Content uploaded by Megan Webb
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Megan Webb on Nov 28, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ujpd20
Download by: [Hayden Griffin] Date: 22 September 2017, At: 13:43
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
ISSN: 0279-1072 (Print) 2159-9777 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujpd20
The Scheduling of Kratom and Selective Use of
Data
O. Hayden Griffin & Megan E. Webb
To cite this article: O. Hayden Griffin & Megan E. Webb (2017): The Scheduling of Kratom and
Selective Use of Data, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2017.1371363
Published online: 22 Sep 2017.
Submit your article to this journal
View related articles
View Crossmark data
The Scheduling of Kratom and Selective Use of Data
O. Hayden Griffin, III, Ph.D., J.D.
a
and Megan E. Webb, M.S., M.P.A.
b
a
Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA;
b
Doctoral Student,
Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
ABSTRACT
Kratom is a traditional drug from Southeast Asia that has been an emerging new substance in the
United States. On August 30, 2016, the DEA announced the intention to emergency schedule
kratom into Schedule I. To support this decision, the DEA cited an increase in drug seizures of
kratom and an increase in calls to poison control concerning kratom. However, a short time later,
on October 12, 2016, the DEA withdrew the intent to schedule kratom after public and congres-
sional backlash. The withdrawal by the DEA was somewhat unprecedented. To better understand
both decisions, the current article examines the evidence the DEA cited to support their decision
to emergency schedule kratom and the degree and type of media coverage of kratom to
determine if a media-driven drug panic occurred.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 26 February 2017
Revised 10 June 2017
Accepted 29 June 2017
KEYWORDS
Controlled Substances Act;
Drug Enforcement
Administration; drug panic;
kratom
Since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in
1970 (CSA), the process of drug scheduling has been
debated in the scientific community. The original design
of the scheduling process was intended to be scientific.
Indeed, eight factors
1
are listed for these scientific deci-
sions (Courtwright 2004; Spillane 2004). Yet, two events
have cast some measure of doubt on the intended objec-
tive scientific analysis of these decisions. First, the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), a law enforcement
agency with a law enforcement agenda, is responsible for
making scheduling decisions. Second, in 1984, as part of
the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, the Attorney
General of the United States (U.S.) was empowered to
place drugs into Schedule I on an emergency basis. In
1990, the Attorney General delegated this power to the
DEA (Griffin 2014). Some scheduling decisions have
resulted in the placement of drugs in Schedule I despite
documented medical utility. Examples of this include
MDMA (Griffin 2012; Rosenbaum and Doblin 1991;
Smith 2007), GHB (Griffin 2012; Nicholson and Balster
2001), and marijuana (Hoffmann and Weber 2010;
Pacula et al. 2002). Perhaps the greatest reason that pla-
cing a substance into Schedule I is so consequential is
that such a decision essentially halts all use of the drug
and makes research extremely difficult (Griffin, Miller,
and Khey 2008; Jaffe 1985). While some people have
decried certain scheduling decisions, Coulson and
Caulkins (2012) have argued that, while a few scheduling
decisions seem dubious, overall the process seems to
work. One of the biggest reasons that this process can
lead to disagreements is the many different ways that
harm is calculated (Caulkins, Reuter, and Coulson
2011; Nutt et al. 2007). In the latter half of 2016, a
controversy arose surrounding the scheduling of yet
another drug—kratom.
Kratom
Kratom is a substance that comes from the Korth tree.
The plant is native to Africa and Southeast Asia,
although it is predominantly found in Malaysia and
Thailand. Included within the leaves of the plant are
more than 20 alkaloids, many of which contain psy-
choactive properties (Jansen and Prast 1988). The
primary psychoactive alkaloid of the plant is mitragy-
nine, a partial opioid agonist, which has approxi-
mately one-fourth the potency of morphine.
Occurring in much rarer volumes is another alkaloid,
7-hdroxymitragynine (7-OH). Although found in less
frequency than mitragynine, 7-OH is approximately
10timesaspotentasmorphine(Babu,McCurdy,and
Boyer 2008; Kitajima et al. 2006).
The first mention of kratom in the scientific litera-
ture was in 1836, when it was noted that kratom could
be used as an opium substitute (Jansen and Prast 1988).
Taking this into consideration, it is unsurprising that
CONTACT O. Hayden Griffin, III hgriffin@uab.edu Department of Criminal Justice, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1201 University Blvd.,
UBOB 210, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/ujpd.
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS
https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2017.1371363
© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
the use of kratom can cause dependency and withdra-
wal. Singh, Müller, and Vicknasingam (2014) found,
among kratom users they surveyed in Malaysia, 45%
of 293 regular users had signs of moderate dependence.
