doesn't meet any of those requirements, let alone all three. The sche…

>>over 3x as many Americans who were killed in Iraq in total - so 3 Iraq wars per year. I know what you mean, but it really bothers me that you are only counting American deaths. The total number of Iraqi deaths arising from the Iraq war is highly disputed, but it seems to be somewhere between 150,000 and a bit over 1,000,000, depending on the survey and whether it only counts direct deaths of combatants vs. surveys…

Only Americans are real people. Others are just foreign statistics. Nobody died at Stalingrad, for instance.

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#93

Post by Broken_Hippo »

unethical_ban wrote: post #84
slowmovintarget wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>highly addictive, and life-threatening if overconsumed You mean like caffeine or nicotine?

No. 1) Addictive as in, one "normal" dose causes high physical addiction. 2) Lethal, more specifically that it is easy to overdose, or that the difference between "normal" and LD50 is low. You don't get hooked on caffeine after one coke, and it's hard to kill yourself drinking too much coffee.

It is pretty rare for anyone to get addicted to a drug after one dose. Even for things like heroin. I think I've read that at most, there is a 25% chance of addiction. Still high, but still below the thresh hold. But admittedly, it is rather hard to sort out fact from propaganda here. (and heroin does have that second one, I'm guessing).

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#94

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Veratyr wrote: post #36

I'm not American so forgive me if this is a silly question but isn't/shouldn't the responsibility for evaluating the safety and approval of foods and drugs belong to the FDA? Isn't the DEA being in charge of this like the FBI passing laws? Why does the DEA have this power?

As far as the FDA is concerned, this is an herbal supplement. As such, there is very little oversight. Occasionally they ban supplements, but only after a long while and a good number of deaths. For it to be used legitamately as a drug, something prescribed, a company must go through all the animal testing and trials and whatnot. To count as a supplement, it might have to go through some things as well. This particular plant seemed that it was in a somewhat grey area - not quite a supplement (officially), yet not as inert as lettuce.

The DEA basically overseas things that aren't medicinal drugs and supplements - more in the range of recrational drugs. They also do some work investigating "suspicious" prescriptions and things like that For example, pharmacies have to report some drugs and numbers to the DEA and follow some of their rules for opiates. DEA rules means you are limited on how much Sudafed you can purchase at once because it is used as an ingredient for making meth. In addition, I'm not sure the FDA has that sort of manpower to check up on that stuff.

In a way, the two agencies overlap. In this case, they were treating it as a street drug only - which is purely under the realm of the DEA.

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#95

Post by OscarCunningham »

Fargren wrote: post #81
nikcub wrote: post #68

> Schedule I substances are those that have the following findings: > 1. The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse. > 2. The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. > 3. There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision Kratom doesn't meet any of those requirements, let alone all three. The sche…

>>over 3x as many Americans who were killed in Iraq in total - so 3 Iraq wars per year. I know what you mean, but it really bothers me that you are only counting American deaths. The total number of Iraqi deaths arising from the Iraq war is highly disputed, but it seems to be somewhere between 150,000 and a bit over 1,000,000, depending on the survey and whether it only counts direct deaths of combatants vs. surveys…

Even if you only count American deaths, the majority of them were probably caused by spending money on the war that could have been spent elsewhere.

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#96

Post by saiya-jin »

madaxe_again wrote: post #91
Fargren wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>over 3x as many Americans who were killed in Iraq in total - so 3 Iraq wars per year. I know what you mean, but it really bothers me that you are only counting American deaths. The total number of Iraqi deaths arising from the Iraq war is highly disputed, but it seems to be somewhere between 150,000 and a bit over 1,000,000, depending on the survey and whether it only counts direct deaths of combatants vs. surveys…

Only Americans are real people. Others are just foreign statistics. Nobody died at Stalingrad, for instance.

sad but true, i guess rest of the world should all adapt to this approach and just ignore US overdose epidemics, because it doesn't matter, right?

