MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

It’s been said that the first casualty of war is truth; the aptly titled U.S. “War on Drugs” is no different. The United States has always been on this drug rampage. The prohibition of harmless substances used to dull pain has given our government cart Blanche to demonstrate what a police state looks like.

We have seen our neighbors, and others having their doors kicked in and being taken away being locked up in the name of protecting citizens from illegal substances. The problem is there is a conspiracy to somehow mark soccer moms and regular Joes who use herbal remedies as classic drug offenders and the people will believe it just so long as the mainstream news continues to praise the government on its continued tactics of torture.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are poured into the Drug War – for decades it has been a silent corporate war with no victory and no final outcome. However, we see now that a lot of Americans still support policies that are expensive and ineffective, delusional and destructive.

Congress passed the first federal law authorizing law enforcement to control individuals’ use of specific substances in 1914. It outlawed Marijuana in 1937. It introduced mandatory sentences for drug offenders in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. Yet despite Congress’ best efforts, Americans continue to use illicit drugs in greater and greater numbers. In 1937, an estimated 60,000 Americans had tried pot; this total rose to 100,000 in 1945, and now nearly half of the population have tried it.

Now, I have spoken many times on the issue of the legalization of cannabis. I have talked ad infinitum about the confusing draconian laws of the federal government and state governments who either legalized it or have given to go ahead for medical Marijuana use.

I have also bemoaned the idea that it has been made into a Schedule 1 drug. Finally, I have also spoken of the slippery slope of not allowing a medical marijuana user to own a gun and how this gateway ideology will eventually be used to make provisions necessary to remove guns from people who use other controlled substances for pain and those who use anti-depressants.

I had a discussion about this with a friend of mine who told me that it would never end up like this. I was told that I am overly-worried about the FDA and the DEA over-stepping its capacity to protect us from those who wish to use illicit drugs.

I told him that I certainly believe the DEA is stepping up to play doctor and will eliminate and ban substances on a whim because they just have the power to do so.

The Drug Enforcement Administration was established under the Justice Department in 1973 by President Richard Nixon. Its mission was to keep the nation off and away from drugs, which, at least according to the White House, were a moral evil and catalyst of criminal behavior. The agency was formed just two years after Nixon launched what became known as the “war on drugs.”

For decades we have seen the DEA do some of most outrageous things in order to make themselves look as though they are an effective agency.

In a prime example of the extreme lengths to which the DEA can go to combat drug use, the agency attempted in 2001 to ban popular symbols of rave culture at a prominent New Orleans club that had become associated with Ecstasy. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint, arguing that items such as masks, glow sticks and pacifiers were not “drug paraphernalia” as the DEA claimed, because they played no part in the actual ingestion of any drugs.

A federal judge ultimately barred the DEA from enacting such restrictions, finding that “the government cannot ban inherently legal objects that are used in expressive communication because a few people use the same legal item to enhance the effects of an illegal substance.”

Of course we recently have been wondering why the DEA insists on being ignorant about marijuana and how it can be used for various ailments. Making it a schedule on drug makes it difficult to analyze and study for use in medicines. Making it a schedule one drug – puts it in the category of drugs that show no medicinal value and so they are illegal. Even though a few states have lifted their prohibition of cannabis it still remains illegal on a federal level.

The DEA has long ignored science, logic and practicality, choosing instead to seek control over a growing number of harmless substances. This time, it’s the relatively obscure herb called, Kratom.

The DEA has filed a notice to classify it as Schedule 1, making it illegal. Schedule 1 is reserved for narcotics with no medicinal use and a high potential for abuse which include heroine, meth and sadly, marijuana.

Kratom is extremely safe, difficult to overdose on, and has been used in Thai medicine for hundreds of years. The plant produces a mild buzz when ingested, similar to opiates. Traditionally it has been used as a treatment for opiate withdrawal and addiction in Southeast Asia.

Kratom is not an opiate; however, it may have alkaloids in it that act like an opioid agonist. In low does it can out you in a good mood, take away pain and help you concentrate. In higher doses it does have a sedating effect. It also helps men with erectile dysfunction and women with sexual desire.

You have to take a lot to get a very mild high, and barely anyone’s even heard of it. So why has the DEA come out of nowhere to be a buzz kill of the few peaceful Kratom fans in the country?

Kratom comes in several varieties — red vein, green vein, and white vein. With popular branded capsules with names like Krave already circling abundantly in the United States, it’s inevitably led some states to ban the plant. Six states so far have banned Kratom by putting its active ingredients on the controlled substance list.

Alabama became the sixth state to effectively ban Kratom. Arkansas, Tennessee, Vermont, and Wisconsin have banned the active ingredients in Kratom, and Illinois and Louisiana have banned the substance altogether.

Kratom has been used to wean people away from opioid addiction, as its ingredients are simply not strong enough to stop breathing, which is what kills most opioid addicts that overdose.

However, it appears that some local news agencies have already jumped on the bandwagon and have decided to demonize Kratom before the ban.

