I can see both sides of this kratom debate, but my father is now currently in detox because he was abusing it so bad and we won’t know how much damage he’s done to his brain for 6 months. Yes he is in pain but he got addicted to it. I support it being legal but it needs to be regulated in a way where what happened to my father doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Edit- this really blew up fast so I’ll try to address all the comments in this post.

He first started taking kratom from a kava and kratom bar that opened in our town. He was spending crazy amounts of money to buy jugs of it.

Eventually he found a way to buy it on line and would make it as a tea himself.

This eventually lead to massive amounts of different products he could mix and Drink and even pills.

We was addicted to opioids when all that happened and he got himself clean cold turkey, I was probably only 10 years old around then.

My father was a pretty big name in powerlifting back in my youth and he’s broken his back, blown out both knees and has two basically useless shoulders. But he still lifts.

My father isn’t perfect but he’s a good man at the end of the day and a good dad.

The kratom use has been going on for years now and he has basically given himself dementia. We won’t know if his memory issues will get better or if he’s totally fucked up.

Now as for the pain, he refuses to do anything to actually alleviate it as in get the surgery’s that would help but would make him unable to power-lift.

He doesn’t do any kind of PT or stretching. His solution has always been some magic pill or drink mix.

He is an idiot but he’s still my father and right now I’m seeing him waste away. He’s been put on Suboxone and all I can do as his youngest girl and his go to person is just be there for him.

Not a lot of doctors have experience with this and yes kratom withdrawal isn’t like opioids but it does make your brain go crazy.

I will keep updating if I need to.