It is still not clear whether those substances contributed to either death – but federal prosecutors said both appear consistent with drug overdoses. Two state agencies were working to expedite toxicology reports for the students, the Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves, said in a 23 September statement.

uh huh.

It appears the astroturf campaign to pretend kratom is vastly more dangerous than it actually is is continuing. Last article about this case also replicated the misleading approach with zero supporting evidence that either of these gentlemen ingested kratom at all, let alone that it was the sole agent responsible for their demise.

Wake me up when we start seeing more than a rounding error's worth of bad outcomes from kratom and kratom alone. As opposed to dipshits mixing it with opioids, benzos, alcohol, and so forth.

People who depend on kratom for legit uses such as chronic pain, as a substitute for far worse opioids in addiction(similar to methadone), and treatment resistant depression are gonna get railroaded by these paternalistic authoritarians who want to pretend that the disaster that is the US "healthcare" industry manages any of these conditions well even 50% of the time.

I'd love to have solutions to the problem kratom solves for me like no other medication has, and be able to get it under a "doctor's supervision." But in many cases, the reality for me and many others in the USA is that doctors are all too often useless or worse than useless when we need them most. If the authorities want people to stop self-medicating with substances like kratom, maybe they should look into addressing that.

Drug war bullshit