Kava Culture The Kava Flow - Kava vs K@ - Should K@ Be Sold in Kava Bars?

[Rick.Sanchez]

As you know I am agreement with you that K@ should not be sold in kava bars. I pretty much agree with 99% of what you say here... However, I think maybe you are exaggerating the dangers of K@ a little. It is true that it is an opioid, meaning it is an opiate receptor agonist (a full agonist as a matter of fact). But, there is some evidence that (for reasons I don't really understand) it has less addictive potential than other drugs in that category, and that the withdrawals are often less severe. It is true that people get addicted to it, and some people do have withdrawal symptoms. But the appeal of it--and the reason I believe it should be legal, whereas harder things should not--is that it seems to be milder and less harmful than stronger drugs on that continuum. At one point you say an overdose of K@ could possibly be fatal, but I'm not sure if that is true. Opiates like heroin are notorious for overdose deaths, of course, but as far as I know a K@ overdose probably won't kill anyone. A krat overdose will cause very unpleasant symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, etc. but is very unlikely to be fatal. Of course your point was the danger that people will confuse kava with K@ and take too high a dose: and I'm 100% with you on the need to educate people about that. (I'm reminded of a certain scene in the movie Pulp Fiction where a character confuses one substance for another...)

K@ is a partial agonist. I can give you a reference if you want some reading material as I know you're of the scientific persuasion. It's also not a very biased ligand. It has somewhat similar affinity for the kappa-opioid receptor which has sort of an opposing effect to mu-opioid agonists. That's probably partly why it's much less addictive than many other opioids. It also doesn't have many of the off-target toxicities associated with mu-opioid agonists.

It's also not entirely correct to call the plant an opioid because it has alkaloids that bind opioid receptors. Many many organisms contain opioids, but that doesn't make the organisms opioids. However, K@ preparations have some comparable activity to opioids, so it's not far fetched to call it an opioid.

I'm honestly tired of the K@ discussions (more like bashing). Isn't it against the rules anyways??

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

K@ is bad enough without being a "gateway" drug:
Reddit quittingkratom
2,372 subscribers

Can we please not spread more gateway myths

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

Right now I'm thinking back to all the fear mongering and evidence regarding kava's hepatotoxicity. You guys are essentially doing the same thing to K@. You're not wrong about many of your concerns, but it's a lot more complicated than you realize, and I'm honestly sick of all the misinformation and preconceived notions

 

[verticity]

K@ is a partial agonist. I can give you a reference if you want some reading material as I know you're of the scientific persuasion. It's also not a very biased ligand. It has somewhat similar affinity for the kappa-opioid receptor which has sort of an opposing effect to mu-opioid agonists. That's probably partly why it's much less addictive than many other opioids. It also doesn't have many of the off-target toxicities associated with mu-opioid agonists.

It's also not entirely correct to call the plant an opioid because it has alkaloids that bind opioid receptors. Many many organisms contain opioids, but that doesn't make the organisms opioids. However, K@ preparations have some comparable activity to opioids, so it's not far fetched to call it an opioid.

I'm honestly tired of the K@ discussions (more like bashing). Isn't it against the rules anyways??

According to this it is:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526544/
"Mitragynine itself was a full opioid agonist and primarily acted on μ- and δ-opioid receptors...[but some synthetic derivative of it is a partial agonist].."

Wikipedia also says "Both mitragynine and 7-HMG are selective full agonists of the μ-opioid receptor; 7-HMG appears to have higher affinity.[7]"
Although I can't find the full text of footnote 7, so I can't say if that is an accurate summary of what is in the reference.

On the other hand, I could have sworn that when I checked Wikipedia a couple months ago it said partial agonist, so I, and Wikipedia, could be wrong, since neither of us are authorities on this.

But wouldn't it be fair to say that "K@, the plant, contains chemicals which are opioids"?

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

According to this it is:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2526544/
"Mitragynine itself was a full opioid agonist and primarily acted on μ- and δ-opioid receptors...[but some synthetic derivative of it is a partial agonist].."

