First, why kratom?

Aren’t I prolific this month? Crazy what not drinking and smoking does. Anyways, kratom. I speak very positively about kratom on this website, unlike other euphoriants like hard opiates, amphetamines, gabapentinoids, or even alcohol. Now personally, if you need them medically or can handle them addiction-wise, hard drugs are going to be better, hands down. But for everybody else (most people) you’re rolling the dice with a really painful, expensive, and potentially deadly addiction. Kratom only has a half issue with being a painful addiction, but it’s less painful than everything else I’ve ever been addicted to, dirt cheap and has an insanely low chance of being deadly. If I had to pick something to withdrawal from again, I’d pick kratom without second thought. As in the only time I had to withdrawal from it, I purposefully made myself physically dependent on it so I could replace fentanyl, I essentially used it to ween myself off opiates. And I know people who did the same thing using Kratom with meth and coke. Kratom can replace pretty much every hard drug with infinitely less risk than all of those hard drugs.

As far as safety profile (aka the chance you die off of it), there are very few kratom deaths every year, and when they do happen it’s usually in conjunction with other drugs. However, if you’re using it really wrong (and I mean REALLY wrong), it definitely has the potential to kill. I’ll go into the death potential more in later sections. But for the most part, the risks of kratom come more with long term heavy, daily use than using it every once and a while.

What does it do?

Kratom is made of many different compounds that all do slightly different things, kinda like weed, but there are two main ones, Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. These work by stimulating the u-opioid receptors and binding to the rest of them, which results in little to no respiratory depression and a downer effect. The little bit of respiratory depression it does exhibit is cancelled out in lower doses by stimulating your norepinephrine and seratonin receptors, giving it a stimulant function. There are other compounds, but they matter far less. In short, take a little bit of kratom to get speedy, take a bunch if you wanna nod out a bit, somewhere in between for a drunkish feeling.

What kratom should I get?

Kratom is like weed, as in it has strains with varying effects. Honestly, most strains feel pretty similar, there’s not a massive difference between Bali and Indo and Maenga Da. There is quite a bit of variation in the color of the kratom though. There are 3 main types.

Red is your opiate kratom, if you’re a downer person or are worried about overstimulation, this is the kratom for you. Red has more opiate action, less stimulant action. It’s the kratom you take for pain, or when you just wanna have a chill day. I prefer this for high doses as well.

White is speedy, if you like stimulants, this is the kratom for you. It still provides pain relief, but you have a lot more energy. This is the kratom you take in low doses and drink some coffee with in the morning when you have a bunch of shit to do. The stimulation is generally a little smoother and less pronounced than caffeine, but when mixed with caffeine definitely has some of the energy of amphetamines.

Green is what you grab when you can’t decide. If you only plan on buying one type of kratom, this is probably the one you want to get. It’s just somewhere in between red and white, it’s pretty cozy and you can’t really go wrong with green. Kratom is dose dependant, so take a little for speedy, take a lot for opiate.

Now, something you all should know, is I’d generally avoid extracts. One of the great things about Kratom is the nausea. You’re eating a lot of plant material when you take kratom, and it can make your tummy a bit upset. The thing that makes this so great is that if you’re eating/drinking powder, you will vomit long before you get to a lethal dose. Like you’d have to eat a solid pound of plant material if you wanna die, and it tastes like ass so you probably won’t. However, extracts do not have this feature, and they rarely have instructions on how much to take. On top of this, some extracts are laced with ODSMT, a popular opiate research chemical and what Tramadol converts to in your body. This mixture of risks have killed people before, whether it was them being laced, or taking WAY too much kratom because it’s really easy to take too much when you just get an unlabeled bag of extract. There are good extracts out there, I’ve definitely had a few that I loved, but generally speaking it’s just not worth the risk when straight powder or capsules do not have this issue. On top of this, most extracts cost more for one dose than a few ounces of kratom. If you really want an extract, it’s not that hard to make one yourself and that’s what I’d suggest doing. If you're too lazy to do that (valid) look on Reddit for reviews.

How much should I take?

If it’s your first time taking kratom, take 2.5-3.5gs. This will put you right in between being sped out by it and being nodded out by it. Less if you’re more interested in the stimulant properties of kratom, more for pain relief and downer effects. Effects should last about 4-6 hours.

.5-2 grams – Stimulant

2.5-4g – Drunk

4.5g+ - Opiate

I bought powder instead of capsules, how the fuck do I take this shit?

