Opinion: Pain-relieving kratom has great promise for disabled vets. It should be regulated fairly.

Guidry is an Air Force veteran and the co-founder of Forgotten Not Gone. She lives in Las Vegas.

Kratom is a plant from Southeast Asia that has been used for hundreds of years to boost energy, relieve anxiety and help with pain relief. It has gained significant traction over the past 40 years in the United States, but its use can be a polarizing subject. Kratom is used by millions of people in the U.S. for energy and occasional stress and anxiety but is also distrusted by some due to a lack of awareness, widespread misinformation, and outdated and unfounded regulatory restrictions.

In 2016, for example, after 145,000 people petitioned the Obama administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration scrapped its plans to reclassify kratom as a Schedule I drug, which would have banned the sale of (and much of the research into) kratom. Many of those petitioners, who cited kratom’s capacity “to help recovering opiate addicts, treat pain, combat depression and anxiety, and much more,” were disabled veterans.

Whenever federal, state or local governments have moved to ban, regulate, or simply better understand kratom, the voices of veterans, testifying to its benefits, have helped to steer those conversations. And rightly so. The nature of their injuries (often permanent and severe) can rule out any solution or cure. Instead, their pain and stress — which, coming from their experiences, are highly personal — must be lived with and managed.

They are in the best position to know their own pain and what relieves it. And for many of them, kratom has brought relief as a viable alternative to prescription drugs — or even as a treatment for opioid withdrawal symptoms, specifically.

Now it appears legislators are ready to take action on kratom. With bipartisan support in both chambers, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, and Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, and Jack Bergman, R-Michigan, introduced the Federal Kratom Consumer Protection Act (S 3039 and HR 5905) in October. This legislation would regulate kratom products across the country. The proposed legislation would require the Food and Drug Administration to take further steps to evaluate the health and safety of kratom and would also prohibit the agency from regulating kratom products in a way that’s more restrictive than regulations for food or dietary supplements.

Closer to home, the San Diego Municipal Code prohibits kratom even though it is legal statewide in California (the cities of San Diego and Oceanside chose to ban it in 2016). As the federal government considers regulations, California lawmakers also have the opportunity to introduce similar legislation in early 2024 that would regulate kratom and offer the industry guidelines.

All of this matters, because recently the FDA overreached in making overly broad claims about kratom. It failed to cite any evidence or research to support its opinions on regulation of botanical kratom products and essentially called for a de facto ban, when such an action requires public notice and rulemaking — a process the FDA has ignored.

Even organizations like the Mayo Clinic have come out against kratom without considering the promise it holds for vulnerable communities like veterans.

What it comes down to is this — it’s anyone’s prerogative to find the best treatment they can within an imperfect health care system.

“What we’re doing is we’re making harm reduction suggestions in the context of the U.S. not having universal single-payer health care,” said professor David Kroll of the University of Colorado, who studies the medical uses of kratom and other botanicals.

Opioid abuse is a tremendous problem in our country, and it’s crucial to the conversation around veterans and kratom. As our health care system pivots after years of overprescribing addictive opioids, a lot of folks, per Kroll, “are in a sort of opioid medical desert where physicians don’t want to prescribe opioids.”

Of course, opioids have often been the wrong treatment option. The Veterans Administration prescribed me hydrocodone in 2005 because of ovarian fibroids, and I became addicted. I was finally able to get sober in 2011, but unfortunately, I still had chronic pain. Kratom saved me from a life of pain and discomfort. Until you have experienced being a prisoner in your own body, it’s unexplainable.

Veterans generally favor kratom regulation. Basic consumer protections (product registration, dosage and labeling requirements, prohibiting sales to minors) would improve the quality and consistency of the teas, powders and capsules that they rely on to manage their pain and post-traumatic stress.

The Kratom Consumer Protection Act, in California or on a federal level, should be enacted to aid veterans like me and many others.

This is about choice. And why wouldn’t we want to give that to those who have given so much during their years of service?