Wikipedia also says "Both mitragynine and 7-HMG are selective full agonists of the μ-opioid receptor; 7-HMG appears to have higher affinity.[7]"
Although I can't find the full text of footnote 7, so I can't say if that is an accurate summary of what is in the reference.

On the other hand, I could have sworn that when I checked Wikipedia a couple months ago it said partial agonist, so I, and Wikipedia, could be wrong, since neither of us are authorities on this.

But wouldn't it be fair to say that "K@, the plant, contains chemicals which are opioids"?

Yes, that is fair. But so does cheese. It doesn't really mean anything on it's own.

I'll try to find that reference for you. It's also possible that I'm mistaken on that, but I don't think so. Anyone that wants to learn the facts about K@, there's a very comprehensive review article that I can send you. Message me if you want it. We'll see how many people are actually interested in learning the facts. K@ is far from harmless, but it's been getting an excessively negative rap here. For many, myself included, it's been a godsend for pain management.

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

Look. Doesn't matter how safe or dangerous K@ is. What matters is the following:

-K@ is under DEA and FDA's investigations and it is currently illegal to sell it for the purpose of human consumption

In light of the above, it really doesn't matter whether K@ saves or ruins lives. All that matters is that it is in a much worse legal situation than kava and those who insist on using kava as a front for their K@ businesses are not doing kava any favours. In fact, their actions can result in kava being perceived as an illegal or dodgy substance. As we know, K@ vendors get blacklisted by financial institutions when the word "K@" appears on any of their statements. If kava bars become widely recognised as fronts for K@ we risk the same thing. Logic or science don't matter. Perception is everything. E.g. in NZ our local version of ebay bans kava sales despite kava's 100% legal status. Why? Because 10 years ago the owners heard it was a dangerous drug so they banned it and don't feel like changing this rule.

I'll agree with you there. What I don't agree with is the unnecessary and ill-informed bashing of K@ which will likely make things worse all the way around. I would be happy if the convo could be more about kava and less about how evil K@ can be

 

[verticity]

What @Henry said.

It seems like most, but maybe not all of us, agree that K@ can be a useful medicine, and most of us also agree that it is less harmful than other opioids. And as far as I can tell there is unanimity in favor of legalization of it. No one here is calling for it to be banned or scheduled.

But the point of this discussion on Kava Forums is, or should be, the question of whether it is appropriate to sell K@ in kava bars, and the consensus on that is clearly no.

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

Agreed, the actual usefulness of K@ is not the issue here. It is illegal for kava bars to sell it in any context, flat.

But here's a rather interesting question... Why are none of the K@ defenders the least bit concerned about safety? We've learned the value of proper testing for kava, providing positive identification, micro and heavy metal tests... Yet the SAME VENDORS who preach the necessity of such documentation for kava sell K@ with absolutely NO tests whatsoever!

How about it, @Bula Kava House @Tyler @nakamalathome - where's the COAs for your K@?

Considering there are virtually no overdoses that can be directly attributed to K@, I feel pretty confident in saying it has a good track record. The vast majority of ER visits that involve K@ are people who were also under the influence of other drugs.

I'd love to see the FDA impose strict regulations on K@, but sadly, they like to either ban things or do nothing at all.

I should also add that kava is very different in that certain cultivars and preparations can be toxic. This makes testing extremely important. To my knowledge, K@ does not have that issue. The main problem with illegitimacy in the K@ industry are vendors who sell "enhanced" products that are really just laced with pharmaceuticals such as tramadol analogues. Many of the overdoses involving K@ were in people who also had tramadol metabolites. Tramadol is extremely toxic.

Edit #2: I'll also add that K@ has a ceiling not unlike kava. If you're strictly consuming the leaf (not enhanced or fake extracts), there comes a point where consuming more is just unpleasant, causes intense nausea, dysphoria, etc. In this regard, it's somewhat self limiting. I personally find it much more enjoyable to consume as little as I can. Of course, however, there will always be stupid people who will do anything to get high...

