Abstinence for its own sake is frankly not all that useful to society. Harm reduction is a much more important goal.
Millions of Americans are hooked on coffee and have withdrawals if they don't drink it, but nobody's up in arms about our caffeine dependence, precisely because it has very little in the way of social harms associated with it. If we can convert drug use with huge social harms (e.g. heroin, oxycontin) into drug use with negligible social harms (e.g. kratom), that would basically solve the opiate crisis.
In my mind the goal isn't to stop people from using opiates-- it's to stop them from dying, committing crimes, and running their lives into the ground due to opiates.
A positive step, to be sure. It sounds like further study is warranted, especially once the active ingredients in kratom are isolated and concentrated. The coca leaf was used for millennia, but became socially harmful in its concentrated form.
Millions of Americans are hooked on coffee and have withdrawals if they don't drink it, but nobody's up in arms about our caffeine dependence, precisely because it has very little in the way of social harms associated with it. If we can convert drug use with huge social harms (e.g. heroin, oxycontin) into drug use with negligible social harms (e.g. kratom), that would basically solve the opiate crisis.
In my mind the goal isn't to stop people from using opiates-- it's to stop them from dying, committing crimes, and running their lives into the ground due to opiates.