However, the withdrawal symptoms of kratom appear
milder than opiates (Boyer et al. 2008). Indeed, as
Singh, Müller, and Vicknasingam (2014) have indi-
cated, users of kratom only report small impairments
in social functioning. Kratom has several different
routes of administration, which include smoking or
chewing the leaves of the plant, brewing the leaves
into a tea, ingesting powdered leaves into capsule or
pill form, and making a kratom extract into a liquid
dose (Hassan et al. 2013). One of kratom’s unique
characteristics is that smaller amounts produce stimu-
lant effects while larger amounts produce effects similar
to opiates (Babu, McCurdy, and Boyer 2008; Hassan
et al. 2013; Jansen and Prast 1988; Kikura-Hanajiri et al.
2009; Rosenbaum, Carreiro, and Babu 2012; Scott,
Yeakel, and Logan 2014).
Traditional use of kratom
Kratom has been used in traditional indigenous medi-
cine in Southeast Asia for years for the treatment of a
variety of maladies, including malaria, cough, hyperten-
sion, diarrhea, depression, analgesia, and fever reduc-
tion (Griffin, Daniels, and Gardner 2016; Jansen and
Prast 1988; Prozialeck 2016). Additionally, many people
have noted that kratom has the potential to treat opiate
abuse, a serious current problem in the U.S. (Boyer
et al. 2008; Jansen and Prast 1988; Prozialeck 2016;
Rosenbaum, Carreiro, and Babu 2012; Saingam et al.
2013; Swogger et al. 2015). Yet, as McIntyre et al.
(2015) noted, the pharmacological properties of kratom
and its potential toxicity are not completely clear.
While kratom can produce negative side-effects, kra-
tom seems primarily dangerous when users engage in
polydrug use (Boyer et al. 2008; Cinosi et al. 2015;
McIntyre et al. 2015; Nelsen et al. 2010; Prozialeck
2016; Rosenbaum, Carreiro, and Babu 2012). Indeed,
Kronstrand et al. (2011) documented deaths associated
with Krypton, a substance that combined kratom with
O-Desmethyltradmadol. Furthermore, Karinen et al.
(2014) discussed the death of a Norwegian man who
had traces of mitragynine, 7-OH, Zopiclone, citalo-
pram, and lamotrigine in his system. The fear of an
unregulated marketplace and the potential of drug mix-
ing with kratom can pose dangers to kratom users
(Philipp et al. 2009). That being said, cases of death
resulting from kratom seem rare, with only one docu-
mented case in the literature (Karinen et al. 2014). A
recent report noted that mitragynine levels appeared at
varying levels in two reported deaths, yet kratom was
not responsible for either death (Domingo et al. 2017).
However, since kratom is sold in the U.S. with few
regulations, there is a perception by many that the use
of kratom is safe, and there have been several reports of
self-medication without medical consultation (Boyer
et al. 2008,2007).
Regulation of kratom
Both the Thai and Malaysian governments regulate kra-
tom. In Thailand, kratom was placed in Schedule 5 of the
Thai Narcotics Act. In Malaysia, kratom is listed in the
Poison Act (Hassan et al. 2013). Despite this regulation,
kratom use is still found in these countries. According to
Ahmad and Aziz (2012), 88% of the 562 kratom users they
surveyed used on a daily basis. In addition to Thailand
and Malaysia, Bhutan, Finland, Lithuania, Denmark,
Poland, Sweden, Australia, and Myanmar all control or
regulate kratom (Hassan et al. 2013).
Prior to 2016, within the U.S., only five states con-
trolled kratom, and the DEA listed kratom only as a
drug of concern (Griffin, Daniels, and Gardner 2016).
Additionally, media reports of kratom use were spora-
dic and, for the most part, were confined to blogs and
websites selling kratom. That began to change on July
29, 2016, with a report disseminated by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Within that
report, Anwar and Schier (2016) noted that, during
the time period of 2010 to 2015, poison control centers
in the U.S. received 660 calls related to kratom expo-
sures. Previous years documented lower numbers (ran-
ging from 26 in 2010 to 263 in 2015). Based upon these
numbers, the authors stated that kratom use seemed to
be increasing within the U.S. and that public and
healthcare providers should be aware of the potential
dangers associated with the adverse effects of kratom.
The profile of kratom within the American con-
sciousness was raised again on August 30, 2016. On
that day, the DEA announced its intention to place the
chemicals mitragynine and 7-hdroxymitragynine into
Schedule I of the CSA. In the statement of the DEA,
the agency reiterated a common controversial claim
espoused by the agency to place the substance in
Schedule I—that kratom had no accepted medical
use and a high potential for abuse. Claims by the
DEA of this kind are not new, and evidence is avail-
able to challenge such claims. In addition to the claims
of danger and a lack of medical utility, the DEA
offered two other pieces of evidence to support the
claimthatitwasnecessarytoemergencyschedule
kratom. The first was the aforementioned CDC report.
