Washington, D.C. – As the Free Thought Project reported last week, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) just announced they will ban the popular pain relief supplement kratom by placing it on the Schedule 1 list, which denotes "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" – the most restrictive classification under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

This move to ban yet another highly beneficial plant by the DEA has been met with heavy backlash and multiple petitions. The backlash is entirely justified as this plant has many amazing benefits — including a potential cure for opioid addiction.

A notice of intent to classify kratom was placed on the Federal Register on August 31, with plans to temporarily categorize the supplement as a Schedule I substance on September 30, according to a filing by the DEA:

Notice of Intent

The Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is issuing this notice of intent to temporarily schedule the opioids mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, which are the main active constituents of the plant kratom, into schedule I pursuant to the temporary scheduling provisions of the Controlled Substances Act. This action is based on a finding by the Administrator that the placement of these opioids into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act is necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety. Any final order will impose the administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions and regulatory controls applicable to schedule I controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act on the manufacture, distribution, possession, importation, and exportation of, and research and conduct of instructional activities of these opioids.

This "imminent hazard," as cited by the DEA, is all but non-existent. Yes, the CDC reported in July that kratom can be abused and that poison control centers have received over 660 calls between 2010 and 2015 regarding kratom intoxication. However, these numbers pale in comparison to the extreme death that follows prescription opioids, and, there has yet to be any conclusive evidence showing kratom to be deadly.

So why would the DEA worry about a beneficial plant that is pretty much harmless? The answer is quite clear — Big Pharma.

Cannabis is a schedule one substance but the pharmaceutical industry can manufacture a synthetic version of the same active ingredient in cannabis, THC, and it magically becomes legal.

Currently, the pharmaceutical industry is using kratom alkaloids to manufacture synthetic opioids.

As Cassius Kamarampi points out, three synthetic opioids, in particular, were synthesized from the alkaloids in kratom from 2008- 2016: MGM-9, MGM-15, and MGM-16.

They were synthesized from kratom's alkaloids Mitragynine and 7-Hydroxymitragynine: to make what is essentially patentable, pharmaceutical kratom.

The first study, published in 2008, took Mitragynine and used it to synthesize "MGM-9". The study says:

"Mitragynine is a major indole alkaloid isolated from the Thai medicinal plant Mitragyna speciosa that has opium-like properties, although its chemical structure is quite different from that of morphine. We attempted to develop novel analgesics derived from mitragynine, and thus synthesized the ethylene glycol-bridged and C10-fluorinated derivative of mitragynine, MGM-9 [(E)-methyl 2-(3-ethyl-7a,12a-(epoxyethanoxy)-9-fluoro-1,2,3,4,6,7,12,12b-octahydro-8-methoxyindolo[2,3-a]quinolizin-2-yl)-3-methoxyacrylate]."