Answer: None of them!

Cocaine is like cocaine, heroin is like heroin, and neither of them is anything like kratom—but CBS news and this hacky story by Kristine Johnson won't let little things like thorough research get in the way of a good drug-scare story.

Quick background on kratom, which The Stranger wrote about last year: People have been chewing kratom leaves and brewing them in teas in Southeast Asia for centuries. The leaf has mild psychoactive properties that can be stimulating or sedating, depending on how much is taken, what strains are taken, etc. There have been reports of chemical dependence (as there are about caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol) but not a single reported overdose death in all of human history—which puts kratom well above alcohol on the safety scale. Thailand banned the leaf in the 1940s, but a 2010 report by the Thai government admitted the ban was mostly about trying to profiteer off the opium market and suggested that, after decades of "unproblematic use" by Thai citizens, the ban should be lifted.

A few years ago, kratom hit the US market as a mild intoxicant and, perhaps more importantly, a legal and inexpensive means for opiate addicts to transition off harder drugs and control their withdrawal symptoms. Some lazy politicians and journalists who don't know anything about kratom, but know that "drugs = evil" is an easy way to score points with their constituencies, have seized on kratom as a phantom menace. There is no robust evidence for this. But there needs to be more research about it—research that will be very difficult to fund if the lazy journalists and politicians have their way and whisk it into the prohibition bin without seriously considering its benefits and drawbacks.

Back to the idiots at CBS news:

Kratom is sought after for its euphoric and more intense effects, and is considered one of the most dangerous drugs currently for sale in the United States.

What? By whom? Did they forget the part about zero overdose deaths in the history of mankind, and the fact that alcohol kills tens of thousands of people every year? And legal prescription drugs, which also result in overdose deaths, are far more dangerous than kratom. CBS does not cite a source for this wild claim. If kratom were a person, it could sue for libel.

The Drug Enforcement Agency recently placed kratom on its list of “Drugs and Chemicals of Concern,” a watch list of substances that government chemists are studying.

That's partially true. The DEA expressed both social and medical concerns about kratom—but there has been no talk of independent DEA research that I'm aware of.

The agency's social concerns were based on Thai government reports that kratom makes young Muslim militants in the long-rebellious southern countryside "more bold and fearless and easy to control." It based its medical concerns on a seven-page gloss, written in 1975, by a doctor who talked to a handful of rural kratom users who had other major health problems including heavy alcohol use and schizophrenia.

Now that the Thai government has admitted its original motives for prohibition were mostly financial, and is moving towards legalization, the DEA—and the lazy politicians and journalists—won't have much of an argument left.

A state lawmaker in Massachusetts has filed a bill to outlaw kratom.

“You could get into an automobile high on kratom, drive down the road and crash and kill someone,” said Vinny deMacedo.

Now we're in snake-eating-its-own-tail territory. Reporters have been making histrionic, unfounded claims about the dangers of kratom, which politicians seize on to justify moves to prohibit it, which other journalists then seize on to make further histrionic claims about kratom. The few research scientists actually working on the issue are rarely, if ever, quoted.

Who are the sources for this over-the-top CBS story? Johnson restricts herself to the state representative (who appears to know little), a few anonymous users who say they've gotten "a little buzz," one woman who says she was addicted, and a few people who regularly appear in the press to tout the rehab industry.

For another, more reasonable take on kratom, see this interview in Scientific American.

Footnote: Johnson has been nominated for two Emmy awards—which only reinforces my suspicions about awards.