7-OH: The Fight for Facts, Fairness, & Freedom

[00:00:03]The government is taking aim at 70.

[00:00:05][music] You have just days left to dispose of your 70 products.

[00:00:10]>> 70 is very often misunderstood.

[00:00:14][music] >> 70 started to cut into business. And that's when the moral panic started about 70.

[00:00:20]>> Messaging. Stay away from it. It's going to make you psychotic or kill you.

[00:00:24]>> I'm plain talk. I'm plain spoken. It's outright lies. Here's something that's about as natural as it natural gets.

[00:00:32]>> It would more appropriately be characterized as an herbal supplement.

[00:00:40]>> Ban it. Oh, it makes me feel good. Ban it. [music] >> It's a really positive force in my life.

[00:00:50]I can be present and not be in pain.

[00:00:54]>> Within less than 30 minutes, my anxiety eased up. My moral compass is back in line.

[00:01:00]>> I think we're worried about the wrong things. My 7, it it helps me.

[00:01:09]>> It's not just a matter of what works and what's safe. It's also a matter of who gets paid.

[00:01:14]>> Big Pharma and the American Cratum Association, it's cutting in to everybody's profits. They don't like that. I can understand that. I wouldn't like it either.

[00:01:23]>> It's [music] nothing more than greed.

[00:01:34]What happened here? [music] >> People think you can't wreck a tank. Let me tell you, I can break anything.

[00:01:42]I'm a retired railroader and a US Army veteran.

[00:01:46]>> He just lays there.

[00:01:48]>> Hush.

[00:01:49]>> You stop.

[00:01:51]What are you chuffing for? [music] He He's the biggest baby. He's just chuffing.

[00:01:57]>> [laughter] >> Good throw.

[00:02:00]In the course of my military service, uh in my uh deployment to Egypt [music] as a part of Operation Brightar, there was a issue uh with uh some civilians. Uh [music] let's see, let me let me redo. Let's see. [music] >> Sure. There's uh a lot of nightmares and sleep issues and rampant insomnia.

[00:02:26][music] When I first got out, I actually applied to the uh railroad, North Fork Southern Railroad. There was a train accident and and at which point uh me and the my conductor were thrown about the inside of the locomotive. There's nothing padded inside a locomotive. It's all metal. And so we got banged up pretty good. I had multiple surgeries. I had three on my right knee, two on the right shoulder. After each surgery, of course, I was given uh opioids that uh 40 years old, they told me that I was done and retired. So, and then they hand you this these pills and then they say, "Go sit down. Go take these pills and sit down."

[00:03:11]It's a heck of a thing to go sit on sit on the couch at 40 years old when you've been as active as as as if I've been.

[00:03:28]Oh yeah, we're in good shape. That'll get us where we want to go.

[00:03:33]So the downfall was rapid and severe. uh if I did two to three years on uh hydrocodone and I did a year to two years on oxycodone I didn't make it 6 months on fentanyl within the first 3 months I had oded at least once um within 6 months I was arrested uh and had legal trouble biggest regret and there's a lot uh I let my family down. You know, great deal of shame [music] there. Um that you know, you've uh hurt your you know, your wife whom you love uh more than anything. And of course, you know, your kids who look look at you like uh you hung the moon and then you know you you're their hero and you let them down.

[00:04:31]You know, that's that's that's tough.

[00:04:33]That's that's it's a tough road to hoe.

[00:04:38]Let's break up for that one. Yeah.

[00:04:46][snorts] I'm struggling, you know. There's good times and bad times, you know, but I'm on a real bad time, you know. I'm struggling with my sobriety and I'm almost in a panic. And I had tried before uh when I was in active addiction, you know, I I was willing to give it one more try. So I I went to the uh shop to the vape shop.

[00:05:13]I believe that the guy the gentleman that worked there knew I was struggling with addiction and using and the gentleman told me about this product and he called it a seven tab. And I was and he [music] was explained that it was 70 and it's a alkaloid inratum and uh that it works. He said it works for me. Took that thing as soon as I hit the parking lot and [snorts] it was within less than 30 minutes. My anxiety eased up uh my my desire. The fact that my next stop was probably going to be a dealer's house.

[00:05:48]That thinking stopped and within 45 minutes my pain lessened. I was just normal, you know. I [music] was just me.

[00:06:07]I think the uh propaganda and the push to ban it is coming from [music] big pharma and the American cratom association is making the push. It's cutting in to everybody's profits. It boils down to it's nothing more [music] than greed. Whoever has the most money gets the most done when it comes to [music] lobbying the government.

[00:06:29]There's a lot of people suffering.

[00:06:31]There's families that could be back, you know, whole again. If I'm going to fight for truth and liberty and freedom, you know, in my younger days, I'm going to I'm going to do it now. Paul used to say, "The truth [music] will stand when the world's on fire." And so I I let truth have its day.

[00:06:56]The messaging has been it's going to make you psychotic or kill you. Go with the pharmaceuticals. [music] Is a uh tropical tree native to Southeastern Asia. It's in the coffee family [music] andratom leaf has been used uh for centuries in Southeastern Asia as traditional medicine. So theratom leaf contains two major psychoactive alkaloids. nitrogen and 7 hydroxy nitrogen or 70. 70oh is much more potent than [music] once 70 binds to the opioid receptor, it partially activates that receptor which [music] leads to pain relief, mood elevation and sense of well-being. We don't know the full range [music] of risk associated with 70 in the same way that we do with the cratum plant. The approach should be to study it. And while we're studying [music] it, uh the FDA can certainly um educate the public on it, uh regulate it, and [music] protect public health without scaremongering. There is a drug hysteria [music] promoted by powerful financial interests. [music] Anytime you have a substance that people are taking so that they can get off of pharmaceuticals, [music] then you're working against the interests of big pharma. It's not just a matter of what works and what's safe.

