A good example of what ignorance and lack of knowlegde can do to your freedom to choose your medicine, can be found in recent developments in Iowa.
On march 24th, the 71 year old representative Baudler finds out about kratom. We are not sure what he learned about it, but from his statements we have to conclude that it didn't come from a reliable source.
Baudler stated that " Kratom is a hallucinogen, addictive, and can be life threatening."  and " Two hours after he learned of the drug, Baudler called his staff and had them start writing legislation to make the drug illegal." For more of his personal motives we refer to this article.

The lawmakers in Iowa are now finalizing legislation that indeed seems to include the amendment from Baudler. But before we go in details, lets look again at his statements. Kratom is no hallucinogen and has never been life threatening to anyone (keep in mind that it has been used for thousands of years), maybe it can be habit forming for some, but so is coffee and chocolate. The representative only took 2 hours to decide. This clearly shows that the lawmakers do not take the time or effort to see what the effect of their actions are. And from the ridiculous statements made, it must be very clear that this Representative had no idea what he was talking about.  

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Senator Crowe of Louisiana announced earlier in February that he was planning to add kratom to the list of controlled substances, which would have made possesion of kratom a crime. Members of the kratom community and the Kratom Association in particular were shocked to hear about the Senators plans and directly took action. An online petition was opened to protest against the plans at Change.org ,   kratom users started to email the Senator and other members of the juriciday committee directly to express their concerns.

From the contact we had with the senator in the weeks to follow, it seemed that he was sincerely concerend with the potential of abuse of, what he thought was a dangerous substance, especially among younger folks. Luckily the senator was willing to do a bit more research and soon learned, thanks for the many testimonials that were send directly to him, that kratom was not a dangerous narcotic nor being a substance of abuse.

This was confirmed for the Senator in a public debate, check here for details of the debate. " State Sen. Jonathan Perry, R-Abbeville, used his laptop to search for the drug on the Internet while Crowe explained the bill. Meanwhile, state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, scanned the committee room for law enforcement officials with knowledge of how much of a problem the substance is becoming. Adley's search came up empty."

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The KA has started a new initiative in January, the monthly episodes of the kratom news, published on youtube.
In this January episode we give extra attention to the plans of the Louisiana Senator Crowe, who is proposing a ban on kratom in his state, as well as attention for the situation elsewhere in the world. The KA will make a monthly episode with some serious items and more entertaining once as well, for example how to pronounce kratom. Please select the clip above and subscribe to our channel on Youtube.   

There is some serious unrest in the kratom community. A Louisiana lawmaker, Senator, A.G. Crowe of district R-Pearl River, is proposing a kratom ban. On the WWLTV channel , see http://www.wwltv.com/news/northshore/Northshore-Lawmakers-Seeks-To-Ban-Herbal-Remedy-139325763.html , the senator explains his reasons. 

Poor knowledge and misunderstandings about the herb and the users are once more at the base of another crusade against a perfectly normal herb. Time for some public answers. The KA is preparing an open letter, which is included below and a petition is made available , please do sign the D0-not-ban-kratom petition and forward this to your friends.

The following letter is send to the Sentators office and will be published by press release in the comming days.

We are shocked to have learned of the proposal of Senator A.G. Crowe to pre-file a bill that would add Kratom to the list of controlled dangerous substances. This proposal seems to be based on some common misunderstandings which we would like to draw your attention to before this gets out of hand.

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