The second was that, from February 2014 to July 2016,
U.S. law enforcement organizations seized 55,000 kilo-
grams of kratom material during law enforcement
2O. H. GRIFFIN, III AND M. E. WEBB
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
activities. Another 57,000 kilograms were confiscated
during importation into the U.S. (during the time
period of 2014 through 2016) and were awaiting an
admissibility decision from the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
Once the DEA intends to schedule a drug, the
agency usually follows through on those plans. Yet,
something different happened with kratom. Many
advocacy groups, such as the American Kratom
Association (AKA) and the Drug Policy Alliance
(DPA), protested the decision. A White House peti-
tion received more than 140,000 signatures requesting
that kratom not be placed into Schedule I (Hadley
2016). Furthermore, a bipartisan group of 51 members
of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to the
acting administrator of the DEA, urging that the
emergency scheduling decision be delayed until more
evidence could be obtained to ascertain if such an
action was warranted (Wing 2016). This confluence
of events seemed to catch the DEA off-guard.
Originally, the scheduling of kratom was supposed to
take effect by September 30, but on October 12, the
DEA withdrew the intent to schedule notice from the
federal register and the agency stated that it would
gather more input from interested parties before mak-
ing any further decisions (Hadley 2016). To date, the
DEA has still not acted.
One common phenomenon associated with drug
regulations is media panics associated with various
drugs. These stories typically involve sensationalized
reports that can range from embellishing the dangers
of drugs to the creation of outright mythology.
Perhaps the most common example of such a panic
was that created by Harry Anslinger regarding mar-
ijuana during the 1930s. Anslinger told fantastic tales
regarding the ability of marijuana to turn its users into
various forms of mentally ill and violent offenders
(Becker 1963; Bonnie and Whitebread 1999;Griffin
et al. 2013;Himmelstein1983). More recent drug
panics have involved crack-cocaine (Reinarman and
Levine 1997), various so-called designer drugs, a
seeming catch-all category for many prescription or
synthetic drugs (Jenkins 1999;Rosenbaum,Carreiro,
and Babu 2012), methamphetamine (Armstrong 2007;
Linnemann and Wall 2013), and bath salts (mephe-
drone) (Rosenbaum, Carreiro, and Babu 2012;Stogner
and Miller 2013). As Miller et al. (2015) recently
noted, many drug panics have not only exaggerated
the harm caused by these drugs, but media panics are
typically short-lived. Yet, it does not seem that kratom
has followed the typical trajectory of a drug panic, and
there is scant evidence of media coverage before the
DEA announced an intention to schedule kratom.
Methods
The current study has two main purposes. First, we
compare drug seizures and poison control calls con-
cerning kratom to other drug seizures made and the
number of calls to poison control centers for not only
other drugs, but a few other substances as well. In
doing so, we hope to put the statistics released by the
DEA into greater context. Second, we seek to docu-
ment how much media coverage existed before the
CDC report and after the announcement of the DEA
of their intention to schedule kratom. Researchers
have documented how government agencies have
perpetuated drug panics through the media, but the
question regarding kratom is whether there was
much media coverage beyond discussing the actions
of the DEA.
Inordertomakecomparisonsbetweenseizuresof
kratom material, data were obtained from two sources.
The first was the DEA database System to Retrieve
Information from Drug Evidence (STRIDE), which
reports drug materials sent to the DEA for laboratory
analysis (from both state and federal law enforcement
agencies). The second source of data was the
Federal-wide Drug Seizure System (FDSS), a database
that compiles drug seizures from all federal agencies
including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
DEA, and the U.S. Customs Service (USCS), Border
Patrol, and Coast Guard. In order to make compar-
isons between the number of calls to poison control
regarding kratom, data were gathered from the
National Capital Poison Center (NCPC). The organi-
zation collects data from 55 poison control centers in
the U.S. NCPC distributes this data as well as reports
warning the U.S. public of the dangers of various
substances. These data were obtained from a publica-
tion by Mowry et al. (2015).
To analyze the media coverage concerning kratom,
two sources were used: Google News and LexisNexis.
