“It is banned in the two countries where it’s grown and banned in a whole bunch of European countries, like Australia.”

What genius of a state legislator said that on the phone last week?

Why is he trying to ban kratom—a leaf from Southeast Asia with mildly opiate-like properties that you may not have heard of, but can probably buy at your local smoke shop—without knowing anything about it?

And why are scientists and public-health folks so worried that kratom will be classified as a schedule-one drug, which will make this promising leaf much more difficult to study, by halfwit legislators who can’t be bothered to actually read the scientific literature about what it is (or look at an atlas once in awhile)?

See here.