DEA Balks at Latest Kratom FOIA, refuses to provide further information

anthonyroberts Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 22, 2016

On August 30th, 2016, the DEA filed a notice of intent to temporarily designate Kratom (specifically its alkaloids mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine) as a schedule 1 drug. That notice listed 33 footnotes/references, but the actual references themselves were not included in the document itself.

Later that day, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all of the data and documents referenced in the 33 footnotes. Specifically, this is what I asked for:

“I am seeking copies of all documents referenced in the 33 footnotes contained within the DEA’s recently published notice of intent to temporarily place Mitragynine and 7-Hydroxymitragynine into Schedule I…

This is a fairly straightforward request. The DEA wants to make this stuff illegal, and I want the public to have access to the same information as the DEA. Tens of thousands of people signed the petition to keep kratom legal (over 100k in the first week), and as a result, the DEA opened up a comment period for the public to respond. But in order to respond fully, we need to know what we are responding to. This means we need to see the information referenced in their footnotes, which is the evidence they’re relying on to ban kratom.

The public has a right to see these documents.

In the case of some of the footnotes, I was asking for specific data they’d collected (from footnote (17 and 18, for example):

“…abuse of kratom/mitragynine [17] were analyzed by Federal, State, and local forensic laboratories.[18] According to data from the System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evidence (STRIDE) and STARLiMS (a web-based, commercial laboratory information management system), from January 2006 through March 2016, there were 293 records for kratom and/or mitragynine…”

In other words, I was asking for the actual data references in footnotes 17 & 18, respectively, i.e. if there are 293 records on kratom abuse from January 2006 through March 2016, and those records were considered when the DEA attempted to schedule kratom, then the public should be able to inspect them.

This is the most basic logic: in order for the public to respond (and build a case against the ban), we must have access to the same data as the DEA. This is why, in court, the plaintiff (or prosecution) is required by law to provide the defense with all of the evidence they’re using to make their case.

But the DEA has refused to provide us with their evidence. In fact, they provided absolutely none of the data they referenced. Instead, they provided documents that were already available (FDA press releases, copies of federal laws and regulations, etc…), none of which I didn’t already have a copy of; none of the ones that provide evidence that supports the DEA’s attempt to ban kratom.

In short, the DEA is trying to place kratom into schedule 1, and they are refusing to provide the data they are relying on to make this determination.

In other cases, the 33 footnotes referenced inter and intra-Agency memorandums:

“[Footnote 22] Email correspondences with analytical laboratories in Willow Grove, PA, Clearwater, FL, and Santa Rosa, CA.”

Ok, so here, I was asking for the actual correspondences that the DEA cites as evidence in their case to schedule kratom. And they failed to provide me with a single email.

The DEA wants to make kratom illegal, and they are completely relying on data and communications that they are outright refusing to provide. Why even list 33 footnotes if you won’t allow the public to have access to them?

Finally, I asked them to provide communications they may have had with pharmaceutical groups related to kratom:

In addition, I am seeking all emails and correspondances, both from within the DEA as well as between the DEA and outside sources (especially communications to and from pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical trade groups, and pharmaceutical lobbying groups, or their representitives), that mention Kratom, Mitragynine, and/or 7-Hydroxymitragynine….”

They neither confirmed nor denied the existence of those records.

The bottom line:

The DEA wants to emergency schedule kratom. But they won’t provide the data. They won’t allow the public to mount an informed response. They’re opening a comment period without providing enough information to reply. And they’re doing it by claiming that we the people have no right to see it.

I disagree…