No. of Recommendations: 11
Trump Administration Backs Down on an Opioid Ban After Kratom Industry Lobbying
Health officials will now allow some levels of a powerful substance to remain in products marketed as natural. The change could help a G.O.P. donor facing wrongful death lawsuits.
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The executive, David Gabbay, and his wife, Maya, had been giving steadily to Republican candidates and campaign committees this year, reaching about $2.9 million on Oct. 12. Mac Haddow, the leader of an advocacy group funded heavily by the company Mr. Gabbay manages, said he went to the White House to plead his case.
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Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services, said the decision was based on science. “Neither litigation nor political contributions influenced H.H.S.’ recommendation,” she said.
LIE!
“They’re not doing this because the science supports it,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the medical director for the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University, who reviewed the H.H.S. justification for eschewing the ban. “They’re doing this because the industry and the lobbyists are basically writing the policy.”
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Dean Francis, president of the nonprofit End Kratom Addiction, said the revelation that powerful compounds were in natural kratom should force a reckoning akin to when cocaine was removed from Coca-Cola in 1929. “It’s just hard to believe that in America we would knowingly permit what we know to be a highly potent opioid to exist in any product,” he said.
Sure, Kratom is killing people, but it's such a great business! More addictive than cigarettes.
WTF.