The word “kratom”was typed into both databases
with a date range of June 29 to October 31. We wanted
to document the number of articles that were available
duringthattimeframe(onemonthbeforetheCDC
report was released to two weeks after the DEA made
the announcement to withdraw the intent to schedule
kratom). Google News was chosen for its breadth of
coverage (in addition to traditional media, several
other pages came up including blogs, message boards,
treatment information, and websites selling kratom)
and LexisNexis, since it has a narrower focus that
sometimes omits newer formats of media coverage
(for example, The Huffington Post was not obtained
from a LexisNexis search).
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS 3
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
Results
The DEA reported two different amounts of kratom
seized (55,000 kilograms seized over a two and one-half
year period by law enforcement and 57,000 kilograms
seized over a two and one-half year period that was
imported and awaiting FDA admissibility). Adding
both amounts together, this accounts for roughly
44,800 kilograms seized per year. For the first compar-
ison, the amount of kratom seized is compared to other
reported drug seizures as listed in the STRIDE data-
base. For a second comparison of drug seizures, data
were taken from FDSS.
As shown in Table 1, the amount of kratom seized is
far more than heroin and methamphetamine in both
databases, more than cocaine seizures in STRIDE, but
less than cocaine seizures in the FDSS. The amount of
kratom seized was about one-sixth the amount of mar-
ijuana seized in STRIDE, and approximately 1/44 of the
amount of marijuana seized in the FDSS.
According to the CDC report, during the time per-
iod of 2010 to 2015, U.S. poison control centers
received 660 calls related to kratom exposures. The
poison control center calls ranged from 26 in 2010 to
263 in 2015. For comparison purposes, the number of
poison control calls for 2014 (the most recent available
data) for kratom are compared to the number of calls
for many different substances.
To illustrate the findings of the Google News search
and the LexisNexis news search, Table 3 and Figure 1
were created. When looking at the table and figure,
four dates are important to keep in mind: (1) July 29,
when the CDC report was disseminated; (2) August
30, when the DEA made the announcement of their
intent to emergency schedule kratom; (3) September
30, when kratom was originally supposed to be placed
into Schedule I of the CSA; and (4) October 12, when
the DEA withdrew the notice of emergency
scheduling.
Discussion
Comparisons of drug seizure data are somewhat diffi-
cult. Clearly, much more marijuana was seized than
kratom, but one would expect this, considering that
marijuana is the most consumed recreational drug in
the U.S. behind alcohol. The amount of kratom com-
pared to cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine may
seem compelling on its face, but when it is analyzed in
more detail, these results appear more mundane.
Cocaine and heroin enter the U.S. as powder that is
meant to be snorted, smoked, or injected, and metham-
phetamine is either in crystal or powder form that can
be administered in any one of the three aforementioned
routes. Kratom can be ingested in a variety of forms,
but the drug can be frequently imported as plant mat-
ter. Thus, kratom seems likely to naturally weigh more
than many other types of drugs. While the DEA did
claim, in its initial intent to schedule, that the amount
of kratom seized represented 12 million doses of the
drug, it is hard to take this claim at face value for two
reasons. First, the DEA gives no indication of what
types of kratom (e.g., plant material, powder, capsules)
were seized to produce this many doses. The second
reason is that, considering how novel kratom is to the
Table 1. Drug seizures from drug seizure system and reported from STRIDE.
Drug
Cocaine Heroin Marijuana Methamphetamine
Year STRIDE
1
Federal
2
STRIDE Federal STRIDE Federal STRIDE Federal
2013 24,103 —1,044 —270,823 —4,227 —
2012 36,736 —1,010 —388,064 —4,813 —
2011 32,151 —1,077 —575,972 —2,561 —
2010 30,061 62,646 713 2,833 725,862 1,969,703 2,224 10,098
2009 50,705 58,085 622 2,245 671,650 2,012,800 2,129 6,526
2008 —48,471 —1,870 —1,486,855 —6,242
2007 —56,687 —1,651 —1,741,875 —6,029
2006 —64,935 —2,001 —1,294,159 —5,815
The DEA reported (from February 2014 to July 2016) that law enforcement organizations seized 55,000 kilograms of kratom and 57,000 kilograms were
confiscated during importation into the United States and awaited an admissibility determination by the FDA.
1
Data retrieved from STRIDE: https://www.dea.gov/resource-center/statistics.shtml#seizures. All values in kilograms.
2
Note: Data retrieved from Federal-wide Drug Seizure System: www2.census.gov/library/publications/. . ./12s0328.xls. Values were originally reported in
pounds and were converted to kilograms.
0
5
10
15
20
25
02-Jun
09-Jun
16-Jun
23-Jun
30-Jun
07-Jul
14-Jul
21-Jul
28-Jul
04-Aug
11-Aug
18-Aug
25-Aug
01-Sep
08-Sep
15-Sep
22-Sep
29-Sep
06-Oct
13-Oct
20-Oct
27-Oct
Goo
g
le LexisNexis
Figure 1. Articles discussing kratom. Data were obtained
through a Google News and LexisNexis search of kratom.
