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Faith Day created the Clean Kratom Wellness Center and continues to operate it.
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A protest at the Colorado State Capitol in September 2016, during a period when the Drug Enforcement Administration was advocating for labeling kratom as a Schedule I narcotic.
Rocky Mountain Kratom Network
The scientific name for the kratom plant is Mitragyna speciosa, with the "mitra" prefix reflecting the shape of the leaves, which are thought to resemble a bishop's mitre.
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The newest Herbal Imports is off the intersection of Kentucky Avenue and South Colorado Boulevard in Glendale.
Courtesy of Colorado Herbal Imports
The Denver-area resident who spoke at length to Westword warned that kratom isn't always benign, especially for people like him with addictive personalities. In his words, "Kratom ruined my life."
Even many proponents acknowledge that kratom isn't entirely risk-free. One example is Roxanne Gullikson, facility director for Portland, Maine's Greener Pastures Holisticare, which has developed a treatment program using kratom and marijuana to help people hooked on heroin to kick the habit. "Some people can become dependent on kratom for two simple reasons," she said in February. "One is that it works, and as humans, we're naturally attracted to anything that works. But it's also a plant in the coffee family, and coffee can have that effect, too."
Gullikson added, "If you don't use kratom mindfully, it does have factors where you can build a tolerance to it — so if you're using a lot of it, you need higher amounts. But I personally know people who take high doses of kratom every day, and it's done nothing but give them their lives back, because they're not using the pharmaceutical that turned them into addicts."
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