Psychedelics Today probably isn’t the first place you’d look to get information about kratom. Especially since kratom isn’t a psychedelic. However, Psychedelics Today is more than just a newsboard focusing on emerging psychedelic science and press.
They are a dedicated team of advocates committed to spreading an enlightened take on all psychoactives. So we decided to link up to talk about of the intersection of psychedelics and kratom. We hope you enjoy!
Top Tree Herbs’ Social Mission
Top Tree Herbs has always been a business with a social and cultural mission. Namely, to normalize kratom. Most of us are familiar with the periodic attempts by government agencies to prohibit kratom. You may have signed petitions, called or wrote your representative, donated to the AKA, or even attended a protest.
Normalization of kratom means defeating prohibition once and for all. While plants are still being scheduled, and people are being put in cages for possessing arbitrarily prohibited compounds, kratom will never truly be free from the threat of prohibition.
Kratom and Anti-Prohibition
Thankfully, our friends at Psychedelics Today agree with us. When we talked about why we founded Top Tree Herbs, they told us that they loved our mission, but that they knew next to nothing about kratom. So we put together an article for them explaining what kratom is, what lessons we have learned fighting kratom prohibition, and what the broader psychedelic-world can learn from those lessons.
After releasing that article on their site, Joe Moore, CEO of Psychedelics Today, recorded a podcast with Top Tree co-founder Soren Shade about kratom and the lessons that can be learned from the 2016 scheduling attempt. When this podcast was recorded in early July, Soren was working with longtime friend and mentor Hamilton Morris on organizing a defense of five tryptamine psychedelics and two phenethylamines.
As laid out in “The Intertwined Prohibitionist Histories of Psychedelics and Kratom”, kratom had formerly been the only item intended to be scheduled by the DEA that defeated the scheduling attempt. All that has changed, however, with the latest news regarding the DEA withdrawing from another scheduling decision!
We’re thrilled to say that the DEA has withdrawn its scheduling notice of the five tryptamines. Let’s not waste the trailblazing done by kratom, let’s keep up the momentum and stop putting people in cages for possessing plants or altering their intimate conscious experience.
Kratom on Psychedelics Today
We think it is important to get the word out regarding kratom to as many people as possible.
For people to accept kratom as a viable alternative to coffee or caffeine, or as a way to unwind in the evening or assist in their recovery from exercise, injury, or old habits, it needs to be presented in a “normal” manner.
As pioneers in the movement to normalize kratom, we knew that education was the first hurdle. Second to that is the presentation of kratom as a product. If you don’t know what kratom is (education) then you are unlikely to purchase a bag of green powder (presentation).
By focusing on the traditional use of the leaves of the kratom tree, we kill two birds with one stone. We are forging a relationship between the kratom consumer, the plant, and its tradition by taking the time to brew tea.
Tea bags, simply put, are common. Normal. The amount of effort needed to discredit tea bags is much greater than that of a random bag of green powder that comes without context or reference to a tradition of use.
Psychedelics and Kratom Advocates
Let’s face it, people wouldn’t love kratom enough to fight against federal and international organizations if it didn’t help them in some way. People are passionate about kratom because it has improved their quality of life. We must recognize that this benefit isn’t solely a property of kratom.
Many people see improvements in their quality of life after taking psychedelics, smoking weed, or drinking tulsi tea. Everyone is different, and we shouldn’t dismiss what helps one person because it doesn’t help us. We especially shouldn’t dismiss something because an authority figure tells us to hate it either.
Don’t we all hate it when an organization threatens to take away our harmless tropical tree tea leaf? We wish more people would understand this plant better, and stand with us in our fight to preserve and normalize it. So, we must recognize that people who have had tremendous positive effects from psychedelics and other psychoactives are often feeling the exact same way.
So we want to wind down this post with a gentle reminder to recognize that everyone is different. We ask that you put yourself in the shoes of those fighting for something that helps them. We must recognize that all who struggle against prohibition are fighting the same fight, and that there is nothing constructive to come from denigrating something that helps someone else.
Notable Quotes from PsychedelicsToday
To conclude this brief piece before we direct you to Psychedelics Today, we’d like to highlight a paragraph from Soren’s piece that summarized our broad thesis at Top Tree Herbs.
“Like psychedelics, kratom has a storied history of use. Both have been devastated by prohibition, but the true test of their merit is shown in their phoenix-like ability to continually inspire consumers to fight for their legality. Use of a substance – any substance – is not justification to imprison someone.
Prohibition exponentially raises the possibility of harm that comes with consuming any substance by preventing education, quality control, and normalization. We must expand our scope to include more than psychedelics in our advocacy. Prohibition needs to end, and the clues to victory may just be found in the story of a tropical tea leaf.”
Links!
You can read the piece at: https://psychedelicstoday.com/2022/06/03/the-intertwined-prohibitionist-histories-of-psychedelics-and-kratom/
And you can listen to the podcast here: https://psychedelicstoday.com/2022/08/02/pt343/
