Please consider ALL of the facts relating to kratom when making this decision. There are quite literally millions of people who have had an improvement in their quality of life thanks to kratom. 

Substances like cigarettes and alcohol are legal and there aren’t millions of people speaking out about how either of those have changed their lives for the better. The difference is the amount of money spent on politicians to lobby for those products, while kratom has no such incentives. 

Further, there are no instances of death caused solely/exclusively by kratom in which other substances, co-morbidities, or events were not also contributing factors, however, thousands of deaths each day are directly linked to alcohol and cigarette consumption. Yet adults are able to choose for themselves whether to ingest those products. 

There are far more people who will be harmed if kratom is banned than who will be helped. Consider chronic pain patients, who have been cut off from any meaningful pain management due to the opiate crisis. MANY of those people have found help for their pain in kratom, with the added benefit of maintaining their dignity and a sense of ownership over their own care. Pain management clinics, if you are not familiar, treat people like low-class drug seekers, when many of them are honest people just trying to be able to walk, work, and take care of their homes and families. Without kratom, there are many people who will have no options and will become despondent and hopeless. 

I implore you to consider regulation of kratom, rather than scheduling it as a co trilled substance and throwing thousands of people into pain and turmoil. Certainly, children should NOT be able to purchase kratom products. I think we all agree on that point. But if adults are allowed the freedom of choice with regards to substances which have been proven by numerous medical studies to be ONLY detrimental to their health, then it is only fair to allow them to choose whether to partake in a substance which has ZERO such medical studies, and in fact more anecdotal evidence of benefits than any other herbs I am aware of. 

Please, please, consider the human beings behind this decision that you are considering. I cannot fathom why you’d want to harm so many people who are telling you, directly and from their own mouths, how much this plant has helped them. Please show me a single person sending such passionate entreaties and testimonials about how cigarettes or booze have saved their lives. 

If this is actually about taking agency away from vulnerable people, then be sure you say that. The people you are about to potentially irrevocably harm deserve to know your true motivations for doing this, if you do. But I truly and sincerely hope that some of you are reasonable and empathetic people, and will NOT move forward with scheduling kratom as a controlled substance. There are many Kratom advocates who would be happy to work alongside you to come up with meaningful regulation which protects young people and the consumer, while also leaving the choice in our hands.