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

At any rate, I'd love to quit dispelling the K@ fear mongering and get back to talking about kava.

 

[Groggy]

At any rate, I'd love to quit dispelling the K@ fear mongering and get back to talking about kava.

I'd just love to see it far, far away from kava. Safe to say when that happens, it will be business as usual around here.

 

[TheKavaFlow]

Yes, that is fair. But so does cheese. It doesn't really mean anything on it's own.

I'll try to find that reference for you. It's also possible that I'm mistaken on that, but I don't think so. Anyone that wants to learn the facts about K@, there's a very comprehensive review article that I can send you. Message me if you want it. We'll see how many people are actually interested in learning the facts. K@ is far from harmless, but it's been getting an excessively negative rap here. For many, myself included, it's been a godsend for pain management.

Hey Rick,

I want to respond to your concerns, but I'm on a phone right now and it'll be difficult to write it all out right now.

If you could post the article publicly here, I'll read it, and plenty of folks who don't post will be able to read it and be educated. It's a bit silly to say you have evidence of something and withhold it under the guise of "no one will actually read it". This forum is one where you can be guaranteed your content will be viewed and scrutinized (my video is a perfect example )

 

[TheKavaFlow]

@Rick.Sanchez Also, thanks for your comments. You're super knowledgeable about something many of us are not extremely familiar with. It definitely has shaped this discussion in the right direction.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

K@ isn't a party drug but it does have a kind of recreational value just as anything else does that reduces anxiety, uplifts spirits and calms nerves. It doesn't make sense that someone would have a "drink as much K@ as you can in 10 minutes" special because that would just result in a lot of unhappy and crappy feeling customers since taking too much at a time will make you feel sick or fall asleep. If that's really the case, I'm guessing there isn't enough K@ to produce any real effects and it's a sugary drink being promoted as an exotic tea.

 

[The Kap'n]

It seems like what the internet has done in this situation is instill the mindset that due to the FDA not emergency scheduling K@, it's now as legal to sell as coffee. I didn't often see too many kava bars at all posting twitter and instagram posts such as "college ID K@ specials". Nothing like that. Once the FDA stalled on emergency scheduling, it started to become more and more prevalent.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

I'm sure the negative attention probably prompted more of the legal high crowd to want to try it but I have no idea how long its sales have been sustaining kava bars. It would be nice if these threads would discuss what can be done (if anything) to discourage these bars from marketing K@ in the ways that they are rather than mostly bashing K@ or K@ users.

 

[Rick.Sanchez]

I think part of the problem is the fact that it's not legal to sell for human consumption. That creates all of this underhanded BS in the market. If they could provide detailed information on both products, how dosing differs, etc. then I think it would help substantially. As it currently stands, they probably won't openly provide detailed dosing info because they can't sell it for human consumption...

We don't know how safe it is to combine K@ and kava, and if people mix up the dosing between the two, they might be in for an unpleasant experience. I think that was a good point from @TheKavaFlow. I think education is key, but unfortunately, the current laws make it illegal for the kava bars to openly educate their customers. However, I'm not even sure how much the kava bars know about K@ outside of their profit margins.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Aside from the unpleasant experience, I doubt there is much more potential for health problems with mixing the two. They seem to be tarnishing the image of K@ the most by selling it in a way that indicates that it is an illicit substance and there is the potential for guilt by association for kava. Either way, a lot of it makes little sense. Since K@ is not like alcohol or kava where you start with a pre determined dosage and continue to go higher over the period of an hour or hours. The dosing needs to be much more precise and taking a little here and a little there is a good way to achieve less than stellar results. There is a ceiling to the effects and at a certain point less is more since more will make you feel sick and negate the positives. Not to mention taking it once per day or multiple times per day is going to cause tolerance and it will eventually not work as well. That is a practice that a severe chronic pain patient would be more likely to try but people in severe pain aren't going to stop by a bar for medication, anyway.