After failing to get kratom prohibited domestically, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now seeking public comment to inform the U.S. position on how the substance should be scheduled under international statute.<\/p>\n
In a notice published in the Federal Register last week, the agency is soliciting feedback on a number of substances. But advocates are especially concerned about where FDA and global drug officials come down on kratom, which has been touted as a natural painkiller that works as a safer alternative to prescription opioids.<\/p>\n
The U.S. agency doesn\u2019t quite see it that way, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cKratom is abused for its ability to produce opioid-like effects,\u201d FDA wrote in the notice. \u201cKratom is available in several different forms to include dried\/crushed leaves, powder, capsules, tablets, liquids, and gum\/ resin. Kratom is an increasingly popular drug of abuse and readily available on the recreational drug market in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responses to the notice will help inform the federal government\u2019s stance on kratom scheduling in advance of an October meeting of the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, where international officials will discuss whether to recommend the substance be globally scheduled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe FDA\u2019s request for public comments on a matter of such importance involving the international scheduling of kratom is an extraordinary abuse of their authority,\u201d Mac Haddow, senior fellow of public policy at the American Kratom Association (AKA), told Marijuana Moment.<\/p>\n
He said the August 9\u00a0deadline<\/a> for the responses allows \u201conly three weeks for scientists, public policy makers and consumers to provide responses that are well researched and responsive to the complex requirements for data and information that will be considered by the WHO Expert Committee\u201d and is therefore \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n As it stands, kratom is not scheduled under the federal Controlled Substances Act or under international drug treaties to which the U.S. is a party. But some advocates suspect that since FDA has been unable so far to impose a ban on kratom domestically, it may use the WHO convention as an opportunity to get prohibition enacted internationally, a move that the country would be compelled to comply with.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that happens, there are 37 countries that are part of that international treaty that will effectively ban kratom around the world,\u201d Haddow said in a recent video update to supporters. \u201cThe FDA cannot get kratom scheduled here in the United States using the criteria that\u2019s established by the Controlled Substances Act, so they\u2019re circumventing that and going to the WHO.\u201d<\/p>\n Haddow encouraged<\/a> people to take advantage of the public comment period<\/a>\u2014but to remember that WHO is the target audience for those comment, not FDA.<\/p>\n THE AKA HAS CONFIRMED THE FDA IS NOT REQUIRED TO SUBMIT ANY COMMENTS TO THE UN EXPERT COMMITTEE \u2014 THEY ONLY HAVE TO \u201cCONSIDER” THEM. \u2014 American Kratom Association (@TheKratomAssn) July 26, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \u201cWe want thousands of people to comment because every one of those comments will have to be packaged up and sent to the World Health Organization,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want people complaining about the FDA overreach because we can fight that battle on a separate battleground, but we want the WHO to know the powerful experiences that people have had\u201d with kratom.<\/p>\n FDA, in its Federal Register notice, said the comments \u201cwill be considered in preparing a response from the United States to the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the abuse liability and diversion of these drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n Haddow told Marijuana Moment that the federal agency \u201cis prosecuting a war on kratom to criminalize more than 15 million Americans, and they ignore the public health impacts of kratom consumers being forced to opioids with a high potential for addiction and that can be deadly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore overdose deaths will occur if kratom is banned, and that is exactly what the FDA is trying to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n On the domestic level, the House Appropriations Committee recently approved a report to spending legislation<\/a> that says federal health agencies have \u201ccontributed to the continued understanding of the health impacts of kratom, including its constituent compounds, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Committee is aware of the potential promising results of kratom for acute and chronic pain patients who seek safer alternatives to sometimes dangerously addictive and potentially deadly prescription opioids and of research investigating the use of kratom\u2019s constituent compounds for opioid use disorder,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n It also directed the Health and Human Services secretary to continue to refrain from recommending that kratom be controlled in Schedule I.<\/p>\n Late last year, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) asked the public to help identify research that specifically looks at the risks and benefits of cannabinoids and kratom<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year separately received more than one thousand comments concerning kratom<\/a> as part of another public solicitation.<\/p>\n FDA has on several occasions solicited public input to shape the government\u2019s position on the international scheduling of marijuana<\/a> and cannabinoids. The agency initially requested feedback on the proposal in March 2019 and then reopened that comment period five months later.<\/p>\n Last year, the United Nations approved a U.S.-backed WHO recommendation to remove marijuana from the most restrictive global scheduling category<\/a>. However, the U.S. opposed several other cannabis reform proposals<\/a>, including the one to clarify that CBD is not under international control.<\/p>\n D.C. Police Chief Says Illicit Marijuana Sales Tied To Violence As Congress Weighs Lifting Regulatory Blockade<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Wikimedia\/ThorPorre<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post FDA Seeks Public Input On Possible Global Kratom Ban After Domestic Scheduling Effort Stalled<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
After failing to get kratom prohibited domestically, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is now seeking public comment to inform the U.S. position on how the substance should be scheduled under international statute. In a notice published in the Federal Register last week, the agency is soliciting feedback on aContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49071,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49070\/revisions\/49071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Therefore:
The AKA has created new submission portals on our sites
Please submit your comments here: https:\/\/t.co\/XGSrg3FZyg<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/WMcF8rNUUL<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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\nRead More: FDA Seeks Public Input On Possible Global Kratom Ban After Domestic Scheduling Effort Stalled<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"