TABLE 3.

A sample of quotes from Reddit posts (N = 370) made between July 2020 to January 2022 detailing kratom use as a drug substitute and consumers’ frustration with the kratom products and the kratom product industry.

Kratom as a drug substitute	Policy talk–frustration with kratom industry and product information
“Kratom is able to 99% eliminate [of] Fentanyl withdrawal.”	“But of course, these alkaloid profiles won't match up name for name with most kratom I could buy right now. If I were to buy these exact names from a random vendor online or in a store then run the same test, it would probably be very different alkaloid profiles. Very frustrating fact of the kratom market.”
“I recently tried to [quit opioids] cold turkey 12.5 mcg per hr. fentanyl and was astonished how I am able to function with such little withdrawal. I am only taking 2 grams of Red Bali at a time. This is not my first rodeo. I have been using [intravenous] opiates for 20yrs. I haven't used a needle in 3 years now. It’s a long story but I just wanted to say Kratom is a savior in these moments.”	“It may be asking for a lot but my hope for the future is that we can have a real and complete alkaloid profile for every [kratom] batch we buy. Name the batches whatever you want but please just tell me how much of each alkaloid I am getting. That way I can figure out what I like and only buy kratom with those profiles.”
“I’m also a ex poly-addict (2+ years clean), and kratom helps my cravings for stimulants.”	“If you’re like me -- got sucked into the ‘it’s a harmless herbal supplement/tea’ and were addicted to nothing prior except maybe nicotine/caffeine, and realized you became totally dependent on Kratom and became scared.”
“Almost instantly I knew [kratom] was a miracle plant. It took away my craving for alcohol. I’ve had my mishaps here and there since. Kratom always gets me through it. I’m so happy to have found this plant and be a part of this community because the kratom community is so loving and caring. Kratom has been a great tool to help with my depression, anxiety and helping to provide energy on hard days. I couldn't picture a life without it! I know some people get addicted to it and that’s terrible, but I only take 2 grams 3-4 times a day and stick to that. Never going farther. It’s an amazing tool to smooth out the rough edges of life.”	“Lately I’ve noticed in most of [podcast name] commercials they advertise SuperSpeciosa kratom- No problem. My issue is how they label it a supplement and never mentions the physically addictive qualities of the drug $\dots ..$ As a kratom user myself, I can tell you first hand that you could easily nod off at the wheel on kratom if you were a novice to the substance. It is an opiate and acts quite similarly to opiates such as Hydrocodone. So basically, they are telling you that you can take this kratom and you won’t feel impaired, even though it can literally make you nod off and pass out from being so high.”
“I’m surprised I managed to get to the 2-year [sobriety] mark! I have had cravings and temptations and managed to resist them. Please no replies saying, ‘you’re not really sober’ or ‘you’ve just replaced one thing for another’. I have heard it all before. I have been using kratom for 7 years and it has been nothing but a positive in my life, helping me to finally kick alcohol.”	“In my experience this chemical is much more powerful than I gave it credit for and stay here for real information about what it's like I, like many of us, got caught up in the misinformation and downplaying of the negative effects.”
“I found Kratom 8 months ago and in that time, I’ve been able to lessen my alcohol use substantially. At first, I was still drinking daily but cut down to less than half the first month. Now I drink zero to one drink on the weekends and none during the week. Sometimes it will be 3 or more weeks before I have a drink. Usually, It’s just socially. Kratom is the only thing that has worked, and I’ve tried it all. Naltrexone gave me horrible side effects, Sobrenix didn't work.”	“So instead of a smart person and going to a doctor I remember Kratom is a thing. I looked into it and depending on what you search for and what subreddit you find, you can get heavily conflicting information. So naturally I get the idea that it's basically CBD for opiates and that there wasn't much risk to it, if any, which is quite wrong.”
“I can’t even begin to explain how easy it was to transition from an everyday scary ass heroin habit right to brewing teas made from kratom powder. It truly saved my life, no doubt! The first night [of heroin withdrawal] was the worst because I was able to sleep but all night I was sweating in my sleep and waking up drenched and freezing but it got better each and every day. I wanna say that second day was hell when I was waking up because I felt like a dead sleepless zombie and anyone who has gone through the withdrawals on opiates knows the sleep deprivation can be the worst symptom of all $\dots .$ such an evil place in life but with kratom I have found my way back!”	“Much of the information and lab testing we see for kratom is coming from vendors and I honestly don't trust most info coming from vendors. Let’s face it, they want to make money, they are in the business of marketing a product to sell it. They don't get together and make any real standardization in regards to the colors and names. The labels are usually some sort of combo of how it looks, the grind, and how it is reported to feel. I’ve had many batches labeled red that are bright green and don't look like they’ve had even the slightest sun exposure and I’ve had greens that look brownish and oxidized. Same with the effects, it is usually all over the place. I’ve tried around a dozen or so of the most popular vendors over the past 6 years and usually get at least 4 different batches to try out. It is a total crap shoot, it is even difficult to get the same kratom from the same vendor months later. I’ve had a few good stints with a batch but eventually the vendor runs out and their new order from Indo isn't the same. They often just slap a name on the different batches and/or make all kinds of blends leading to no real way to know what you are getting.”
