The American Kratom Association (AKA) are urging you to sign their petition aimed to stop the criminalization of Americans who safely use kratom.

The AKA, a Colorado-registered non-profit corporation, was established in 2014 by kratom consumers, not businesses. They are leading the fight to restore full consumer access to kratom nationwide. The freedom of consumers in the United States have been compromised by the present monopoly over health care products. Many Americans have discovered kratom as a superior agent for their health and well being. For instance, many products for pain available on the market today come with a laundry list of warnings, side effects, and are linked to 14,487 deaths in 2016 alone.[1]

“Our fellow Americans are suffering from misinformation that is allowed and codified into law for the profit of one single for-profit industry that our government has entrusted with our health — the synthetic chemical based pharmaceutical industry. Our declining health as a nation has shown that this was a mistake.” [2]

THE PETITION:

President Donald J. Trump
Kellyanne Conway, Assistant to the President on the Opioid Crisis

We the undersigned ask for your immediate action to protect the freedom of consumers to make their own health care decisions, and stop the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from their broad regulatory overreach and the criminalization of millions of Americans who use kratom.

Kratom is a safe herbal supplement that is used by Americans to manage their health and well-being.  Many have found kratom to be an effective alternative pain management therapy to dangerously addictive and deadly opioids.  Leading scientists have concluded that banning kratom will create an unsafe kratom black market, and force kratom users who manage acute or chronic pain to deadly opioids and will lead to increased opioid deaths in America.

Mr. President, we ask that you direct the FDA and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to research how kratom can best be used as both an alternative pain management therapy, and as a potential step-down from opioid addiction; and direct the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to return the proposed scheduling recommendation for kratom to the FDA and NIDA for those additional studies — and leave those Americans who use kratom for their personal health and well-being alone!

SIGN THE PETITION

 [1]  Opioid Involvement in Deaths in the US Attributed to Drug Overdose, 2016According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2016, there were 63,632 drug overdose deaths in the United States. The CDC further estimates that of those, 42,249 deaths involved any opioid. The CDC further reports that in 2016, 15,469 deaths involved heroin; 14,487 deaths involved natural and semi-synthetic opioids; 3,373 deaths involved methadone; and 19,413 deaths involved synthetic opioids other than methadone, a category which includes fentanyl. The sum of those numbers is greater than the total opioid involved deaths because, as noted by the CDC, “Deaths involving more than one opioid category (e.g., a death involving both methadone and a natural or semisynthetic opioid such as oxycodone) are counted in both categories.”Hedegaard H, Warner M, Miniño AM. Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 1999–2016. NCHS Data Brief, no 294. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/produ…
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/…
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/…

[2] American Kratom Association