Kratom Advocates Sip Tea and Seethe at White House Rally Against DEA Ban

Hundreds of passionate protesters gathered Tuesday near the White House to demand that the popular plant product kratom remain legal. It was jointly a business industry conference, a tea party and a desperate consumer lobbying effort -- but the clear-eyed crowd appears to have little chance of near-term victory.

A comprehensive U.S. ban likely will take effect on Sept. 30, just a month after the Drug Enforcement Administration surprised users by saying it would invoke emergency powers to make leaves from the tree grown in Southeast Asia illegal by labeling two main constituents Schedule I substances.

In the face of long odds and silence from Capitol Hill, the event called by the American Kratom Association sought to pressure officials to reconsider while laying the groundwork for what may become a protracted re-legalization campaign.

A large jug of brewed kratom sat in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, with red Solo cups offered to anyone who wanted some. At least one reporter sipped the brew, which tasted like astringent green tea. Another journalist took a pill offered as a free sample by a businessman.

Kratom users who attended the rally said it's wrong for them to lose legal access to what they say is an effective treatment for pain, addiction, depression and other conditions.

Though many said they were angry, chant-leaders asked the crowd of a couple hundred to stay on message and favored reason over rage, which often is a leading emotion at White House protests staged by marijuana reform advocates who say decades in Schedule I has stalled medical cannabis research amid millions of arrests.

“I’m usually very quiet but felt the need to come out and speak,” says Veronika Bamford-Conners, a kratom-selling store owner from Sullivan, Maine, where, she says, most of her customers are older than 55.

“If they don’t have insurance and can’t afford medications, they find a cheaper alternative in kratom,” she says, though some seem to prefer relief from the leaf to painkillers, such as a 73-year-old man who she says called her weeping “because pharmaceuticals were killing him” before.

Chants at the rally advertised the death toll from accidental overdoses of opioids – more than 28,000 in 2014 alone, including legal painkillers and illegal drugs like heroin – with the low or nonexistent U.S. toll from kratom.

The DEA says it believes 15 deaths were caused by kratom, though American Kratom Association founder Susan Ash says the group hired a toxicologist who concluded each case could be attributed to other drugs.

Many kratom users say the plant has helped them abstain from substances they formerly were addicted to, often heroin or prescription painkillers.

“Kratom saved me, I was a bad heroin addict,” says David Allen, who traveled from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. “It keeps cravings away and helped me not drink. I came because I don’t want to lose my medicine.”

Allen says that although the DEA – and even some former kratom users – say the drug can lead to dependence, it’s nothing like the grasp of opioids. He says he believe it’s about as abusable as coffee, which comes from a related plant, and that like coffee withdrawal, ending kratom can cause minor headaches.

Brad Miller, a physics teacher at Spotsylvania High School in Virginia, says he drinks small amounts of kratom tea between three and five times a day to treat arthritis in his knees. He says the effects are “very mild” and “just enough to take the edge off so I can get through my day standing.”

#iamkratom chant at White House: 'it's a plant!' pic.twitter.com/5LjWp26mXx

— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) September 13, 2016

Miller says prescribed painkillers from his rheumatologist were too strong and that unlike opioids he hasn’t developed an addiction to kratom. He says he went on a weeklong camping trip and – unlike the experiences of some users – felt no withdrawal symptoms.

“I didn’t have withdrawal symptoms, but I did have arthritis pain,” he says. “I’d be surprised if anyone has experienced strong withdrawal symptoms.”

Though Miller and others at the event said they aren’t sure what they will do at the end of the month, Heather Hawkins says she’s made up her mind to move to Canada, where kratom remains legal.

Hawkins, a journalist with northern Florida’s Pensacola News-Journal and owner of the Kratom Literacy Project, says she has an incurable bladder disease and is eyeing Vancouver after already moved to the Sunshine State from Alabama in reaction to a local kratom ban.

Talk about moving abroad often is spouted unseriously by political partisans around election time, but Hawkins says she’s completely serious after living in a painkiller-induced haze that left her depressed and unable to get out of bed.

“I’m not going to stay here [if the ban takes effect] because I’m not going back to that life,” she says.

Hawkins says she’s in addiction recovery from cocaine, which she says she used as self-medication to give her the energy to power through her pain and despair, and that if she regarded kratom as a drug she would not take it.