Many kratom people will just do toss and wash. I do not suggest this for many reasons, the biggest one being that it’s absolutely fucking disgusting and is liable to make you throw up from flavor or sensory overload. Kratom doesn’t dissolve in water, so you end up just eating powdery mud. Ew. It also makes you less mindful of your kratom habits, toss and wash is how you end up in Kratom hell (more on that later)

I suggest that you treat kratom like matcha. Throw it in some milk and shake it up! The fat in the milk will make it break down better, and the milk covers up a lot of flavor. You can make a pretty decent kratom tea if you just replace the matcha powder from a matcha recipe. Orange juice is also an option, tastes like shit but could potentiate the kratom because kratom does better when broken down in acid.

Speaking of breaking it down in acid, red bubble tech is sick and if you want to get the most out of your kratom, is the way to do it. You break down your kratom in water with an acid in it, most people will use lemon juice. You want a lot of acid in there, rather overdo it than underdo it. Then you throw that in the freezer. After a few hours, there will be a “red bubble” at the top of it and that’s when it’s ready. This substantially boosts how much kratom you get.

What’s Safe to Mix With It?

Kratom doesn’t cause any major respiratory depression, so it is safe to mix with most downers and it’s more of a question of if you actually want to mix it. IMO, the two best mixes with it are benzos and/or DXM. Benzos also cause very little respiratory depression, so that isn’t much of a concern, but they pretty consistently boost Kratom euphoria. Unlike opiates, benzos doesn’t numb you to the euphoria caused by kratom, and because Kratom doesn’t really cause respiratory depression it’s not a mix that you have to worry about. DXM is also really good, it will make your kratom feel more like a real opiate and DXM also doesn’t really cause any major respiratory depression. Alcohol is technically safe, but generally doesn’t really add anything to the experience except making you vomit a ton so I wouldn’t really recommend it.

As far as stimulants go, there is no danger in mixing kratom with stimulants. Could get a bit overstimulated if you have a particularly tweaky kratom, but there is pretty much no risk in it. Personally, I love kratom and coffee, it's more effective than amphetamine for me. I've also had kratom with amphetamine and ritalin before, both were pretty good. Kratom dulls out the high feeling you get from stimulants, so I wouldn't really recommend it as a recreational thing,. But if amphetamine makes you feel too anxious or tweaked out, kratom can be a solution in those situations.

Kratom Hell

I’ve taken care to make it clear that Kratom isn’t 100 percent safe. Sure, it’s pretty hard to get to Kratom Hell, but it’s possible. If you’re going to be taking kratom all day everyday, I suggest you take care to make sure you’re taking less than 20gs a day, or less than 8 grams per dose. Kratom is still fully capable of making you physically dependent, and at high doses it is opiate withdrawal lite. Still not as bad as other withdrawals, but it’s definitely a risk! Another reason to avoid taking a ton everyday is long term liver toxicity. Kratom can be hard on the liver in high amounts over a long period of time in high doses, and can start causing issues with it if you’re abusing it long term. If you’re abusing it, you will get the yellow skin color that comes with opiate abuse/a weakened liver.

Another path of Kratom Hell is poly drug use. Kratom is a lot safer to mix with things than opiates, and honestly feels way better to mix with than actual opiates. There are a lot of mixes that are fine, but the one I would say to absolutely NEVER do is mix recreational dose gabapentinoids (specifically Phenibut) with kratom. One thing you will find about both of these drugs is that they’re very finnicky, if you want to get the high consistently, there are a bunch of major habit changes you have to take on. This usually isn’t a huge deal if it’s just one or the other, but the mix of the two is liable to take over your life. Kratom and Phenibut is a mix that is hard to get right, but when you finally do it, it’s too good. I found myself chasing the dragon on this for a little bit, spending significant amounts of time making sure everything was right, setting up a million timers throughout the day, pretty much never eating so everything would hit harder. There is a lot more that goes into dragon chasing with these more finnicky mixes than “take higher doses”. So you just slowly shift into your entire life centering around making the mix work. This is my lived experience, and the lived experience of many other people who discovered the two drugs at the same time. Seriously, don’t mix it with high dose Gabapentinoids, the mix of the two is just particularly destructive habit wise.

Have fun y'all, if you have any specific kratom questions feel free to pop them in the comments and I'll answer. If I don't know the answer off the top of my head, I'll research it for you