Did you ever smoke? I did, for a long time (too long). For the first few years, I deluded myself with the idea that I could “stop anytime I wanted,” though never really tested that theory. Then I did test it and failed, repeatedly and regularly, for years. The reasons to quit were constant and obvious, the reason to postpone really doing it were fluid and based on how addicted I was and whatever I could come up with in order to justify another pack or week. “Tough week at work coming up, something due. Would be stupid to quit before that,” was a regular excuse. It was always empty, but that’s how addiction works.
It seems odd to think about smoking as an addiction, and to admit that I was an addict, but I was. I’ve had plenty of vices, but just one addiction and it was nicotine.
When the time came for me to quit, when I got serious about it, I tried everything, only for real this time. The gum bought me some more time between cigarettes, but not much more. Cold turkey was just never going to work.
Then came vaping. That was a game-changer.
The last cigarette I had was the day I got married in 2015, with the exception of few right after my mother died a few years later. I remember thinking there was some kind of oasis in a pack of Marlboros. All there ended up being was the realization that cigarettes taste like garbage, something that could have saved me thousands had I realized it earlier.
But that was it for me and smoking, 10 years now. I quit vaping after a couple of years when I simply decided I didn’t want to anymore. Quitting that was easy, relatively speaking, since I had stepped-down to a “vape juice” with no nicotine, meaning quitting was literally breaking the habit not an addiction.
That success makes me very sensitive to anyone trying to ban vaping or otherwise effectively regulate it out of existence. I know it can be used to quit smoking, which should be the goal.
Now, imagine if there were something similar for opioid addiction – a step-down product to help wean someone with a problem off the poison they’re addicted to.
Actually, there is.
It’s called Kratom, “a Southeast Asian plant with opioid-receptor mediated effects,” according to the National Institutes of Health. In the past few years, a Kratom derivative called 7-OH, which requires a much smaller dose for the same effect, has become popular among consumers, especially those seeking to escape the throes of addiction.
Having lived in the heart of the opioid problem in Baltimore, I count anything that could help people out of that hell as a win for society. So, why, if it helps people satiate the receptors in their brain that drive an opioid addiction, are some states moving to ban it? Would it not make more sense to use it and study it to see if can be harnessed even more than initial studies and anecdotal evidence suggests it can be to break the chokehold of addiction? Of course it does.
Sadly, that’s not how a lot of government works – what makes common sense can have difficulty in catching on, as common sense isn’t nearly as common as it should be.
They tried to ban vaping (and still are), Methadone is still controversial in spite of its long record of adding in fighting heroin dependence, and now 7-OH could be the sharpest arrow in the quiver against something that claims more lives every year than the entirety of the Vietnam War and a Secretary of Health and Human Services is overseeing its potential quashing.
Robert Kennedy Jr. is an addict himself, having suffered opioid dependence for 14 years. You would think that he would understand the hell of addiction and the importance with having as many options as possible to get out of it. You’d be wrong. He’s behind the push to ban it in Florida, Ohio, in partnership with the DeSantis and DeWine administrations – not exactly the president’s best friends. It’s a curious strategy that evokes memories of the vaping crackdown, led by a rogue HHS Secretary at the expense of President Trump’s base.
I don’t know what RFK used to kick his addiction, but I bet it wasn’t the first thing he tried. It rarely is. To limit or eliminate any option is, honestly, stupid.
That’s why I don’t understand why Secretary Kennedy would be maneuvering to limit options in the fight against what is the American plague. Unless, of course, he’s been effectively lobbied by the traditional Kratom industry, which has actively pushed for bans on its new popular competitor, which is impacting its own market share.
HHS should be studying 7-OH, not trying to ban it, and leave adults with as many options as possible to free themselves from the life-threatening prison in which they find themselves. Shame on Kennedy for doing anything but that.
Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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