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by ctoth 1775 days ago
This is the most reefer madness comment I have ever seen on Hacker News. Seven possible deaths with just Kratom and this justifies banning it?

How many deaths and ruined lives will those enforcing a Kratom ban be responsible for? Perhaps we should consult the history of bans of other drugs to get some idea.

Anyone claiming that their reason for adding yet another substance to The Forever War on Drugs is harm reduction should be laughed out of the room at this point. I reckon that, because the Covid vaccine has been responsible for at least ten blood clots we should also set up a global ban to ensure nobody ever gets to take it.

2 comments

The person you were replying to said nothing about banning it. They simply said that a little poking around showed the previous poster's description of it as completely harmless was possibly contested. Your knee jerk reaction that asking questions about a drug is the same as demanding a ban on it reveals a pretty strong bias on your end.
It seems to support the harmless claim. Basically water, coffee, red meat, sunlight and so on are more dangerous than kratom if you look at similar numbers.
If you're going to label scientific papers you don't like as a "wall of FUD" [edit: I see you've decided to remove this remark], I'm not sure there's much we can discuss further.

I didn't say it should be banned. Or that it shouldn't. I don't know enough to form an opinion on the question.

I just wondered how balanced and objective the post from irthomasthomas was, did a quick search for other points of view, and felt it was worth offering some additional comments for consideration.

You didn’t link a scientific paper. You linked a government drug propaganda website.