I was a teenager when the opioid epidemic was starting to really ramp up. Seemed like at the beginning all of my friends parents and grandparents had bottles of OxyContin just sitting in their medicine cabinets. I, like so many others, got hooked. Fast forward 15 years and I’m struggling to deal with life without opiates, I’m having a very hard time quitting. Enter Kratom, a plant related to the coffee tree indigenous to southeast Asia. I used this plant in small doses to help me kick my opiate habit. It worked. I’ve been clean of opiates for over 2 years now, and take kratom occasionally for recreational purposes. I have no dependency on it and only use it a couple times a week max	“It’s a safe plant in the coffee family, right? Never trust an article that glorifies a drug, I suppose is an important lesson there.”
“I was lost in the void. When I was 22, I decided it couldn’t get any worse $\dots$ By that time I lost many friends to the needle. By that time the damage was done. Hope was fading. I ordered some Kratom not thinking much of it, basically expecting nothing, since weed didn’t even help. Let me tell you this: I was blown away by the effects of this plant $\dots$ I could smile again. I could do what I was supposed to. I had more money in my pocket. I smoked less. Spent more time with my family. Started meditating, facing my anxiety, appreciating every day.”	“Being a first-year med student, I was still pretty naive to most of medicine and the gas station down the street from my school used to sell these powdered capsules by the front register. I was talking to the store owner 1 day asking what they were, and he gave me the talk about how they are basically a natural ground up coffee leaf supplement that give people similar energy to regular coffee except without most of the anxiety and jitteriness. This sounded like an absolute no brainer to me, and I felt like I finally found the best coffee substitute in the world that would both give me energy while simultaneously bypassing the side effects of regular caffeine. Of course, stupid me didn't research them at all until I had been taking them for a couple months already, so I had absolutely no knowledge about it being an opioid while I had been taking them every day for months.”
“[I’m]Not doing Ice; drinking only beer, kratom, tea and water of course.”	“I’m aware that there are plenty of alkaloid[s] in kratom and that th[ese] 2 alkaloids [mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine] are not the only one[s] that play a role in the effects, but it would be a start no? For example, the CBD business did it clean and professional. When you buy a CBD product, it’s written on it: x% of CBD and x% of THC, although it doesn’t mean too much because there are plenty of components in CBD. So why not do the same with kratom? It would give a rough idea of the strength and quality, and maybe we would start to have less bunk. I’m tired of buying always samples of all strains to find out what are the good strains this month. Because let’s be honest, 50% of Kratom around is bunk, and it’s always the magic quest to find the good one a specific time $\dots$ ”
“I broke my back when I was young and then my neck and shoulder a few years later and did every opiate I could find. Moved to Seattle where there’s more opportunity than ever, slipped a few times $..$ found kratom and it’s saved my life ever since. Just wanna say my relationship with kratom may be unhealthy $\dots$ but it’s helped me live on my own for the first time while holding down 2 jobs and riding BMX every day and doing some super rad shit I’d never be able to endure without some help.”
“Somewhere in there I started drinking a 1-2 whiskies most days a week for about a year before finding kratom. I rarely got drunk but started recognizing it was an everyday thing and needed to be addressed. I don't really remember when I first took kratom, but what I do remember was that when I started kratom, I thought it was a miracle drug and I instantly quit drinking. It was a drug that was a cumulation of the best parts of my some of favorite drugs: weed, coffee, alcohol, and Adderall.”	“I stumbled across this when researching 7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-HO). 7-HO is a chemical found in negligible amounts in actual kratom leaf, but it is about 7-10 times more potent than morphine. But since its technically in kratom already, extract companies could conceivably put more of it in the kratom products and say that it’s just a natural part of the kratom, so its ok. It turns out that is just what has been done according to this study. What this means is any kratom products, or leaf, could be “spiked” with more than natural levels of 7-hydroxymitragynine, the potent opioid and analgesic, since there is no oversight $\dots$ I am speculating, but I would guess that these practices or fear of these practices will form the basis for kratom being banned and scheduled.”
“I was at the end of my rope trying to deal with neuropathy using methadone. But like so many others, kratom saved the day, and my life.”