Written By Kami Ann Davis 🌹🍃

In case you don’t know what NIDA stands for, they ARE the National Institute on Drug Abuse. They are the people who are concerned the most, when it comes to drugs, abuse, addiction, and your livelihood.

These ARE the people, who Americans should be listening to, not the FDA. With regard to drugs, they are concerned with people’s livelihoods, not so much their pockets. Unlike NIDA, they are in business with Big Pharma, and their main priority is to make money.

This is why they don’t want to see our plant remain accessible to the public. They’re so greedy, that they would rather see people die or just suffer. They would rather see you go without, instead of having something safe to take.

Instead, they want us to have limited options. For example, if you are emotionally and mentally addicted to deadly substances, they only want to provide you with limited options. That means Suboxone and Methadone. These drugs grip your psyche so deeply that the majority of people are hooked for life, unhappily I might add. Kratom does not grip your psyche, and it is easier to quit, for the majority of people who take it.

In fact, for people who don’t have addiction mentality or out-of-control behavior, Kratom is non-habit forming.

Back to the FDA, they don’t want us to be able to take care of ourselves because again they aren’t making money off of you. I fully support prescription opioids, but many doctors aren’t prescribing them anymore. Therefore, people are being forced to take care of themselves.

We NEED Kratom. We can’t depend on our doctors like we used to. Unfortunately, many including my own, have been brainwashed by the FDA. They don’t seem to care as much about our pain levels and the fact that we need pain control. My last MRI showed significant herniated disks along my neck and low back, including (eight) disks, and he tossed my test on the counter and literally said to me that I had arthritis. So……there’s THAT. I’ll be damned if I let this doctor be the dictator of MY personal life and my child’s. All these doctors care about is that they keep their license and stay on the money train.

Regarding NIDA , it would make perfect sense for them to go after Kratom, due to the lies that the FDA has fed them. Thankfully though, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has done their own research, looking up any Kratom related-deaths. These so-called deaths they had found, were lacking in factual evidence, to substantiate what they were claiming. They did their Kratom homework. ALSO, they are listening to our voices, our TESTIMONIES. So, in my opinion …to see that NIDA has stood up to the FDA saying, ‘No, we do not agree with you, we don’t believe Kratom should be scheduled,’ speaks HUGE volumes.

We need Kratom to remain legal. If you are anti-Kratom and you are reading this right now, it would be wise of you to support this plant, or at least stop condemning it. Because, you never know what the future holds. Life can change in the blink of an eye. You may be very glad that Kratom is there for you in case heaven forbid, a life of chronic pain awaits you; while you scream from pain that has no end in sight, with absolutely NOTHING TO TAKE.. because your doctor simply says ‘no’.

Written By Kami Ann Davis 🌹🍃

Below is the article that talks about (one) of the 3.4 million dollar grants.

‘NIDA awards UF College of Pharmacy additional $3.4 million kratom grant’

‘December. The first NIDA-funded study examines kratom’s alkaloids individually. This grant evaluates these alkaloids together to study kratom’s effect as a whole.’

‘Researchers at the college have studied kratom, or Mitragyna speciosa, as a potential therapy to wean addicts off heroin or prescription opioids. The plant, which comes from the leaves of a tropical tree from Southeast Asia, has appeared on U.S. regulators’ radar in recent years due to its correlation with abuse in the western world, although Southeast Asians have used kratom for hundreds of years seemingly unharmed.’

“We want to find out why we are seeing more harm in the western world when we don’t see it in Southeast Asia,” said the study’s principal investigator, Chris McCurdy, Ph.D., a professor of medicinal chemistry in the college, part of UF Health.

‘For the first time, UF investigators will be able to compare the effects of kratom in its traditional form — as a tea made from fresh leaves — versus the way westerners consume it — as dried leaves. The team hypothesizes the harm associated with kratom has to do with users commingling it with other drugs, and that dried leaves tend to have higher concentrations of active alkaloidal compounds.’

‘The first NIDA kratom grant funds the identification of each kratom alkaloid and its effects on the brain, as well as metabolism’s effect on the alkaloids. However, individual purified kratom alkaloids do not necessarily affect the brain nor do they break down in the body the same way as all the parts together. The second NIDA grant funds studying the plant’s effect as a whole, essentially what people consume as kratom.’

‘Principal investigators on the study include McCurdy; Lance McMahon, Ph.D., a professor and chair of the department of pharmacodynamics; and the late Bonnie Avery, Ph.D., a clinical professor of pharmaceutics. Avery passed away in March, just one month before the grant was funded. “Bonnie Avery was a critical part of this award, as she would have led the analysis of the alkaloids,” said Maureen Keller-Wood, Ph.D., the college’s associate dean for research and graduate education.’

Dr. Jack Henningfield also works closely with NIDA. He supports the use of Kratom and he is helping to keep this plant legal. I support his stance FULLY and often reference to his studies when writing about Kratom. He has provided us with science that backs up the safety of Kratom as it is outlined in his 8-Factor Analysis ~ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813050/

Jack Henningfield, Ph.D.

Vice President, Research, Health Policy, and Abuse Liability

Jack E. Henningfield is one of the world’s leading experts on addiction, and the behavioral, cognitive, and central nervous system (CNS) effects of drugs. He counsels clients on assessment of the abuse liability of new CNS-acting drugs and formulations, evaluation of potential application of the Controlled Substances Act to new products, assessment of the tamper resistance of novel formulations, and development of risk management approaches.

Jack frequently liaises with the Food and Drug Administration on issues concerning drug scheduling and addiction, and has presented frequently to FDA Advisory Committees. He has contributed to numerous comments to FDA on topics including prescribing of opioids for chronic pain, development and regulation of abuse-deterrent opioid formulations, and regulation of nicotine delivery systems.

Jack’s research has resulted in the writing of numerous books and monographs, and over 400 published papers on myriad topics in public health, pharmacology, and addiction. He has received numerous awards for his research and policy contributions to the understanding and control of tobacco addiction.

He joined PinneyAssociates in September 1996 after 16 years of public service at the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), where he studied the abuse liability and cognitive effects of a broad range of drugs and contributed to the development of improved methods for abuse liability assessment.

At NIDA, he served as Chief of its Human Performance Laboratory (1984-1985), Chief of the Biology of Dependence and Abuse Potential Assessment Section (1985-1996), and Chief of the Clinical Pharmacology Research Branch (1989-1996). He was a frequent contributor to NIDA’s reports to Congress, Reports of the Surgeon General, and contributed to numerous congressional testimonies on behalf of NIDA.

He has been a member of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine faculty since 1978 and is presently Adjunct Professor of Behavioral Biology, at the Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and an affiliated faculty with The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Jack is also a former faculty member with the Program of Toxicology at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota in 1974 with a bachelor’s in psychology, Jack received his doctorate in experimental psychology in 1977 from the University of Minnesota’s Psychopharmacology Training Program, where his focus was addiction, CNS medications, preclinical abuse liability assessment, and drug addiction control. Jack’s post-doctoral training included roles as a National Council on Alcoholism postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Minnesota from 1977-1978 and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit. He was a staff fellow at the NIDA Addiction Research Center from 1980-1982.