4O. H. GRIFFIN, III AND M. E. WEBB
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
U.S. and without any real indication of how widespread
kratom use is in the U.S., 12 million doses seems a
rather ambitious amount for people who are attempting
to sell kratom in the U.S.
Data in Table 2 show that, although there is a one-
year difference, the 263 calls for kratom would have
represented roughly 0.000091% of all calls to poison
control, a very small proportion. Comparatively, there
were roughly 381.7 times as many calls for analgesics,
there were approximately 195.2 times more calls for
alcohol than kratom, and even 12.4 times more calls
for battery ingestion than kratom. The average number
of calls per month for kratom in 2015 was 21.9. Thus,
at least from the poison control data, there did not
seem much of a necessity for the emergency scheduling
of kratom.
As shown in Table 3, in July, Google News did not
have any media articles discussing kratom, and
LexisNexis only produced eight articles. Neither was
there much traffic on blogs, message boards, or treat-
ment information. The most common search result for
“kratom”was websites selling the substance. That
began to change in August, when some increase
occurred in media articles and the number of blogs
more than doubled. This amount of coverage still
appears modest. In September, the number of media
articles increased dramatically and, once again, the
number of blogs increased by more than half. During
October, media attention decreased some, but was
more than August coverage. The number of blog
entries dipped slightly below August levels. Over time,
the number of websites selling kratom seemed to
decrease. Although the information is interesting, a
day-by-day breakdown of the number of media articles
is particularly compelling.
As seen in Figure 1, there are roughly four peaks of
kratom coverage. The first small peak is around the
time of the CDC report. The second peak is around
the time that the DEA announced the intention to
schedule kratom. The third peak is around the time
that the scheduling of kratom was supposed to take
place. The fourth peak, which is the largest, was around
the time that the DEA announced its intent to with-
draw the scheduling of kratom. Separate from these
events, media coverage of kratom seemed quite mini-
mal. Thus, most of the media coverage was devoted to
reporting the actions of the government regarding kra-
tom. Certainly, the media seemed to supplement its
coverage of kratom by talking to users of the drug
and law enforcement, but separate from the govern-
ment action, kratom did not seem to attract much
media interest.
This study is not without limitations. First, media
coverage of kratom may not be indicative of actual
kratom use. Second, while two search engines were
used, there are likely articles on kratom that were not
included, particularly local and print-only news stories.
Third, coverage of kratom was examined in a limited
time frame for purposes of documenting the frequency
of coverage in relation to two events (the CDC report
and the DEA announcement). This time frame may
have also omitted news coverage of kratom. Lastly,
conclusions made from comparisons of different drug
seizure amounts should be interpreted with caution.
Both the media coverage of drugs and the decisions
to schedule various drugs have received attention from
drug researchers. The rationale for scheduling drugs,
and especially for the emergency scheduling of drugs,
has generally been that a dangerous substance is avail-
able to citizens who may eventually be harmed unless
the government takes quick and decisive action. Yet, in
the case of kratom, the DEA did not seem to have
much evidence to support such a claim. The poison
control data illustrated that only a miniscule percentage
of poison control calls involved kratom (even with the
reported increase), and the drug seizure numbers were
not contextualized beyond an estimate of the number
of doses potentially available to the public. A familiar
DEA claim was made—that kratom lacked any recog-
nized medicinal value; however, such a claim deserves
scrutiny. The DEA has a history of claiming that certain
drugs lack medical utility. Indeed, the cases of mari-
juana and MDMA are particularly relevant.
Furthermore, the DEA ignored that kratom had been
used in traditional medicine in Southeast Asia for
Table 2. 2015 selected poison control reports.
Total Calls 2,792,130
Human poison exposures 2,168,371
Analgesics 287,843
Cleaning substances (household) 195,974
Cosmetics/personal care products 192,596
Sedative/hypnotics/antipsychotics 151,433
Antidepressants 118,812
Antihistamines 105,457
Cardiovascular drugs 103,339
Alcohols 70,218
Battery ingestion 9,104
Kratom 263
Note: Data taken from 2015 Annual Report of the American Association of
Poison Control Centers’National Poison Data System (NPDS): 33rd
Annual Report.
Table 3. Media references to kratom.
Media Type July August September October
Google articles 0 10 113 83
LexisNexis articles 8 10 28 29
Websites selling kratom 31 25 23 17
Blogs 24 51 128 46
Message boards 10 6 6 0
Treatment information 5 6 5 5
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS 5
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
hundreds of years. Considering that the U.S. is cur-
rently experiencing an opioid epidemic, it would seem
that a law enforcement agency would look for alterna-
tives to opiates that might have less abuse potential.
