This should probably go into castitas.com but I feel like writing on my main blog. Kratom (known as ketum in Malaysia) is a leaf with psychoactive properties, confirmed by this scientific article. I have been searching for it for quite some time, it’s sold in certain parts of Malaysia (especially in the rural cultivation community) in bags of homemade prepared liquid ketum.
Unfortunately, the Malaysian government decided to ban ketum a few years back and the only ones available are highly dubious and sans quality control. To buy kratom online is illegal in Malaysia, which is really unfortunate.
It is rather ironic that I have to travel all the way to Amsterdam to experience a psychoactive plant that is indigenous to MY OWN COUNTRY.
Kratom (ketum) is available in most smartshops in Amsterdam for about Euro 15. This is not your garden variety kratom – much like salvia divinorum, it has been enhanced – this is a 5x extract of kratom. This means that the liquid concentrate is 5x more potent than what is naturally available. You can perhaps use cuttings of the tree to grow the tree.A great way to describe kratom potentiators is that they basically “spice things up” – pushing the biochemical reactions this all-natural plant causes throughout the body to even higher levels, ramping up its potency, it’s bioavailability and its duration in the body to heights that it wouldn’t have been able to reach all on its own. Before we even get down to the best kratom for energy, it’s important to understand that Kratom is a natural herb that does not work in the same way to everyone.
I have to be honest here…I’m rather disappointed with the kratom/ketum experience. I had expected too much of an opiate high due to its properties. I was told to buy kratom and take half a bottle by the smartshops but I ingested the entire bottle on an empty stomach. I was expecting something like DHC (dihydrocodiene) or at least plain old codeine. Kratom is not like that at all.
I started feeling the effects at T +0:30 (30 minutes after dosing for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature of trip reports) – a general feeling of well being and (surprisingly) serotonin release. It doesn’t feel like traditional opiates (e.g. the nodding off, itchiness and other miscellaneous properties) but more like certain opioid analogues.
It should be noted that the effects of kratom is VERY MILD. I shouldn’t have written that in caps (and bolded it to boot, FML) lest people get the wrong impression and think that it’s strong. It’s not. Go in without expectations, consume with an open mind and let the ketum experience wash over you.
…just don’t expect too much.
I can describe the feeling further to those who are familiar with recreational pharmaceuticals. It feels like 200 mg of tramadol. Tramadol is another substance in the happy opiate family but it produces none of the classic recreational opiate subjective feelings. It’s a bit of a stimulant combined with a general sense of well being.
…and that is essentially what kratom (ketum) gives you. It releases serotonin (which won’t go down well with fundamentalist opiate users) and gives you a happy sense of well being for about 4 hours. You’ll feel a significant bit of nausea while coming up and crashing but it’s nothing a bit of cannabis won’t fix.
I truthfully am more than a little disappointed with the kratom experience. What irks me the most is that I had to travel thousands of miles to consume a psychoactive plant that is native to my country. -_-
Additional info site:
The problem with getting used to taking opiates is that you will eventually experience opiate withdrawal symptoms once you stop abruptly.
Man, you make yourself a good reference when it comes to neurophysiology studies!
Heh! I love doing it – I felt like a kid in a candystore when I was in one of Amsterdam’s smartshops. 😀
I do wish I’ve gone earlier back in the ’90s when stuff like 2C-B (Nexus) was legal though. Now that would have been super awesome. 🙂
reading this makes me a washed with a sense of nostalgia! hehehe
Heh! I keep looking at that last paragraph myself. 😉
Have you seen ketum around when it was legal? I heard it went for RM 1 per bag of liquid. 😀
kratom supposed to work the way between yohimbine and tramadol well just try the natural version veritas it’s good and way better in my oppinion.
Hello BB! I know there used to be ketum juice sold openly in certain states in Malaysia. However, now it’s gone largely underground. I would like to try the juice sold for RM 1 but it’s hard to obtain and there’s the quality control issue – at least with this I know it’s cultivated mitragyna speciosa and distilled, so to speak, to 5x the natural strength.
It does give you a bit of a nasty comedown though. It’s kinda like a hangover. 😡
Yohimbine isn’t native to Malaysia though.
Very interesting post! Very nostalgic from the old days from 6 years ago. 🙂 I hope we can see more posts like this in the future!
Thanks Jessy! 🙂
I do love writing about stuff like this – it’s a subject matter that really interests me. Yeah, I used to write a lot of trip reports – found the balance between being technical and injecting a more personal touch to it. 😀
Unfortunately, it’s not something I can write about all the time.
