When the DEA filed its notice in early July, we built a tool to help anyone with a story create a public comment without needing a lawyer or lobbyist.

Then, we watched as the public docket came to life.

5,281 unique comments were written through our tool, from every state in the country. The youngest commenter was 18 and the oldest was 90.

For context: when kratom was first threatened with Schedule I in 2016, the public response was so overwhelming that the DEA withdrew its notice entirely. That response was roughly 23,000 comments. When our comment period closed, the docket had taken in just under 30,000.

Today, we want to share some of the insights from your stories.

93% of the people who used our tool take 7-OH for chronic pain, for getting off opioids or alcohol, or for anxiety and mood. 54% are managing pain. 23% are in recovery from something worse.

Why does that matter? The entire case for scheduling rests on the idea that this is a recreational drug being abused. 5,000 people just told a federal agency, in their own words and under their own names, that they are here for their backs and their knees and their sobriety. Very few of us are here for a buzz.

This is the chart I cannot stop thinking about.

Among former street opioid users, 76% say a ban would send them back to fentanyl or heroin. Counting other black market alternatives, 85% would buy from an illicit source.

These are people who already got out, many of whom wrote passionately about their lives being saved by 7-OH. A ban would send them back to the vice they worked so hard to escape.

What happens if 7-OH is banned? 46% would turn to black-market 7-OH. 41% said street opioids, in a market already flooded with fentanyl risk. 37% said prescription opioids. 34% would simply suffer without a replacement.

The HHS aren't the only ones getting flooded with comments lately.

I've been getting a ton of questions about Reset (our novel tolerance compound) and Bio Tabs (our 7-OH + Reset product). That got my attention and changed my plan for August 6th, which is the soonest day the DEA can act.

When this was announced in early July, my plan was simple and obvious: stop buying inventory, and offload product as quickly as possible.

Then I saw other brands in the industry dumping product and winding down, and I realized that when August came around the community wouldn't be left with many trustworthy options. Industry giants like Omega Extrax and 7OHMZ have already closed their doors. Nobody wants to be stuck with inventory. Which means that when the community most needs a vendor to place their final order, they're going to be stuck rolling the dice on smokeshop tabs with no labs.

So I did the opposite. I ordered more tabs in July than in any month in our history.

It is a genuinely strange feeling to be the only brand dropping new flavors in August, but that's where we're at. If I lose a bunch of money on this, so be it. TMK only exists because of you all, and it felt wrong to quietly wind down and leave you all hanging.

So......

Thank you for fighting for this community. For sharing your story, for commenting on the docket, and for being so damn resilient. The coming days and weeks are full of uncertainty, but I promise I'll continue doing my part to support the community and provide tabs you can trust for as long as I possibly can.

Jay from TestMyKratom.org