What seems unusual in this case is that the DEA
backed away from its plan to schedule a drug.
Perhaps the lack of media coverage of the alleged dan-
ger that kratom would spawn did not provide the DEA
with sufficient mandate to continue the emergency
scheduling of kratom. What may have been the real
catalyst is that Congress, which controls the DEA oper-
ating budget, stepped in. To date, the case of kratom is
still incomplete. Given the medicinal properties of the
substance and the evidence of dependence, it seems
likely that kratom will end up in some schedule within
the CSA. What is most unique about the case of kratom
is that the DEA took action and then backed off.
Notes
1. The eight factors are: (1) actual or relative potential for
abuse; (2) scientific evidence of the pharmacological
effects; (3) the state of current scientific knowledge
regarding the substance; (4) history of the substance
and current pattern of abuse; (5) the scope, duration,
and significance of abuse; (6) risk to public health; (7)
psychic or physiological dependence liability; and (8) if
the substance is an immediate precursor to a substance
that has already been scheduled.
References
Ahmad, K., and Z. Aziz. 2012. Mitragyna speciosa use in the
northern states of Malaysia: A cross-sectional study.
Journal of Ethnopharmacology 141 (1):446–50.
doi:10.1016/j.jep.2012.03.009.
Anwar, M., and J. Schier. 2016. Notes from the field: Kratom
(Mitragyna speciosa) exposures reported to poison centers:
United States, 2010–2015. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly
Report 65:748–49. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6529a4.
Armstrong, E. G. 2007. Moral panic over meth.
Contemporary Justice Review 10 (4):427–42. doi:10.1080/
10282580701677519.
Babu, K. M., C. R. McCurdy, and E. W. Boyer. 2008. Opioid
receptors and legal highs: Salvia divinorum and kratom.
Clinical Toxicology 46 (2):146–52. doi:10.1080/155636
50701241795.
Becker, H. S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of
deviance. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Bonnie, R. J., and C. H. Whitebread. 1999. The marijuana
conviction: A history of marijuana prohibition in the United
States, 2nd ed. New York, NY: The Lindesmith Center.
Boyer, E. W., K. M. Babu, J. E. Adkins, C. R. McCurdy, and J.
H. Halpern. 2008. Self-treatment of opioid withdrawal
using kratom (Mitragynia speciosa korth). Addiction 103
(6):1048–50. doi:10.1111/add.2008.103.issue-6.
Boyer, E. W., K. M. Babu, G. E. Macalino, and W. Compton.
2007. Self-treatment of opioid withdrawal with a dietary
supplement, kratom. American Journal on Addictions 16
(5):352–56. doi:10.1080/10550490701525368.
Caulkins, J. P., P. Reuter, and C. Coulson. 2011. Basing drug
scheduling decisions on scientific ranking of harmfulness:
False promise from false premises. Addiction 106
(11):1886–90. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03461.x.
Cinosi, E., G. Martinotti, P. Simonato, D. Singh, Z.
Demetrovics, A. Roman-Urrestarazu, F. S. Bersani, B.
Vicknasingam, G. Piazzon, J.-H. Li, W.-J. Yu, M.
Kapitány-Fövény, J. Farkas, M. Di Giannantonio, and O.
Corazza. 2015. Following “the roots”of kratom (Mitragyna
speciosa): The evolution of an enhancer from a traditional
use to increase work and productivity in Southeast Asia to
a recreational psychoactive drug in Western countries.
BioMed Research International. doi:10.1155/2015/968786.
Coulson, C., and J. P. Caulkins. 2012. Scheduling of newly
emerging drugs: A critical review of decisions over 40 years.
Addiction 107 (4):766–73. doi:10.1111/add.2012.107.issue-4.
Courtwright, D. T. 2004. The Controlled Substances Act:
How a “big tent”reform became a punitive drug law.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence 76 (1):9–15. doi:10.1016/j.
drugalcdep.2004.04.012.
Domingo, O., G. Roider, A. Stöver, M. Graw, F. Musshoff, H.
Sachs, and W. Bicker. 2017. Mitragynine concentrations in
two fatalities. Forensic Science International 271:e1–e7.
doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2016.12.020.
Griffin, O. H. 2012. Is the government keeping the peace or
acting like our parents? Rationales for the legal prohibi-
tions of GHB and MDMA. Journal of Drug Issues 42
(3):247–62. doi:10.1177/0022042612456014.
