Perhaps a new (responsible) owner/custodian of the schedules should be selected. I am thinking either the FDA and/or the CDC.
That is such a good idea, the people who wrote the law in the 1970s set things up EXACTLY SO.
There’s a summary of the process by which a substance becomes scheduled at Wikipedia: Controlled Substances Act: Enforcement authority. Anybody can petition to schedule a substance. DEA looks into it, and if it seems sensible to them, the next step is Health and Human Services looking at it-- which is handled by, you guessed it, the Food and Drug Administration. Which is sensible, because you really need doctors and scientists to make the calls about a substance’s potential for abuse and potential medical utility.
If and only if FDA is on board with the substance being scheduled, the DEA can schedule it. But that’s the last step-- occurring only after the scientific consensus is in.
Interestingly, there are only 3 case studies on kratom deaths. In each case another drug was also used and Kratom was found not to be the cause in each case. Here, Here, and Here
I like the tale that Bayer produced two drugs at the time; one was passed as okay (Heroine) and the other was considered to be too dangerous for release (Aspirin).
In other words, “reasons” = “fascism,” which Mussolini defined as the merger of the functions of the State with the needs and demands of corporations.
The same thing is being attempted with cannabis. State by state “legalization” laws written and funded by wealthy players are designed to suppress our freedom to use the natural plant and turn over control to a small number of large corporations. The AUMA in California is one such land-grab, and attempt to destroy all the Mom & Pop growers by creating an onerous regulatory regime.
Of course, Federal Scheduling of cannabis, a crime against science, is the keystone in the crime against humanity of the Drug War. Scheduling kratom, which means authorizing the State to use violence and imprisonment against patients who use kratom, just adds another crime to the overall picture.
But they do [target receptor systems] in a way generally homologous to caffeine, which targets existing receptors. As opposed to how non-alkaloid toxins work. I think its fairly apt. Maybe it’s clumsy usage but as a toxicologist, it doesn’t not make sense to me. And I don’t believe he’s image polishing, I think it’s just a simile.
fwiw I think the stuff should be regulated, just not quite this much. This whole thing looks like a reaction to the vaguely ominous name of the stuff, since I don’t see where the science comes in to the debate. When has prohibition of plants and their by products ever done anything but create more felons?
Yuuuup. Mainly a mood thing (“Ugh, I feel like shit…and everything looks like shit.”), but many people are going to have a couple of bad days when their stockpiles run out, and some people - who are using it in lieu of Official Psychopharmaceuticals - are going to have bad weeks that don’t stop. The pain relief component for chronic pain sufferers who don’t want to muck about with Official Analgesia is significant, as well. So, on the one hand, throws up hands in horror “We have a pain pill cwisis in this countwy!”, on the other hand, wags finger “No botanical pain welief for you!”
“Cognitive dissonance” doesn’t even begin to cover that breadth of twatwafflery.
And this is why I think any Schedule I petition should have much more stringent requirements than petitions for lesser scheduling—because thousands of lives have been destroyed by the vicious combination of over-scheduling and mandatory sentencing. Forget the obstacles imposed on research. The life-altering consequences of imprisonment for petty drug offenses—derailing of one’s formative years, broken families, the post-traumatic stress and anxiety that corrodes daily life after release—that will be the more immediate human cost of over-scheduling.
Don’t understand this part of your comment. Clarify when you have a chance.
Anyone else can jump in here, or I’ll try to remember to come back to explain more. But basically the way caffeine works and the way opiate alkaloids “work” are pretty analogous, albeit with different recovery times and dose response curves. Simplest explanation: They each affect the process of intercellular communication, which alkaloids are known to do. They are generally slightly water soluble, processed by the liver, and derived from a plant. Not all drugs work via impacting regulation of intracellular communication.
I don’t see a polishing of some plants image with the comparison to cafeine, I see cafeine as everyman’s daily experience of alkaloids. Caffeine is as far as I am concerned a hallucinogen, and was described as such by Dr. Oliver Sacks. He said it caused you to hallucinate that you were less tired than you are.
One way to sort this mess out - nationalise the pharmaceutical industry, not to mention kick all the privately-funded interests and bodies out of government business.
Still not sure what you’re getting at here. Caffeine acts as an antagonist at adenosine receptors. Opioids act as agonists of mu-opioid receptors (some act at kappa and delta opioid receptors as well, but these are minor). The two compounds work on entirely different systems. And all drugs have dose-response curves.
those are massively similar modes of action! in terms of how and not where - and contrast with how many other non-alkaloids work, which isn’t at any receptor. And where alkaloids DON’T work strongly, which is not at receptors for endogenous compounds, those used in intracellular communication.
Close enough for a simile. He could have used nicotine, but who uses that anymore?
Okay, now I see where you’re coming from—mode of action, not site of action. To me, that’s still too generalized to be useful but eh, agreement is overrated. And, thanks to you, we got to enjoy a moment of Oliver Sacks, who can’t be quoted enough. Love that man and miss his perspective more now than ever.
To clarify a point, the dose response curves for the compounds differ, and the recovery times for the interactions of the compound at the receptor differ.
I’m not sure you’re seeing where the distinctions are and the similarities lay in these compounds in the same way i do. The systems they interact with in humans is irrelevant, that fact that they are biologically derived compounds, evolved to interact with intercellular message transmission in other living things (not just humans), at the synaptic gap, with agonistic/antagonistic properties resulting from their evolved physical chemistry, makes for a pretty solid simile.
Edited to add, oh, I got across to you. Cool. Yeah, nice talk. I like alkaloids, they’re neat. Oliver Sacks was neat too.
