I think this is a clear case where a pharmaceutical shouldn't be produced at all. Rehabs should be able to distribute the botanical which is already helping thousands of addicts. It will never happen because there is no profit in marketing vegetables.

I strongly suspect this move to ban kratom is related to growing profitability in the US market of subutex as a dependence treatment. Unlike a botanical subutex is readily abused, often intravenously.

Manufacturers and the FDA know from basic epidemiology that prescriptions of all opiates far outpace the diseases they are indicated to treat. I have to believe somewhere on someone's email there is hard evidence pharma knowingly promotes abuse.