Griffin, O. H. 2014. The role of the United States Supreme Court
in shaping federal drug policy. American Journal of Criminal
Justice 39 (3):660–79. doi:10.1007/s12103-013-9224-4.
Griffin, O. H., J. A. Daniels, and E. A. Gardner. 2016. Do you
get what you paid for? An examination of products adver-
tised as kratom. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 48 (5):330–
35. doi:10.1080/02791072.2016.1229876.
Griffin, O. H., A. L. Fritsch, V. H. Woodward, and R. S.
Mohn. 2013. Sifting through the hyperbole: One hundred
years of marijuana coverage in The New York Times.
Deviant Behavior 34 (10):767–81. doi:10.1080/
01639625.2013.766548.
Griffin, O. H., B. L. Miller, and D. N. Khey. 2008. Legally
high? Legal considerations of Salvia divinorum.Journal of
Psychoactive Drugs 40 (2):183–91. doi:10.1080/02791072.20
08.10400629.
Hadley, G. 2016. What made the DEA change its mind
about banning a drug for heroin addiction? Miami
Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
world/national/article107741147.html (accessed
January 6, 2017).
Hassan, Z., M. Muzaimi, V. Navaratnam, N. H. M. Yusoff, F.
W. Suhaimi, R. Vadivelu, B. K. Vicknasingam, D. Amato,
S. Von Hörsten, N. I. W. Ismail, N. Jayabalan, A. I. Hazim,
S. M. Mansor, and C. P. Muller. 2013. From kratom to
mitragynine and its derivatives: Physiological and beha-
vioural effects related to use, abuse, and addiction.
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 37 (2):138–51.
doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.11.012.
Himmelstein, J. L. 1983. The strange career of marihuana:
Politics and ideology of drug control in the United States.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
6O. H. GRIFFIN, III AND M. E. WEBB
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
Hoffmann, D. E., and E. Weber. 2010. Medical marijuana and
the law. New England Journal of Medicine 362 (16):1453–
57. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1000695.
Jaffe, J. H. 1985. Impact of scheduling on the practice of med-
icine and biomedical research. Drug and Alcohol Dependence
14 (3–4):403–18. doi:10.1016/0376-8716(85)90070-5.
Jansen, K. L. R., and C. J. Prast. 1988. Psychoactive properties
of mitragynine (kratom). Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 20
(4):455–57. doi:10.1080/02791072.1988.10472519.
Jenkins, P. 1999. Synthetic panics: The symbolic politics of
designer drugs. New York, NY: NYU Press.
Karinen, R., J. T. Fosen, S. Rogde, and V. Vindenes. 2014. An
accidental poisoning with mitragynine. Forensic Science
International 245:e29–e32. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2014.10.025.
Kikura-Hanajiri, R., M. Kawamura, T. Maruyama, M.
Kitajima, H. Takayama, and Y. Goda. 2009. Simultaneous
analysis of mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, and other
alkaloids in the psychotropic plant “kratom”(Mitragyna
speciosa) by LC-ESI-MS. Forensic Toxicology 27 (2):67–
74. doi:10.1007/s11419-009-0070-5.
Kitajima, M., K. Misawa, N. Kogure, I. M. Said, S. Horie, Y.
Hatori, T. Murayama, and H. Takayama. 2006. A new
indole alkaloid, 7-hydroxyspeciociliatine, from the fruits
of Malaysian Mitragyna speciosa and its opioid agonistic
activity. Journal of Natural Medicines 60 (1):28–35.
doi:10.1007/s11418-005-0001-7.
Kronstrand, R., M. Roman, G. Thelander, and A. Eriksson.
2011. Unintentional fatal intoxications with mitragynine
and O-desmethyltramadol from the herbal blend Krypton.
Journal of Analytical Toxicology 35 (4):242–47.
doi:10.1093/anatox/35.4.242.
Linnemann, T., and T. Wall. 2013. “This is your face on
meth”: The punitive spectacle of “white trash”in the
rural war on drugs. Theoretical Criminology 17 (3):315–
34. doi:10.1177/1362480612468934.
McIntyre, I. M., A. Trochta, S. Stolberg, and S. C. Campman.
2015. Mitragynine “Kratom”related fatality: A case report
with postmortem concentrations. Journal of Analytical
Toxicology 39 (2):152–55. doi:10.1093/jat/bku137.
Miller, B. L., J. M. Stogner, L. E. Agnich, A. Sanders, J. Bacot,
and S. Felix. 2015. Marketing a panic: Media coverage of
novel psychoactive drugs (NPDs) and its relationship with
legal changes. American Journal of Criminal Justice 40
(3):523–41. doi:10.1007/s12103-014-9270-6.
Mowry, J. B., D. A. Spyker, D. E. Brooks, N. McMillan, and J.
