Is this humble plant the answer to the opioid epidemic?

If the largest commercial airplane out there was filled to capacity and crashed, it would certainly be a tragic loss of life.

Now, take that doomed jet and fill it up over 183,000 times, and you’d have around the same number of people who have died because of prescription opioid drugs during the last 16 years.

Horrifying, isn’t it?

But just last week, the FDA approved a new way to use a risky old drug in the fight against opioid addiction.

Agency head Dr. Scott Gottlieb (one of Big Pharma’s henchmen from way back) announced to great fanfare how that approval shows the FDA’s commitment to “expanding access to treatments” to stop opioid addiction (or, as the FDA likes to call it, “opioid use disorder”).

That, however, is probably one of the most shameful statements to come out of the FDA in its entire history.

Because just a few weeks before, Gottlieb issued another announcement — one designed to stop in its tracks a proven and safe way to control pain and kick an opioid addiction to the curb.

A way out of the opioid trap
If the FDA was really trying its hardest to err on the side of Big Pharma, it couldn’t be doing a better job.

Now, it’s given the OK for buprenorphine, sold under the brand name of Sublocade, to be given as an injection once a month to help wean people off of opioids.

First off, Sublocade is just another horribly dangerous opioid drug, one that’s just as addictive and can cause the exact same “respiratory depression and death” as the drugs that people are trying to stop taking.

But Gottlieb calls that new approval part of the agency’s bigger picture of “addiction treatment options” using “safe and effective FDA-approved therapies.”

That might seem like typical FDA talk — that is, if you weren’t aware of the plan to stomp out a natural substance that has already saved lives in the battle against opioids.

It’s a plant called kratom, and it has helped and untold number of people take back their lives from the grip of opioids.

But soon, thanks to the FDA, kratom may be next to impossible to get your hands on.

While this may be the first time you’ve heard of kratom, plenty of Americans have already learned how a tea (or capsule) made from the powdered leaves of the kratom tree can relieve all kinds of pain… has not been found to be addictive… and has been safely used for centuries!

This scheme to prohibit kratom isn’t brand-new. It’s been going on for several years now. In 2014, the FDA tried to stop imports of kratom at the border. Then, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency attempted — for no valid reason at all — to put an end to kratom by classifying it as a “schedule 1” narcotic.

That would have meant that using or selling it would make you guilty of a felony!

When that news got out, over 140,000 people signed a petition that was sent to the White House. Huge crowds gathered in Washington to protest, carrying signs with messages such as “Kratom Saves Lives.” People wrote letters and flooded the switchboards of their representatives.

The DEA was so overwhelmed that it tossed the whole issue back in the lap of the FDA, where Dr. Gottlieb is doing his best to finish the deed once and for all.

Just a few weeks before this new drug approval, Gottlieb sent out a “health advisory” about his “mounting concerns” over the “risks associated” with using kratom. And he finds it “very troubling” that kratom is being used to counter the withdrawal symptoms of opioids.

Are you kidding me? He conveniently ignored years of scientific research, use, and history that show kratom to be possibly the only way we’re going to be able to emerge from this deadly epidemic.

Today, close to 100 Americans are expected to die because of FDA-approved opioid medications. And yet, Gottlieb is troubled by kratom?

Although the FDA may hold the power to ban kratom, it looks like the American people aren’t going to give up without one heck of a fight!

If you’re interested in learning more about this life-saving plant, the American Kratom Association website (americankratom.org), has a great deal of information and a petition you can sign to help keep kratom available to anyone who needs it.

“FDA approves Indivior’s monthly injection to treat opioid addiction” Max Blau, November 30, 2017, STAT, statnews.com