If that's true, then perhaps you should put some links to good resource explaining what it is and where to get it? Also maybe something indicating why and how it saves lives, any studies on people who kicked opiates using kratom and can attest to it's life-saving properties?
I know people who use kratom and they have good things to say, but I've known people who say the same thing about x, y, and z supplement/nootropic whatever.
Yes, some people seem to go overboard no matter what the chemical. There are some sad stories in there of people that can't control themselves. Sort of highly, highly addictive personalities. There are some similar stories for people quitting caffeine, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/
That doesn't really fit with my experience. I was a heavy user of alcohol, cigarettes, and occasionally even tried cocaine. Quitting all of those had extremely minimal effects on me physically or mentally.
Getting off Kratom resulted in something like a flu that lasted 2-3 weeks. And I wasn't taking an especially high dose, and I had only been using for 3 months.
Where were you getting your kratom? Were you buying it from a vendor that also provides documentation from a testing facility to demonstrate that there were no adulterants? There are people participating in the kratom supply chain that adulterate the kratom that passes through their hands. Testing has shown kratom sprayed with opiates, or kratom adulterated with opiate potentiators (both herbal and not), and even stuff like kratom with green tea added to give it a better smell and flavor. For example, those teenagers that died in Sweden were found to have been taking kratom that was sprayed with O-desmethyltramadol (ODT) [0].
I purchase all of my kratom from a vendor that also provides documentation to prove that they're selling unadulterated kratom. Lots of vendors are resisting this, because they know the lengths some unscrupulous southeast Asian distributors will go to to get "the most fire kratom" to sell to American vendors (and lie about what they're selling). And there are known instances of American vendors realizing that they've been sold an adulterated batch, and then continuing to sell that kratom in order to not be holding a loss. I appreciate your recounting your experience, and I'm sorry to hear it was troublesome, but having used kratom for going on ten years now, and regularly taking extended breaks to keep my tolerance from building, my own anecdote is the opposite from yours: I experience little to no withdrawals whatsoever, and I take a relatively high dose. I understand kratom affects people differently, but the testing that's been done, and things added to kratom by the Indonesian or Vietnamese distributors' own admission shows that what people are buying could be anything.
As more vendors realize that regular testing and publication of the results is what consumers want, I believe we'll see fewer and fewer of these kinds of stories.
Yes, but the point I'm making is that we can't know if he was taking some potent opiate along with his kratom. Kratom is used by many specifically because of its quick and mild withdrawal symptoms, which is why people on strong opiates use kratom to come off of their hard opiates. That's why it's suspect when people talk about lengthy, strong withdrawals, which are very uncharacteristic of unadulterated kratom. And buying from "a reputable vendor" doesn't mean anything if they aren't testing what they're selling. I know of at least one extremely popular and highly-rated vendor that knowingly sold adulterated kratom in the United States, and I have the test results documentation to prove it. So while I can say with certainty that what I'm putting in my body is not adulterated, these other people with (wildly outlier) anecdotal stories of very hard withdrawals can't say the same thing. And in fact, the anecdotal evidence -- uncharacteristically strong and/or lengthy withdrawals -- would seem to point to having consumed something with some kind of adulterant opiate or potentiator (or both) added for potency purposes. The fact is, this happens far more often than people are willing to admit, and of course everybody's counterpoint story comes with the "it wouldn't happen to me" fallacy. But the fact remains: I can prove that I'm consuming unadulterated kratom (and having almost no withdrawal symptoms with a fairly high, regular dose). These other people cannot.
I made a promise to myself that I would not mention specific vendors in my posts here -- for good or for bad, in order not to take away from my message -- but it was one of the two most talked-about and recommended vendors that you hear about in r/kratom. And it makes sense that people would recommend a vendor whose product contains stronger opiates or potentiators, because the effects are stronger. The thing about kratom is that the vast majority of consumers are new to it, because they only just heard about it from the publicity it received when the DEA tried scheduling it. So you have a ton of people that have no experience with kratom whatsoever, gauging the "quality" of a vendor's products based on how it makes them feel, and ignoring some of the warning signs, or flatly not researching it beforehand. Only a significant minority of kratom consumers are using it to come off of hard opiates. Most people (like me) are taking it for its pain-relieving and mood-stabilizing effects. I suppose some minority of users are trying kratom to test the "high", too. But kratom doesn't get you "high" (unless it's adulterated). And unfortunately, some consumers are landing on a kratom vendor that's unknowingly or knowingly selling kratom with something extra thrown in. It's a sticky situation, because testing is not the norm. Thankfully, kratom is cheap enough that it often doesn't make economic sense to adulterate kratom. But in the ever-increasingly competitive market for Indonesian distributors, more and more are willing to take those extra steps to have kratom that stands out from the crowd, and let there be no mistake: There are some cheap adulterants, especially with China next door. The fairly new, explosive growth of the kratom industry is completely changing some of the poorest regions of Indonesia for the better. But as with anything like this, there are scumbags getting into it, looking for a golden ticket. We've been very lucky so far that adulteration is not the norm, but those days may be coming to an end, as demand starts to skyrocket. That's why I'm so big on testing, because gambling that "chances are, it won't be adulterated" is not a viable option.
Kratom is a like a cult. Kratom users get very emotional and angry when you tell them it's kind of like an opioid, but especially these subreddits show that that's pretty much the case, even in lower doses.
A lot of countries (Japan for example) already banned Kratom for exactly that reason and I wouldn't be surprised if the US follows soon.
I know people who use kratom and they have good things to say, but I've known people who say the same thing about x, y, and z supplement/nootropic whatever.