Global demand for kratom has exceeded Indonesia's ability to produce decent kratom during the wet season.
Maybe. All we really know, is that
both demand and production are way up over the past few years.. Hard to say, without real hard facts & statistics.. I'd be very interested to know: How much kratom was sold and consumed in the USA, last year? Who is keeping track -
the AKA? Does anyone know if AKA has released ball-park figures on USA consumption? I've heard "millions of users" ??
We DO know a few things... There ARE now
over 200 Online Vendors selling kratom, mostly part-time.. And many, many Retail outlets across the USA. So based on numbers, for # users we can estimate probability of things like safety issues, contamination, and... Salmonella. The FACT we've had only 100 (?) cases of reported illness, supposedly due to kratom... over let's say the past 2 years? Should tell us that bulk powder kratom is relatively safe. That's been the basis for my position, on many debates I had with Nerds on reddit last year. Kratom has a proven safety profile given it's known history.
We DO know that a few "Large Vendors" have publicly stated recently, they are doing a voluntary discard, of sub-par product.. Before selling the product! - A few examples I know of:
SoCal Herbal Remedies reported this on their Facebook page. Socal is dumping a huge quantity, for their own quality control - they are NOT involved with any FDA recall afaik .. Also last week,
Herbaldom posted on their Blog - they are also dumping product, and Herbaldom IS a vendor known for high quality leaf.. This vendor also, imports large shipments of product, and we can assume
many tons of leaf could be involved. There is NO information connecting Herbaldom, with any FDA recall!!
However - Other large vendors like Herbal Salvations, Soap Korner, Kraken, and
Triangle (a company connected to
Gaia Ethnobotanical.) - have either shut down ordering recently, and or, been listed by FDA or CDC as being connected in some manner with proven contaminated product. We have removed most of the (above) companies from the monthly
Vendor List.
There are still many good vendors,
open for business, testing any NEW product before selling the product on their website... Botanical Bunny, Canopy Botanicals, Fresh Alternative, Herbal-RVA, Kats Botanicals, Kratom-OG, Kraydo Organics, Okie Kratom, Oregon Kratom, Precious Mitre, Treasure House