However, there’s still quite a bit of material coming up. 😉
Thanks for reading!
‘
?
Malaysia ban anything that will makes people high lol. Hopefully, alcoholic beverages are not ban.
Well, it’s not just Malaysia, a lot of other countries have strict drug laws too. It’s just the more enlightened ones that has harm reduction and tolerance policy. 🙂
i’m feeling Huai bin had been struck with a new multiple personality disorder his “truth” is taking over LOL is it true the kratom is banned in malaysia? in Indonesia it is still growing in rural area they call it ithang here if i’m not mistaken and police dun even know about it
Heh! I’ve stopped using the alias veritas to write about this subject matter already. 🙂
Yup, it’s banned in Malaysia – read it in the papers. There are vendors caught with it during raids. It used to be sold openly as ketum juice in the open air markets back when it was legal.
Interesting! Yeah, it grows in Indonesia and Thailand too. Ithang eh? It’s pretty much something rural folks consume over here too. 🙂
Sorry to hear you found kratom a bit disappointing. The experience is highly subjective, there’s several alkaloids and their conventration vary between different kratom strains. Also, I’ve found out the leaf to give most all-round spectrum of alkaloids, in comparion of 15x dry extracts that tend to give me a dull head rush. Metabolism plays a big role here, how efficiently your body takes care of the various alkaloids. Some people I know are practically immune.
I’m quite avid fan of it, it gives me motivation/energy to do stuff, or keep my interest on subjects, making them more rewarding… not unlike opioids tramadol, oxycodone. I guess it works bit like of SNRI like tramadol I think, the noradrenaline playing a lot bigger role there for me personally. But few times i’ve even experienced hypomania of some sort. The euphoria is usually quite strong, way stronger what I can get from tramadol, codeine, It also doesen’t pacify me mentally, I can go through wide range of emotions. Morphine in other hand makes me indifferent to the idea if someone would cut my leg off.
All in all, kratom offers very novel and positively variable high, but YMMV.
Hello enth!
Alas, perhaps disappointing is a very wrong word to use. I never am disappointed (in the strict sense of the word) with a new mind altering substance that I try.
I love to experiement and I never find my personal experiments with various substances to be “disappointments”.
They are all life enriching experiences. 🙂
I just meant that I had higher expectations for it. Kratom/ketum has its own place in the wonderful world of psychoactives but I really wasn’t impressed with it. I was VERY GLAD I tried it and I would consume it again if I come across it but it’s never going to be a favorite.
Hey, thanks for sharing your experience with kratom! It sounds like it warrents more exploration. I’ll never turn down chances to explore more with a new substance so I will if I come across it.
Personally though, I prefer the morphine type “indifference” as you call it – the nod, the “everything is alright in the world” euphoric feeling.
I used to be a tweaker, a serious meth user. I switched to opiates and never looked back. 🙂
Again, thanks for sharing your experiences. It’s responses like this that makes conversing about this thing of ours engaging. 🙂
Yeah, Kratom is a wierd one. The best I’ve done has allways been the raw leaf.. extracts seems a bit rubbish for some reason.
Infact, the very best I have done is Malaysian leaf (I guess from M plants, NOT grown there though).
It CAN have noddy type properties, but sometimes just weirds you out! I actually found Tramadol to have more opiate like effects (with a low tolerance).
Anyway, I quit opiates 2 weeks ago and am still loading on Loperamide for the withdrawal, so shouldn’t really be reading this as Kratom is legal here in the UK!
The kratom juice over here is made with the leaves. 🙂
They sell the leaves in Amsterdam too, but you have to brew it and I didn’t have the facilities to do it, unfortunately.
I can NEVER nod on tramadol – it’s just way too stimulating for me. It’s like DHC (dihydrocodeine). I love it to bits – it’s now banned in Malaysia, but it used to be available. I can’t nod on DHC unless I take a whole lot of benzos with it but I love the feeling.
Tramadol on the other hand, doesn’t feel like an opiate. It releases too much serotonin. I don’t like that in an opiate, if I wanted serotonin I’ll have taken another substance.
Hey, good luck with quitting mate, I really mean it. It’s hard work, getting off opiates.
I wish you all the best, my friend. Take good care of yourself.
I have a feeling that you bought some crappy stuff.
