DEA's Archaic Overreach of Cannabis and Now Kratom
With the recent non-reclassification of marijuana off the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) Schedule 1 list, the American Marijuana legalization movement died a little. Any moral holdouts still possessing faith in the political process from the last forty-plus years of grassroots legalization efforts and campaigning were just taught a lesson in crooked leadership, corrupt regulatory agencies and dirty street fighting. As soon as the DEA announced their decision, the social media and popular culture split away from the last vestiges of hope, faith and belief in "authorities" like a spring-loaded lock being released. Independent news agencies, writers and blog posts blasted the DEA's decision, that was originally ridiculous in 1970 when the President Richard Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 creating the initial drug scheduling. However, in 2106 the DEA’s baseless consensus that marijuana "has no accepted medical use" and "lacks safety" may prove to be enough to spark a revolution. Since their August 11th announcement the public, private, mainstream and alternative social commentary slamming the decision has only increased and rooted. The last thread of hope in government and the slim faith that our regulatory captors exist to help us was revealed with instant sobering clarity. Not even the corporate media machine could make sense of the DEA’s decision and struggled to ease the ugly talking points down the throats of their sparse, dwindling readership and consumers.
Like a hopeless thief that is addicted to crime, the DEA is about to make another mistake in full public view. Their new war on the plant Kratom is serving to inflame the population once again. The agency announced that they plan to ban the plant and place it in the schedule 1 category, without public comment, in the US as of September 30.
According to Heavy.com writer Jennifer Dzikowski , "Advocates of kratom argue that the leaves do not make you “high” per se, but rather offer a great alternative to traditional and addicting pharmaceutical pain relief. It has also been used to treat psychological disorders and those coming off of opiates, taking the edge off from the excruciating withdrawal process."
On a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan expressed his opinion on the matter by saying:
"There's no need to make anything else illegal. What they're doing is they're behaving like an archaic society. They're not behaving like America 2016. They're behaving like the people who enacted the very first sweeping psychedelic laws of 1970. If you got this plant [kratom] and it doesn't have any history of people dropping dead from it, it's not like some threat to the communities it's not like some terror that's sweeping the streets and ruining lives...you're not hearing that. All I'm hearing is that it helps people with heroin addiction. We all know how many people are addicted to heroin. So the fact that they [DEA] want to just step in and, not just make this a Schedule 2 or Schedule 3 or have some scientists come in and testify about it and have some sort of public hearings where they discuss the merits of keeping this drug legal...should this be regulated....should this be prescribed by doctors like reasonable adults would do if they actually gave a f%$k about each other. But instead, they have these f#&king ridiculous amounts of power where they can just step in and just make things illegal. They have a ridiculous amount of power when it comes to legislating what we can and can't do with our bodies. This is not something anybodies voting on, this kratom stuff. So for the DEA to just step in and make that Schedule 1...it's blasphemy! What they're doing is such an abuse of the function of the office. The idea of the office is that you're supposed to be protecting people. Protect people from meth. Protect people from bad sh%t. Don't let people come home to find their children that have overdosed because someone gave them bath salts. That's what everybody wants from something like the DEA. But they're so far reaching with their efforts that they step into all these areas where we know you're full of sh%t now. They step into these areas like marijuana. What are you going to save people from pot? Congratulations...What are you going to do? Are you going to save people from giggling or eating yummy food or having a good time with their friends? What are you stopping? This is not anything we should ever ask for from our "leaders" and definitely not anything we should ever tolerate for no reason whatsoever. There's no reason whatsoever that they should keep marijuana illegal. There's not reason they should make this kratom stuff schedule 1."