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#97

Post by WhitneyLand »

toss1941 wrote: post #87
PostOnce wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A whole bunch of plants can kill you, we haven't banned nightshade, most mushrooms, poison ivy, green potatoes lol. Let's ban poison ivy. Let's ban going outside without sunblock on. Let's ban walking around without a bicycle helmet on. Let's have the govt come into my office every two hours and remind me to get up and walk around and stretch. At some point, people have to take care of themselves. How many kratom add…

And there is strong evidence that Kratom curtails alcohol addiction. Kratom is amazing. It has anti-depressive effects that once fully understand I believe will usher in a new and vastly superior wave of anti-depressants. To schedule 1 this plant is beyond insane. Banning it is the bunny brained idea of a lunatic. The DEA is completely out of touch with reality or some special interest is pulling their strings.

Strong evidence? Citations please.

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#98

Post by GordonS »

M00n_Sl47r wrote: post #54
WhitneyLand wrote: post #14

I don't agree with the ban, but it seems like the risks of kratom are not discussed, and in fact even downplayed by saying hey, it's just a plant. To help me be an informed reader I would like WaPo to mention: 1) If you search kratom withdrawal there are a ton of anecdotal reports that sound pretty unpleasant if not debilitating. 2) What is the frequency of severe side effects, as best as can be known? 3) That "natur…

Long term kratom use can cause a dependence, and the withdrawals are very very similar to heroin/morphine withdrawals. regarding your second point, I cant find any hard sources, but my experience has been that unless one is doing WAAYY too much kratom, both per dose and over longer periods of time. Unless you are already an opioid addict trying to use kratom to maintain and kick a harder habit (the well known use is…

> withdrawals are very very similar to heroin/morphine withdrawals

Source please.

Anecdotal evidence from those that have gone through both heroin and kratom withdrawals generally say coming off kratom is extremely easy by comparison.

It's also worth noting that, anecdotally (and I include myself here), for many people coming off kratom is easier than stopping drinking coffee.

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#99

Post by GordonS »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #97
toss1941 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there is strong evidence that Kratom curtails alcohol addiction. Kratom is amazing. It has anti-depressive effects that once fully understand I believe will usher in a new and vastly superior wave of anti-depressants. To schedule 1 this plant is beyond insane. Banning it is the bunny brained idea of a lunatic. The DEA is completely out of touch with reality or some special interest is pulling their strings.

Strong evidence? Citations please.

On mobile now, so can't give examples, but do a search on Google scholar and you really will find plenty evidence there

Re: The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant citing public outcry

#100

Post by GordonS »

cmdrfred wrote: post #21
WhitneyLand wrote: post #14

I don't agree with the ban, but it seems like the risks of kratom are not discussed, and in fact even downplayed by saying hey, it's just a plant. To help me be an informed reader I would like WaPo to mention: 1) If you search kratom withdrawal there are a ton of anecdotal reports that sound pretty unpleasant if not debilitating. 2) What is the frequency of severe side effects, as best as can be known? 3) That "natur…

In medicine, you have to show a drug is more effective (or as effective) and is as safe as existing drugs for a purpose in order to get FDA approval. Why not take a similar stance on drugs for recreational purposes? If it is as safe or safer than alcohol or tobacco, approve it.

This has been done. Mitragynine and 7-OH-mitragyine (the primary alkaloids in kratom) do not recruit β-arrestin[1], which os what causes typical opioid side effects - including respiratory depression. It is this that kills when you overdose on almost every other known opioid drug. This really is huge deal.

Less importantly, but still relevant, it also doesn't cause anywhere near the level of constipation that pharmaceutical opioid drugs cause.

It also activates both mu and delta opioid receptors, which is perhaps why I personally find it is so much more effective for neuropathic pain than the more common mu-opiod pharmaceutical drugs.

[1] http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.6b00360?journalCode...

Post reply on HN