Ive been to amsterdam and to me, the drugs sold there looked well….crappy. mostly hype in fancy packages . I mean, the shrooms arent even shrooms. they are truffles? a local told me these are less potent as the shrooms u used to get in amsterdam and that they sell these ones now because people were tripping to hard. I spent some days in amsterdam but didnt buy any of the stuff from smart shops.
I dont have any experiences with kratom extracts, but from everything I read, they are BS.
I have, however, had kratom. just had some over the past week. I ordered it online . (legal in canada). I ordered it powdered , and I found it got me pretty messed up.
In a smaller dose…it felt like an energy drink kind of buzz. but with a higher dose (made a 14g drink), I was nodding off…..and having a hard time walking to the bathroom. very fuzzy and very euphoric. almost like an ecstasy high.
Hey there Rob! I feel the same way, Amsterdam is quite commercialized in terms of drug travel – especially the smartshops and the tourists that throng them. 🙁
Magic mushrooms has been illegal in Amsterdam for a while now – they use a loophole and sell truffles instead. It’s not because people used to “trip to hard” on regular magic mushrooms. That’s ridiculous and quite funny when you think about it. Pure ignorance. 🙂
It’s a legislation issue that forced them to switch to selling truffles.
…and if you’re a drug afficionado, you’ll find they have a lot to offer!
It contains the same stuff anyway – psilocybin. 🙂
I’m glad you managed to get off kratom but I have a REALLY HIGH opiate tolerance from oxycodone, methadone and fentanyl so it’s kinda hard for me to get off weak opiates like kratom. I did it just for experimentation.
I totally agree with you that a lot of the stuff in smartshops are hype in fancy packaging. Trip aborters? Hangover cures? There’s no such thing. 😡
It’s becoming too commercialized but still…the cannabis there is always strong. 😀
Take care Rob and have a great weekend! Enjoy your kratom! 🙂
Kratom is now available in various stores and you can also purchase it on internet.Kratom is available in various extracts and it have various medicinal effects.
I just bought some Kratom dried leaf powder in pill for. I dosed with about 9 grams and well we will see. If your ever in New Orleans send me a reply I can bring you on a shroom hunt that always turns out great. Psilocybe cubensis grow here like wild flowers pretty much all year long. A hand full will have you walking in a dream world for hours.
we chew it fresh here in thailand;)
Hi there..
As a KRATOM user (or more of a drinker), I’ve consume it almost few times a week.
Although it has been banned in Malaysia (and yes, I am a Malaysian) there’s still sold in rural area but not in open. Kratom commonly in brewed form and sold in packets, range from RM4 to RM7 depending on quality and area. Kratom leaf is commonly sold around RM10/kg and can produce about 15 to 20 packets of brewed Kratom water (depending on how you like your tea hehehe..).
Kratom has a history of use by laborers and in folk medicine for opium dependence, diarrhea, reduce blood pressure, and joint pain.
On my experience, it is some what euphoric and energizing, it might cause dizziness and nausea if the drinker doesn’t use to it and stay passive after consumption (do not drink on empty stomach) , but if you’re active it’s help reducing fatigueness and increase focus. That is why I consider it as an energy drinks @ tonic rather than drugs.
But alas, some people just like to experiment and get high…some brewer would mix it with cough syrup, some with “akar pinang”, and even weirder with mosquito coil and camphor (everybody would avoid this one and only buys from known suppliers).
Although I’m regular with it, I still couldn’t stand the bitter taste so I would (what we call) “shandy” kratom with coke (preferred) or other soda (i.e Red Bull), and the old-school would prefer black coffee.
Some of the avid kratom drinker would take a couple of jug a day (this one is really an addict drinker) just to coup with the withdrawal effect, it may cause fatigue, back pain / joint pain, runny nose and eyes, unmotivated, and short temper. Luckily I’m still in the MILD category, but those side-effect sure did a number on me and just after one small shot Mr. Awesome is back in business…
Once go through this site, which is very interesting and helpful. I assure you people it is one of the best site I ever had gone through that has good information about what you are looking for.
hello
your information helps me very much.
I live in IRAN. and I interested use kratom but here there is not kratom.
I have a health center in IRAN and I want to help addict people with kratom
can u help me how can I get kratom from Malaya or china.
I can get kratom from USA but is expensive.
please help me.
I’m in Hanoi Vietnam and though I’ve heard the Vietnamese Kratom strain is really good. I can’t find it anywhere.
Anybody with some knowledge in Hanoi???