I am an 81-year-old retired philosophy professor and Vietnam veteran, and I have been using kratom regularly (5-6 grams powdered pure leaf 3-4 times a day) for over 9 years. While I don’t use kratom for critical pain, it does ease the discomfort from osteoarthritis in my back and wrists, and chronic tendonitis in my elbows and shoulders. It also generates a feeling of warm overall mood and bodily well-being. I trust there is no wrong or harm in this. Kratom has little or no cognitive effects, and so does not cause a good ‘high’. Thus, unadulterated pure leaf kratom is not much of a recreational drug, but desirable for its analgesic and mood soothing qualities. It is also difficult to overdose on pure leaf kratom, as I found out one time when I took too much, and then shortly vomited it all out. And that was that. I understand that kratom bonds to opioid receptors, but differently from natural opium or opium based synthetic drugs, and has not presented to me the kinds problems associated with that family of opioids.

Though I have experienced a mild physical dependency, it is easy to break by simply tapering off gradually for a while. Moreover, pure leaf kratom is definitely not a dangerous drug, and presumably would not be used by anyone who does not like its effects, or otherwise has some kind of negative response. Any abuse of kratom is always the result of mega-dosing, or adulteration with kratom extracts or some other substances, and all cases of reported severe harm are due to such adulteration. In my experience I have found pure leaf kratom to be harmless and beneficial. In my opinion, it makes no sense to prevent large numbers of people from benefiting from unadulterated pure leaf kratom in order to prevent a small number of people from abusing kratom adulterated with extracts or harmful drugs. Further, a kratom prohibition will also cause significant economic harm to substantial numbers of producers, processors, and distributors of this benign and beneficial natural botanical dietary supplement