[Zooper]

I agree with this; I have witnessed Kratom aid people in quitting opioids, and when used properly as a quitting aid, it could help a great many people, should not be made illegal or placed under regulatory capture, and should be studied and brought into formal treatment. I personally keep some around in the rare instances where I would take ibuprofen or something similar.

In a similar vein, the generic drug tianeptine, prescribed for over 30 years in other countries for depression & anxiety, is now a schedule 2 controlled substance in Michigan (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/michigan/articles/20...), one of the major base states for the Johnson & Johnson corp, which studied the substance (https://adisinsight.springer.com/drugs/800039841) entering clinical trails for release here, but was dropped with no reasoning. Before some talking-head chimes in that tianeptine is a μ-opioid receptor, read the atypical part and addiction data in countries where it has been prescribed widely. It is the only drug which effectively treats my depression and anxiety, it is generic so large drug companies cannot make an exorbitant profit off of it, and they are keeping it from the US through media scare-tactics, like Kratom, to ensure their profitability and the reception of their patented drugs like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esketamine. We should stop them.

[bfuller]

Tianeptine is a lot different than kratom though. I know it works really well for some people, but its abuse potential is far higher than kratom. I could never have it around, no matter how well it treats depression, because as a former opiate addict having something cheap and legal that feels pretty much the same as oxycodone (in massive doses compared to its therapeutic dose) is a recipe for disaster.

If only tianeptine could be made available in the correct (12.5mg) doses, prescribed by a doctor, maybe I could use it. But as it stands, buying powder by the gram would lead to my demise.

[Zooper]

Thank you for that input; yes, the solution is a narrow bridge that has to balance the needs of people who use it as medicine with the potential for addiction (especially in the case of previous opiate dependency). This balancing act, though, gets severely unbalanced in the presence of profit incentives, leading to the media maximization of the addiction potential (or any negative really).