The federal government maintains a list of Schedule I drugs. According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, these are substances that they have determined have a high potential for abuse and have no accepted medical benefit. You do not have to look far down the list to see how much of a sham it is considering that heroin, bath salts and marijuana are on this same list. One of these is not like the others. We were hoping that the government would come to its senses and remove marijuana from the list, for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is prescribed for medicinal purposes all across the country now, by actual doctors who have learned about medicine in school and in practice. Unfortunately, as is often the case, we continue to wait for the government make a rational decision here that actually helps people.
So, marijuana remains on the list. And a new substance has been added. A substance called kratom is now a Schedule I drug according to the DEA. Kratom is a plant from Southeast Asia that people use to treat pain. Many people use it to avoid taking pain pills, which of course are perfectly fine to be sold en masse to people in the United States. The DEA has added kratom to the Schedule I drug list because of two substances found in the plant- mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. Kratom has similar effects to pain pills, which is why people use it instead of pain pills. Apparently, it is addictive, like pain pills, but unlike pain pills, it is not something that people overdose on, for the most part. The percentage of kratom related deaths compared to kratom use is extremely low, and significantly lower than overdoses and deaths relating to painkillers.
While decisions such as these create more laws and more government, they also serve to push people to more dangerous pharmaceutical products. For substances that are not particularly dangerous and/or are much less dangerous than prescription drugs used for similar purposes, these rules and laws and clearly counterproductive. However, given that these rules and laws increase government, increase the need for prisons and increase profits for pharmaceutical companies, you have to wonder what exactly the real purpose is.