According to a local television station in Florida, the mother of a 20 year old Florida man is saying that it was Kratom that killed her son.

Linda Mautner claims that her son was caught stealing money to buy Kratom and afterwards, he committed suicide because of his addiction.

She will not talk about how her and her son had a strained relationship because he was openly gay – that he had been kicked out of his home many times because of his sexual orientation. Ian was addicted to prescription pain killers at the age of 16 after dental surgery. That vital detail was swept under the rug in favor of making it look like Kratom was Ian’s problem.

Kratom does not kill anyone and it has not been known do give anyone suicidal thoughts either.

What the media overlooks is that Ian Mautner jumped off of an overpass and an autopsy showed he had antidepressants and a very small amount of Kratom in his system. According to a report by Broward County, Ian Mautner had been taking, in addition to Kratom, two pharmaceutical drugs notorious for causing suicidal thinking – Gabapentin, also known as Neurontin and Celexa. However, for the sake of a crusade his mother has decided it was the Kratom and not the antidepressants that killed her son.

The pharmaceutical company, whose products have frequently been involved in precipitating murder/suicides, is of course very willing to help place the blame on Kratom. Kratom is a serious competitor that is taking market share, freeing prescription drug addicts. This is the same reason why marijuana is considered a Schedule 1 substance.

I ask again – why are we banning herbal substances that are do it yourself rehab herbs to quell addictions to opiates?

One of the problems with taking opioid medication for chronic pain is the possibility of overdose. According to the CDC, there are 44 deaths every single day that are a result of prescription opioid overdose.

Those who wish to ban Kratom say the problem they have with the herbal remedy is how it bonds to opioid receptors in the brain. This is the hurdle they have – the idea that no one deserves euphoria or even the slightest bit of relief from pain and anxiety.

They fail to realize there are everyday foods that also bond to our opioid receptors.

For example, it has been shown that coffee contains a protein which has an effect similar to morphine, on the opioid receptors of the brain. It alters moods and stimulates the nervous system.

Chocolate also bonds to opiate receptors of the brain as does sugar and grains, which also triggers an opioid response.

Gliadin has been found in grains and it is considered a mild opiate. It binds into the opiate receptors in your brain and in most people stimulates appetite, such that we consume 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year because of its presence in the wheat we eat.

This result is a nation, that by majority, is overweight, cancer ridden, sexually and physically inactive, heart disease and diabetes prone.

No one bans wheat – the gliadin and the gluten alone cause a lot of health problems.

Sugar is consumed by millions of Americans daily, particularly in their coffee and in soft drinks. Most people who consume coffee every day are physically dependent on it, but you can’t say they are addicted, because it’s not causing them to lose their jobs or their families. And neither is Kratom.

In fact, people who use Kratom instead of synthetic opiates actually become more productive, rather than less. Many people are able to begin to function normally again. That cannot be said for prescription drugs, whether it’s antidepressants or opioids.

One study showed that:

“Repeated, excessive intake of sugar created a state in which an opioid antagonist caused behavioral and neurochemical signs of opioid withdrawal. The indices of anxiety and DA/ACh imbalance were qualitatively similar to withdrawal from morphine or nicotine, suggesting that the rats had become sugar-dependent.”

So perhaps we should at least admit that perhaps sugar is a gateway drug, and perhaps a short stack of pancakes can lead to other opiates and eventually heroin?

A new study from Connecticut College shows that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine, at least for lab rats.

The research looked at the rats’ behaviors and the effects the cookies had on their brains. Rats were put into a maze and given the choice of hanging out near rice cakes or Oreos. The tasty sandwich cookies won that popularity contest handily. Those results were compared to a different test, where rats were given the choice of loitering in an area of a maze where they were injected with saline or in another corner where they could get a shot of cocaine or morphine.

The rats in the study liked the cookies about as much as they liked the drugs, congregating near the cookie side of the maze as much as they would on the drug side.

Should we ban the middle stuff and the chocolate cookie outsides for last?

These findings suggest that high fat/sugar foods and drugs of abuse trigger brain addictive processes to the same degree and lend support to the hypothesis that maladaptive eating behaviors contributing to obesity can be compared to drug addiction.

But you won’t have to worry about your Oreos going away or your Big Gulps and Krispy Kremes biting the dust.

Now we can see that the DEA continues to chill proper pain control. The sad thing is that sometimes, pain management specialists are often charged with murder when a patient overdoses from taking medications they prescribe. So why don’t we hold the DEA and medical boards responsible when they create a situation where patients who wish to use alternatives to opiates are forced into using opiates that are highly-addictive? Why don’t we hold the DEA responsible for maliciously putting people through a system that promotes pain and suffering through the bullying and threats that are made against doctors who want to help their patients with pain?

It seems that Doctor D.E.A. has bullied the real doctors to go against their oaths. But perhaps this is just the logical outcome since it seems the DEA and many in government take oaths to defend our Constitution, but actively negate it and what it stands for.

https://soundcloud.com/groundzeromedia/a2016-9-6

Written by Ron Patton