Mitragyna speciosa, also known as Kratom, is a plant that grows in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. I will say that it is definitely an opiate. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.... The two ingredients in Kratom that are responsible for the opioid like effects are mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. While structurally different from morphine they still act on opioid receptors in the brain, like a key fitting into a lock, which in my opinion makes Kratom an opiate.

I have become obsessed with the idea that my addiction was the result of uninformed drug use which, over time, wired my brain for addiction. I hypothesized that if I wired my brain into addiction there was no reason to think I couldn't wire my brain out of addiction. In previous blogs I have covered the many things I did to achieve that goal. I believe it worked but how to test that? Kratom. I was an opiate addict (heroin) so Kratom seemed to be a good, legal way of reintroducing opiates into my life to see if it would send me on a downward spiral back into addiction or if, in fact, I was successful in rewiring my brain. I would just like to first say that self-experimentation has become an obsession of mine and that I cannot recommend anyone try this. For me, I had to try it. I had to know. It was an itch I had to scratch but the first order of business was to understand Kratom and what it does in the brain. I believe that so much of the battle to make drugs work for me instead of against me comes from understanding them. Putting any drug into your body without understanding it is like going kayaking without a paddle. I believe that not having a full understanding and respect for the drugs I consumed was one of the main factors that lead to my addiction. So here we go let's get into Kratom.

Kratom contains oxindol and indol alkaloids. The two ingredients in Kratom that are responsible for the opioid like effects are mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. Mtragynine is an indol alkaloid which makes it fairly unique because indol alkaloids are usually not opiates. Mitragynine contains two parts, hydrophobic and hydrophilic, and the three dimensional structure they create is similar to morphine which allows it to bind to opioid receptors in our brain. There are some key differences from morphine however. The mitragynine cannot bind to every type of opioid receptor which gives Kratom less potency than morphine, heroin, oxycodone, etc. Kratom also differs from morphine in how it effects electrical activity in the brain. The nucleus accumbens is a region of the brain that has been closely linked to addiction. A morphine dose of 15 mg per kg given to mice vs an 80 mg per kg dose of Kratom extract showed key differences between the two. Kratom does not show activity in the nucleaus accumbens whereas morphine does. This may suggest it has less of a potential to become addictive. Another key difference is that Kratom does not seem to depress the respiratory system like morphine which would seem to suggest it is far safer. In my mind these differences would make it an almost perfect stepping stone for an opioid addict to rid themselves of the physical dependence to opioids. I wish I knew about this when I was hopelessly addicted to heroin. That being said I do not believe it to be a silver bullet by any stretch of the imagination and I also believe that daily use at high doses will lead to many of the same problems associated with more well-known opioids like heroin.

My goal was to find a minimum effective dose. A dose that I could use that would give me the positive effects while keeping unwanted side effects to a minimum. After I found that dose then the question was “how frequently could I use it before I started experiencing unwanted side effects?” I found that 2.4 - 3 grams of Kratom no more than twice in a day and no more than one day a week was a dose that gave me positive results with no side effects. I want people to keep in mind that this is what I found best for myself, everyone is different and will have different experiences. Once I had found a dose and frequency of use that would allow me to experience the "good" effects of opiates while mitigating the negative effects I was able to really gauge what I was getting out of the "high". Since I first got strung out on heroin over a decade ago it has been the bane of my existence. A roller coaster ride of getting clean, relapse, detox, feeling better, getting my life together, relapse, detox... over and over and over. The entire time the fantasy I had in my head was the ability to use opiates once and a while without getting hooked. The whole time I had a head full of 12 step which told me that was impossible. In hindsight I believe this lead me to some pretty poisonous thoughts. I put opiates on a pedestal as the ultimate high. A high so good that if god had made anything better he kept it for himself. I also turned opiates into a monster in my own mind. The thing I had to avoid at all costs because if I didn't I would die. Shedding those misconceptions and finding Kratom, an opiate that I could in fact use once a week without experiencing negative consequences allowed me to really focus on the high without any preconceived notions or guilt. What I found that amazed me was that the opiate high was... sort of "blah". Nothing to write home about.

Every time I have done one of these self-experiments I find something totally unexpected. The results of this Kratom experiment showed me that most of what I believed about opiates was just wrong. A mix of bad information, placebo, and nocebo effects. Shedding the baggage of 12 step and my past experiences allowed me to see the wizard behind the curtain for what it really was. Opiates are not bad. Opiates are not good. They are a tool. A tool which if used improperly can lead to unwanted outcomes such as addiction. Even though I found that I can use Kratom once a week I don't . I don’t because it's just not that interesting anymore. This wasn't what I expected but it was a pretty cool result non the less. I found my so called "holy grail" and realized that it was just a wooden cup that I could use once in a while to hold water... nothing more and nothing less. The fact that the FDA is trying to Schedule 1 Kratom is absolute insanity.

Sources:

http://jaoa.org/article.aspx?articleid=2094342

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813050/

https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/pressannouncements/ucm595622.htm

Hamelton's Pharmacopia