Not only that, while it relieved most of my pain from several conditions of the spine, ones I was told would require long term opiate use for the rest of my life, it also adequately treated the symptoms of Hepatitis C, like chronic fatigue, joint pain and a host of others common to those with this virus.

My doctor was amazed when he found out I was consuming kratom, a botanical he'd never heard of. He began to research it and concluded the same thing as I. Kratom is the most likely cause that my liver functions are normal. He's never seen this with any patient with such a high viral load, not to mention the Hepatitis-C, which also managed to give me stage three Cirrhosis.

Unheard of, you say? Needs more study, right?

Every kratom researcher to date has recommended more study on its potential benefits, but now the DEA comes along saying kratom presents an imminent danger to public health -- even though it cannot identify a single death associated with kratom use alone.

One of the points I'm hoping to make is that there are viable alternatives for pain sufferers that don't include dealing with the healthcare system. And because more patients are learning about kratom, costing the industry million upon millions of dollars, DEA has stepped in to ban kratom for its pharmaceutical buddies, using outright false information in the process.

For more on that, click here to see a letter to the DEA from the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness.

And if you haven’t already, sign the petition to the White House opposing the DEA action.

While we're not going to fix the influence money has on the healthcare industry in a day, a week or even years, one thing we can do is remove as much of our business from that industry as possible. If herbal remedies work as well or better, I strongly suggest we work to keep them legal. Western medicine doesn't have all the answers and it might serve the public interests if we begin to realize this.