Today is Veterans Day, honoring approximately 17.6 million living veterans in the United States. And some of them are using this time to call on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to end his efforts to ban 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) — a naturally occurring compound in the kratom plant.
Most politicians love to call themselves champions for veterans. You’ll see the photo ops, speeches about sacrifice, and endless talk about “America’s heroes.”
Every Veterans Day, elected officials will forcefully highlight how we need to put veterans first.
The truth, as they say, is nothing like the brochure. Far from putting veterans first, the federal government has long been one of our biggest obstacles. Veterans are losing access to care, income, and dignity because of deliberate decisions made by government agencies.
When I came home from Iraq in 2005, I thought the hardest part was behind me. I was wrong. I brought back more than tough memories. I also brought back chronic pain that’s never left.
Like a lot of guys in my unit, I came back with injuries that never fully healed. The pain’s always there, humming under the surface. Some mornings it’s a dull ache; other days it feels like someone’s driving a nail into my spine.
You learn to live around it, but you never forget it’s there.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of U.S. military veterans today sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., calling on him to end his efforts to ban 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) — a naturally occurring compound in the kratom plant — and instead adopt a science-based approach to regulate it responsibly.
The letter, signed by nine veterans under the banner of Veterans to Save 7-OH, highlights the impact of 7-OH for former service members managing chronic pain, PTSD, and recovery from opioid dependence. The veterans describe 7-OH as “life-changing,” citing its role in helping them manage pain, regain stability, and rebuild their lives after service.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART) today released the
following statement in response to misleading and incomplete media reports surrounding a 7-
hydroxymitragynine (7-OH):
“The misinformation circulating about 7-OH misrepresents both the science and the safety record
of this compound,” Jeff Smith, PhD, National Policy Director for HART. “The only clinical
study cited by the FDA comes from a researcher funded by the Global Kratom Coalition, a group
actively fighting 7-OH products that have cut into their market share. That unreviewed,
unpublished study sought to demonstrate harm by injecting 7-OH directly into mice’s
bloodstream, even though humans consume it orally. Anything can be harmful if injected, eat a
chocolate bar and you’re fine; inject it and you’ll die. The study was biased and misleading.”
Source: Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust Excerpt: Federal Officials Push Ban While Ignoring Science and Consumer Voices Washington, DC — Three months
About Gov. DeWine’s suggestions to crack down on kratom and 7-OH (a compound made from kratom), all I can say is: this is absurd. 7-OH is used by millions of Americans to help with chronic pain (I use it to help with pain from fibromyalgia). There have not been any indications of a public health crisis. The FDA’s own database, FAERS, shows 37 “incidents” of any kind, nationwide, in the entire history of 7-OH. If that’s dangerous, then coffee, energy drinks, and half the medicine aisle are next.
When I found 7-OH, recovery suddenly felt possible. I could think about my future instead of just surviving the present. I went back to work, to my family, and to living my life instead of barely surviving.
This ban won’t save lives. It will put people like me back in the grip of opioids or push us toward unsafe street drugs. Florida should fix this mistake by regulating 7-OH instead of outlawing the only thing that worked when everything else failed.
Washington, D.C. — The Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART) today released statements from leading organizations, policy experts, and advocates opposing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposal to schedule 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH). These voices, spanning physicians, veterans, fiscal watchdogs, youth advocates, consumer choice groups, and policy think tanks, warn that prohibition would cause more harm than good, repeating the failures of the War on Drugs while cutting off promising avenues for public health.
Florida officials have enacted an emergency scheduling of 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), a compound derived from the kratom plant, prompting a sharp rebuke from the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART). The organization claims the decision is a politically motivated action that ignores scientific data and is driven by the influence of the kratom industry.
