[spruciefic399]

I was going to post something about methadone. I saw the same parallel, but see it the opposite of you maybe. To me, if people are taking kratom and it's helping them, why take that out of their control and use it to pad the pockets of middlemen like physicians, pharma etc.? If they want that level of oversight, or a judge thinks its necessary, go that route, but I generally think people should be in control of their own bodies.

I see regulating kratom as just a chance for healthcare and pharma to take a cut of a substance that's in demand, by controlling the market for it.

Step 1: see substance in high demand because it actually has physiological effects.

Step 2: identify potential harms.

Step 3: claim that because of these potential harms, only highly credentialed people are allowed to administer the substance.

Step 4: profit.

The hypocrisy with regard to alcohol and common household chemicals should immediately dispel any arguments about harm reduction being the driving factor in drug regulation. Not to mention substances that have publicly been identified as harmless (or at least, within the ability of every day citizens to self-administer) in the scientific literature, but are still regulated because of concerns that deregulating them will "set a precedent" and "trigger demand for more deregulation." (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9524840)