Kratom, ( Mitragyna speciosa Korth), also known as Kakuam originates from Thailand, where it has been illegal to cultivate the Kratom tree since 1943 due to the leaves having narcotic properties similar to opium.
Being an indigenous plant of Thailand, Kratom leaves continue to be used by locals in cooking, as a medication, and as an opium substitute. Addiction is said to be easy with many people having used the leaf all their lives. It helps people to endure arduous manual work, and studies have shown long term effects to include a preference for solitude, anorexia, pigmentation of the skin, constipation and a depressive mood, with most users being working class males, who nevertheless marry and remain connected with their families.
Symptoms of withdrawal are similar to opiate addiction. Occasionally kratom psychosis is reported in long term users. In Thailand Kratom use was originally culture bound, with male working addicts socially accepted, but women users frowned upon. Kratom was a drug not used by students, the educated or moneyed classes. In recent years Kratom has become popular among young Thai’s as a brew, with Coca Cola.
With the increase in the demand for drugs throughout the Western world, Kratom became marketed as a legal drug elsewhere than Thailand.
In 2002, Japanese researchers were able to discover 7-hydroxymitragynine as the patentable “active” ingredient of Kratom, and may develop Kratom as a pharmaceutical product in the future. 7-hydroxymitragynine has been found to have a more potent analgesic effect than morphine.
Meanwhile, Kratom continues to be legal, available and unregulated in Canada, although not approved for human consumption, is unregulated in the USA and many other countries, and illegal in some countries such as Australia, Malaysia, Finland, Lithuania, Denmark and Poland. Kratom is widely available on internet and used by many North Americans.
Using Kratom can easily become a pathway to the use of opioids such as heroin. It is also seen as having potential as a substitute drug to assist with opioid withdrawal and “maintenance drug” programs for people with opioid addiction.
Kratom might not be illegal, but is as addictive as opioids. Withdrawal symptoms can include feelings of anxiety and pain for several days.
Kratom has been suggested as a drug that can assist with alcohol recovery, by reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. For many people this is seen as merely replacing one drug of dependence with another, and of no long term benefit, compared with taking steps to discover and resolve the reasons why there is a need to use addictive drugs in the first place.
Concentrated Kratom products can be found under such names as Enhanced Red Vein Thai Kratom, Enhanced Green Vein or Indonesian sunrise / sunset blends. Kratom can appear to be a safer drug than heroin, or prescription narcotics, because not all countries restrict its use, and young people can obtain it by mail order, often from sites that sell synthetic marijuana. In the UK, Kratom is known as “herbal speedball”.
In Malaysia, Kratom use is on the rise. Between 2004 and 2005, seizures relating to Kratom use increased from 2 in the July of 2004, to 45 in January 2005, with police impounding a total of 1,000 kilos of leaves, and 236,000 liters of the drink.