[00:08:17]It's also [music] a matter of who gets paid.

[00:08:32]This is one of the pages I put together for my sister.

[00:08:38]These are some flowers we had gotten at a zoo trip when we were really little.

[00:08:45]She was my baby doll. Uh she was the first person that I ever [music] felt a sense of responsibility for.

[00:08:52]Megan was my younger sister. She was 9 years younger. She struggled with mental health issues and on and off with some drug use [music] uh pretty young into her life and unfortunately bought some illicit substances that were laced with fentanyl. So my sister was killed by a banned substance.

[00:09:15]That's from the spirit [music] ticket that she was supposed to come home but didn't make it.

[00:09:25]So, I've struggled with anxiety and insomnia my entire life, and it affects every aspect of your life. I feel like things are kind of coming at me at 100 miles an hour. I started using 70 probably 2 years ago and it's cheaper.

[00:09:42]It's [music] easier to use than it tastes better. So, I kind of switched over from using [music] the powdered leaf to using like 7 o tablets. I've tried um Zoloft. I've tried ambient.

[00:09:57]Ambient had a lot of really bad side effects, sleepwalking [music] and things like that. So, that that didn't work for me. I've been prescribed like Xanax and that was just it was a little too too strong for me. I take a small dose in the morning and [music] it's kind of like my morning cup of coffee. It wakes me up. It kind of gets me moving. Um, it just kind of gives me like a focus and [music] a clarity. And then in the evening when I get home, I take a higher dose and it kind of helps me relax [music] and helps me kind of fall asleep. And that's how I use it.

[00:10:34]East Cleveland is pretty infamous in Northeast Ohio for having a high crime rate and very little resources.

[00:10:44]I do have a degree in social work. I started in shelters [music] in 2014 and I've seen everything from poverty [music] to drug addiction to child abuse. Kind of the people that get left behind by society, I suppose you could say. And I I've never seen anybody that their [music] biggest problem was something wasn't banned. I think that some lawmakers have really good intentions. I do. [music] I think we have been dealing with drug policy in America this way. Oh, banan it. Oh, it makes them feel good. Ban it.

[00:11:14]And we've [music] been doing it that way over and over and over again. So, I think it's just breaking out of that cycle. [music] And I really think 70 is a good opportunity to do that.

[00:11:36]Chris >> 708 started to cut into business [music] and that's when all of a sudden the moral panic started about 708. Instead of taking a whole bunch of I could take this small amount of 70 and get the same effect. Banning 708 based on scattered anecdotes and fear won't make [music] people safer. It will just push them toward much more dangerous alternatives.

[00:12:08]War on drugs is uh America's longest and most unsuccessful war. It's been going on at least the current iteration of the war on drugs been going on at least since 1970. Overdoses continue to go up and newer and more dangerous and deadly drugs are constantly coming [music] in to the drug supply. The harder the enforcement, the harder the drug. And economists will tell you it makes absolute sense because it incentivizes whoever is marketing the illegal substance to come up with more potent forms. So, for example, during the days of alcohol prohibition, [music] they weren't smuggling in beer and wine. and they were smuggling in whiskey and you know the hard spirits.

[00:12:55]There have been a total of 233 what they call cratom related deaths.

[00:13:01]What the CDC tells us is that roughly I think it was 79% of the cratom related overdose deaths in the toxicology reports they found multiple other substances including alcohol, fentinil, uh benzoazipines, benadryil. Not only did can you not say it caused the death, you don't even know if it played a role in it. People have found uh a way to treat their pain and anxiety and PTSD. They believe it's making their life better. Why do you want to make their choice more dangerous?

[00:13:45][music] I am concerned about the proposed banning of 70. I have had chronic pain since I was a child.

[00:13:52]>> [music] >> I've spent over half a decade trying to manage my pain and nothing has been more effective for managing it than 70 [music] has.

[00:14:00]Being a young person with chronic pain, most people my age don't understand what that's like.

[00:14:08]I've always wanted to write a memoir [music] so that other people can kind of I don't know like I can help other people in my [music] situation.

[00:14:25]I think it would be a really great thing because I've read memoirs from other people with my [music] condition. I feel so I don't like feeling alone and those make me feel not alone.

[00:14:40]I have advanced Shogun syndrome which is an autoimmune disorder. I had [music] to advocate for myself for 10 years before I was listened to and I had to get to a point [music] of I can't use my hand anymore and it strength is never going to come back [music] and I'm going to have chronic pain for the rest of my life. I turned to alcohol to cope with my chronic pain and I drank a lot and sometimes I couldn't get up for work and it made me erratic [music] and sad and angry and I had to drink a lot to be [music] numb.

[00:15:22]I've tried dozens of remedies of medications and [music] Botox, stretching, exercising.

[00:15:31]Nothing works like 70.

[00:15:33]I can be present and not be in pain.

[00:15:38]I think that the 70 ban could actually cause a lot of suicides genuinely because of the statistics for people with chronic pain and suicide.

[00:15:51]>> [music] >> If I had one thing to say to lawmakers, I would ask [music] them to take a step back and look at all of the statistics and look [music] at how many people 70oh has helped and listen to people with chronic pain. Listen to the people that are recovering addicts. Listen to their stories.

[00:16:17][music] >> When things are banned, they get more dangerous. Is that going to happen with 70? Is [music] it going to get banned and then become dangerous, but then nobody will be paying attention anymore?

[00:16:28]>> There's people dying with addiction and this is a important part uh in harm reduction. Not only does it put lives in danger, but if the ban and schedule goes through that prevents it from being studied and studying is really what we need to do. [music] Let's do right by these people.

[00:16:50]>> [music] [music] [music]