Originally posted on Quora February 1, 2022
Unfortunately, there are very few things in life we can enjoy without government bureaucrats getting their grubby hands on it. Like clockwork we are seeing history repeat itself as the same forces that banned cannabis during the New Deal era want to ban Kratom today, and it’s easy to see why. Unlike the synthetic opioids being hawked out of pharmacies across the country, Kratom is a plant that cannot be patented and sold at a 1000% mark up. It cannot be used to put people tens thousands of dollars in the red and reap record profits from human suffering. The FDA is just as morally bankrupt as the industry they regulate and it’s no surprise why; it’s the same people that go in and out of that revolving door. Under such circumstances, the best course of action is to submit to regulation and entrench your industry in the same duplicitous bureaucracy as the pharmaceutical industrial complex. In this regard, Kansas is taking the lead by introducing the first Kratom regulations with HB 2056. The bill proposes, among other things, to establish a standard for Kratom purity, and require vendors to apply for annual dealer licenses to the Kansas secretary of agriculture. Since kratom is currently illegal in six states and several countries this is a much needed step in the right direction to protect Kratom aficionados from the burgeoning police state. Hopefully, Kratom is not tied down in the same cost prohibitive red tape like cannabis is in many states that make the legal cannabis industry inaccessible except to the affluent.