When you step back and look at this propaganda battle from a business perspective, it is all about competition for market share.

The pharmaceutical industry has legislated and -- with its growing affluence -- bought its way into a position whereby drugs are the only permissible medicine for any physical complaint. This has all happened in the past 100 years. Before that, most Americans used herbs, herbal teas,poultices, and tinctures of herbs to treat their own medical issues.

How Is This Switch to Pharmaceutical Drugs Serving Our Health? The Results Don't Look Good

In the past 100 years we have forgotten much of what we knew about herbs and how to wisely use them. We have moved to the cities and lost the cultural familiarity bred by thousands of years of using plants as our medicines.

We Have Been Taught to Fear Herbs, Germs, Raw Milk & Our Own Immune System

This is not to imply that there is no benefit to the standardization and enforced dependability that some regulation can bring to the table. It is merely mentioned to point out that we, as a nation, have lost our self-reliant, self-responsible approach which is useful when dealing with herbs.

We now generally assume that products that make it onto store or pharmacy shelves are safe, which -- as we have seen -- is not always the case.

The assumption that the FDA is "on our side" and there to protect us from danger is itself dangerous. The FDA approval of unsafe drugs can be bought in various ways.

Setting up the FDA as the drug watchdog for safety can present another obstacle when a "new dietary ingredient" arrives on the scene. The FDA can force the new herb to jump through extensive hoops to receive approval -- or they can refuse approval.

Many appointed officials and advisers to the FDA have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. This creates a massive conflict of interest, making America's health less important than pharmaceutical industry profits.

Entering the Media Gauntlet Poses More Hoops to Jump Through

It doesn't serve the public's need for "fair and balanced" reporting of all sides of an issue to use inflammatory reports that "In places where it is available, kids are ending up in the hospital after using it(kratom)."

Yes, and don't kids end up in emergency rooms a lot more frequently from drinking too much beer -- or taking Mom's prescription meds? These can be fatal and frequently are, but no similar campaigns are underway to remove the dangerous pharmaceutical medications that are killing about 100,000 Americans every year, based on one very conservative estimate by the Journal of the American Medical Association a few years ago.

Kratom, like that other demonized herb, marijuana, has never killed anyone and is unlikely to, as medical research has shown.

What is really shocking is the license the TV news reports take in pulling no punches to paint this innocent herb as a public health calamity in the making. This would be ludicrous for those of us who know and like this herb, if it wasn't such a departure from what media claims to be: Fair and Balanced.

Why Are the Media Automatically On the Attack?

To start an a news article with the lead-in. "It's been called "the legal form of heroin", rather sets the tone and lets us know we're in for some Yellow Journalism on steroids. Religion has been called, "the opiate of the people", but would devotees of religion find that factual...or slanted?

The glaring irony of reports like this that claim to be concerned about children getting their hands on kratom, is that this type of reporting guarantees that underage kids will become aware and approach the herb with the reckless abandon that will quite possibly send them into the ER with nausea and malaise, which will fuel more frantic cries from the media. "See, we told you so!"

Meanwhile, perhaps a million adults are quietly using the herb responsibly, but little mention is made of that reality.

Instead, "experts" on drugs are brought in from the sheriff's department, the state Office of Narcotic Drugs, and local rehab clinics -- all of whom have a financial conflict of interest that clouds their judgement.

You might think the media, the sheriff, local politicians and doctors would be glad to see heroin and opioid drug addicts kicking their habit with kratom's help -- but you would be wrong.

Just ask yourself, "Who is one of the largest buyers of TV and other media advertising?" Do you see that whole chains of TV stations that are dependent on ads for pharmaceutical drugs might be hesitant to say anything that might displease their best customer?

In a war for market share, Truth is the first casualty. (my apologies to Aeschylus, ancient Greek philosopher.)