Though kratom is widely known for claims that it can help keep opioid addicts clean, it’s also credited with sapping desire for other substances.

Jeremy Haley, owner of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Kratom, says he began using kratom in 2012 after a drunk driving arrest, and that it has helped veer him away from his alcoholism, which runs in the family.

Although the ban hasn’t yet taken effect, Haley says local officials have shut down his shop for what he views as dubious reasons, making him unable to sell the remaining inventory – the latest in what he says has been a constant regulatory headache that featured him asking Yelp reviewers to delete positive reviews to placate federal officials who wanted proof he was not marketing kratom for human consumption.

Haley plans to open a totally legal apothecary shop if the ban takes effect.

Other businessmen stand to lose big. Chris Kratom (the professional name of Nu Wave Botanicals’ national sales manager) says he likely will have to destroy several hundred thousand dollars worth of supply.

Kratom says he sources the product from deep in Borneo, where he has traveled, and that he does not use his actual name because of his job as a flight attendant. One of his business partners has a million-dollar cache likely to be destroyed, he says.

“That’s just stuff,” he says with a shrug. “We’ll bounce back.”

But Kratom, who professes to avoid even sleeping pills for fear of dependence and to use kratom only occasionally, says his 70-year-old Mormon father in Utah has requested a lifetime supply (likely impossible due to leaf decomposition), after beginning to use the product two months ago. Observant Mormons do not drink alcohol or use caffeine but do take medicine, and Kratom says his father uses pills containing the plant material.

“He felt foggy, lethargic and all he wanted to do was sit around the house,” he says. “[But] now he’s swimming, he’s joined the health club, he’s gardening again. His whole life has changed.”

Katrina Oakley, who works at a kava bar in South Florida that serves kratom tea, says in her daily work she sees “professional people get their kratom tea and go to work” and that users range from anxiety sufferers to people fighting every form of cancer imaginable.

“It’s as ridiculous as if the DEA came out of the blue and banned coffee,” Oakley says, anticipating a long and enthusiastic legalization campaign if the ban takes effect. Her husband and coworker, Dave Oakley, says, “I don’t see a lot of druggies or junkies coming into the bar.”

A man named Dylan from South Florida, wearing a T-shirt that said “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Ron Paul,” said “this is ridiculous. What year is this?”

Though kratom recently exploded in popularity, Dylan says he has used it occasionally for about 10 years and that he knows people who have been enthusiasts for twice as long. He says he uses it once a week or month, sometimes on “leg day” when he does squat weightlifting.

Kratom users generally say they don't get high from the plant, but similar to marijuana there are different strains known for different beneficial properties. "White vein" kratom, for example, is known for giving users energy. "Red vein" is reputedly good for pain management and relaxation.

Diane Butcher drove from Pennsylvania for the protest, despite what she says was a weeklong fibromyalgia flare-up. She says she uses kratom only as needed, but that if it becomes a highly illegal Schedule I substance she will have to figure out some alternative, as she would not want to risk losing state licenses or custody of her children.

“I have too much at risk,” she says. “If the ban takes effect, I’m done.”

The DEA thus far has been dismissive of claims from the kratom community.

“What message are you saying when you say this drug is less dangerous than that drug?” DEA spokesman Melvin Patterson told U.S. News earlier this month. "Shame on everyone who wasn't researching it before. Now you start hearing the stories about how it's benefiting someone suffering from arthritis."

It’s unclear what kratom prohibition will look like. Unlike marijuana, it probably will not be grown domestically due to the tree’s height and tropical climate requirements, meaning it will have to be smuggled over the border or through mislabeled packages.

Patterson said after the ban takes effect the DEA likely will take enforcement actions to show the agency means business.

Emergency scheduling decision from the DEA are rare and only are effective for two or a maximum of three years. Further evidence must support its permanent scheduling, and there’s cause for kratom advocates to hold out hope. At least one compound placed on an emergency basis in Schedule I, the MDMA alternative trifluoromethylphenylpiperazine (TFMPP), was announced for emergency inclusion in Schedule I in 2002 but currently is unscheduled.

“FDA did some extra testing on it and said it shouldn't be Schedule I and we followed suit,” Patterson said. "It fell right off."

Though legal for another two weeks, nobody was eager to claim credit for the enormous jug of kratom tea. Who brought it? "The American people," a coy cooler-keeper said.