L. Schauben. 2015. 2014 Annual Report of the American
Association of Poison Control Centers’National Poison
Data System (NPDS): 32nd Annual Report. Clinical
Toxicology 53 (10):962–1147. doi:10.3109/15563650.20
15.1102927.
Nelsen, J. L., J. Lapoint, M. J. Hodgman, and K. M. Aldous.
2010. Seizure and coma following kratom (Mitragynina
speciosa Korth) exposure. Journal of Medical Toxicology 6
(4):424–26. doi:10.1007/s13181-010-0079-5.
Nicholson, K. L., and R. L. Balster. 2001. GHB: A new and
novel drug of abuse. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 63
(1):1–22. doi:10.1016/S0376-8716(00)00191-5.
Nutt, D., L. A. King, W. Saulsbury, and C. Blakemore. 2007.
Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs
of potential misuse. The Lancet 369 (9566):1047–53.
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60464-4.
Pacula, R. L., J. F. Chriqui, D. A. Reichmann, and Y. M.
Terry-McElrath. 2002. State medical marijuana laws:
Understanding the laws and their limitations. Journal of
Public Health Policy 23 (4):413–39. doi:10.2307/3343240.
Philipp, A. A., D. K. Wissenbach, S. W. Zoerntlein, O. N.
Klein, J. Kanogsunthornrat, and H. H. Maurer. 2009.
Studies on the metabolism of mitragynine, the main alka-
loid of the herbal drug kratom, in rat and human urine
using liquid chromatography-linear ion trap mass spectro-
metry. Journal of Mass Spectrometry 44 (8):1249–61.
doi:10.1002/jms.1607.
Prozialeck, W. C. 2016. Update on the pharmacology and
legal status of kratom. The Journal of the American
Osteopathic Association 116 (12):802–09. doi:10.7556/
jaoa.2016.156.
Reinarman, C., and H. Levine. 1997. The crack attack. In
Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, ed. C.
Reinarman and H. Levine, 18–51. Oakland, CA: University
of California Press.
Rosenbaum, C. D., S. P. Carreiro, and K. M. Babu. 2012. Here
today, gone tomorrow and back again? A review of herbal
marijuana alternatives (K2, Spice), synthetic cathinones
(bath salts), kratom, salvia divinorum, methoxetamine,
and piperazines. Journal of Medical Toxicology 8 (1):15–
32. doi:10.1007/s13181-011-0202-2.
Rosenbaum, M., and R. Doblin. 1991. Why MDMA should
not have been made illegal. In The drug legalization debate,
ed. J. A. Inciardi, 135–46. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc.
Saingam, D., S. Assanangkornchai, A. F. Geater, and Q.
Balthip. 2013. Pattern and consequences of krathom
(Mitragyna speciosa Korth.) use among male villagers in
southern Thailand: A qualitative study. International
Journal of Drug Policy 24 (4):351–58. doi:10.1016/j.
drugpo.2012.09.004.
Scott, T. M., J. K. Yeakel, and B. K. Logan. 2014.
Identification of mitragynine and O-desmethyltramadol
in kratom and legal high products sold online. Drug
Testing and Analysis 6 (9):959–63. doi:10.1002/dta.v6.9.
Singh, D., C. P. Müller, and B. K. Vicknasingam. 2014. Kratom
(Mitragyna speciosa) dependence, withdrawal symptoms and
craving in regular users. Drug and Alcohol Dependence
139:132–37. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.03.017.
Smith, J. 2007. The values and control of MDMA.
Contemporary Justice Review 10 (3):297–306. doi:10.1080/
10282580701526104.
Spillane, J. F. 2004. Debating the Controlled Substances Act.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence 76 (1):17–29. doi:10.1016/j.
drugalcdep.2004.04.011.
Stogner, J. M., and B. L. Miller. 2013. Investigating the “bath
salt”panic: The rarity of synthetic cathinone use among
students in the United States. Drug and Alcohol Review 32
(5):545–49.
Swogger,M.T.,E.Hart,F.Erowid,E.Erowid,N.Trabold,K.Yee,
K. A. Parkhurst, B. M. Priddy, and Z. Walsh. 2015. Experiences
of kratom users: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Psychoactive
Drugs 47 (5):360–67. doi:10.1080/02791072.2015.1096434.
Wing, N. 2016. Congress calls out DEA for unilateral move to
expand the war on drugs. The Huffington Post. http://www.
huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-kratom-dea-letter_us_
57e93743e4b0e28b2b54fe36 (accessed January 6, 2017).
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGS 7
Downloaded by [Hayden Griffin] at 13:43 22 September 2017
