[kf]

The FDA/DEA have waged war on the kratom industry in extralegal fashion; I've had my personal bank accounts and credit cards shut down without explanation via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point.

With Operation Chokepoint over, the DEA/FDA still have colluded to prevent the kratom industry from processing credit cards. For my website www.getkratom.com, we take checks, echecks, and cryptocurrency. Sales are about 1/3 of what they were when we were able to take credit cards.

[conductr]

If you created a obfuscated company name GTKTM, INC and created a Stripe account and a front as some legit SAAS/products but really ran through the charges for your Katom product sales... wonder how long you could fly under the radar.

[kf]

There are high risk merchant processors that specialize in enabling things like this but it isn't happening, visa/mastercard have really colluded under pressure from the feds to try really hard to make sure that no kratom merchants have credit card processing under any circumstances whatsoever.

At my sales volume I can't reasonably fly under the radar this way; I'm sure a tiny or start up operation could for at least a little while but it's not sustainable.

[rogue780]

I used to get kratom from you a while ago. Unfortuantely, kratom itself started affecting me negatively and I couldn't keep using it

[kf]

That seems to be a cycle with our customers, after 6 or 9 months the plant often does the thing people need and they stop when it stops working for them.

[seibelj]

You are a brave person, thanks for sharing.

[kf]

I've been meaning to try and fix the wikipedia article again. I last did that and got into an obnoxious fight with jytdog. I heard a couple months ago that he dox'd and called to harass a wikipedian and then deleted his account ahead of anticipated punitive action. Without that person spending 80 hours a week to advocate his particularly narrow anti-plant medicine interpretation of what is correct with regards to medicine, biochemistry, and pharmacology on wikipedia, editing it again might actually accomplish something. I think I and many other editors that went up against jytdog are still carrying trauma that makes me reluctant to reengage but it's about time to try.

[seibelj]

Ping me sometime for coffee if you are in Boston, I am a real person. Stay safe out there

[kf]

Cheers. I'm in the Bay Area and don't make it east too often (Love Burn Miami is happening though!), happy to meet for coffee in SF/Oakland next time you come out these ways.

Frankly, I've been in the legal drug space running www.getkratom.com for 13 years and things are fine because the plant actually is so profoundly safe. Orrin Hatch plus lots of veterans of the US armed forces calling their representatives is what saved it from a federal ban. It already went through that due process and didn't get banned.

Running a crypto hedge fund feels more dangerous to me in many ways that my simple, though controversial, ecommerce business. :) I'm doing fine and must like living on the edge.

[seibelj]

I have been in the crypto space for several years now, I like living a bit on the edge myself :)

I’ll message you if I come to SF, I don’t travel as much as I used to, too many responsibilities at home now a days. Glad your business is safe!

Tip - most of the major traders I know are incorporated offshore now, just makes things easier.