A class-action lawsuit against Aramark, the nation’s largest provider of prison and jail food services, was filed December 1 by three people currently incarcerated in West Virginia and two people in the outside community, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated. The plaintiffs, who are seeking monetary, declaratory and injunctive relief, argue that Aramark is violating the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act. 

“Aramark exploits its position of exclusive control over both the mandated free daily meals services and food-for-purchase programs to perpetuate this scheme,” the lawsuit states. “By doing so, Aramark extracts a profit on both ends; it saves costs on its daily meals services business by providing less, reused and poor-quality food, while earning more money from incarcerated consumers’ purchases.”

In 2022, Aramark purchased Union Supply, one of the most widely used correctional vendors for packages of food and personal property items. Prisoners cannot order these packages themselves, but can receive them from friends and family. The items in the packages must be chosen from a pre-approved catalog and can only be ordered through the vendor website, up to a certain weight (such as 15 or 25 pounds) and frequency (such as monthly or quarterly).

Once Union Supply became a subsidiary, Aramark controlled every source of food for every person in prison, jail or juvenile detention in West Virginia. Meal portions have reportedly been shrinking for around the same time period.

Commissary is a standard feature of US prisons and jails, as is the abhorrent inflation of prices. Food packages are also common. But Aramark has gone further by capitalizing on its monopoly of a resource that’s not usually offered in prisons: fresh food.

Aramark’s version of food packages is a program called iCare, which invites families to buy “fresh” meals for their incarcerated loved ones. Plaintiff Sandra Rush, whose son is incarcerated at Mount Olive, pays more for iCare pizza and chicken wings than what she would pay “for similar items in a grocery store or even a restaurant,” but does so because there is no other choice.

Plaintiff Judy Riggs estimated spending over $4,000 on Aramark food since 2022. Her brother Hubert Riggs was incarcerated at Mount Olive for seven years before he died in July, and she continues to purchase iCare packages for a friend currently incarcerated at the same facility.

In addition to regular commissary items, people in custody in West Virginia are allowed to buy “special meals” via FreshFavorites®. According to the lawsuit, FreshFavorites® meals include “fruit-flavored yogurts, fresh vegetable trays, fried chicken, BLT sandwiches and baked potatoes, which [Aramark] has otherwise limited the availability of in its daily meals service.”

While in some US prisons people haven’t seen fresh produce in years, in others Aramark is advertising $10 veggie trays. In 2017, Prison Policy Initiative estimated that West Virginia paid incarcerated people between $0.04 and $0.58 an hour, which shouldn’t overshadow the fact that many of them don’t have access to even those jobs.

“Aramark’s scheme [has] three components,” the lawsuit argues. “(1) obtaining exclusive control over all of the food provisions available to incarcerated people by acquiring the commissary business of Union Supply, (2) maintaining an inadequate quality, quantity and variety of food in the daily meals services that it is required to provide to incarcerated people through its contract with the State, and (3) developing more food-for-purchase programs such as Fresh Favorites and iCare.”

The lawsuit alleges that Aramark directly incentivizes employees to lower the quantity and quality of food, by awarding bonuses to those who save the company money on kitchen services. Plaintiff Marcus P. McKinley, who has been incarcerated at Mount Olive Correctional Complex since 2014, alleged that kitchen workers are only being given 12 pounds of meat for recipes that call for 20 pounds.

Plaintiff Roger D. Smith, who has been incarcerated at Mount Olive since 2007, alleged seeing kitchen workers pick bugs out of gravy before serving it, as well as seeing people housed in segregation or the mental health units be served days-old reused food that was not on the menus for general population. Plaintiff William R. Johnson alleged that he once heard “an Aramark worker state that he would cut the ingredients for daily meals services as much as possible in order to get a bonus.” Johnson was incarcerated at Mount Olive from 2009 until November, when he was transferred to a different facility on the other side of the state.

West Virginia is paying Aramark to serve the items on its menus, which for example advertise 100-percent beef and whole-muscle breaded fish patties. People in custody at Mount Olive report that what they actually served are meat “pellets.” 

Previous lawsuits against Aramark have described the food as rotten, expired, reused, undercooked, uncooked, infested with maggots, infested with rodent, insect or bird droppings, or made with unauthorized substitutions. Aramark reported $17.4 billion in revenue for 2024.

“[F]amilies with loved ones in prison cannot afford to keep sending money to Aramark, a huge national corporation, simply to make sure their loved ones have enough to eat,” stated Lydia Milnes, deputy director of nonprofit legal services group Mountain State Justice, “especially when Aramark is already receiving millions from the State of West Virginia to feed those same people.” 

According to Prison Legal News, all kitchen service in West Virginia prisons was once carried out by people in custody, who would utilize fresh produce grown in facility gardens and greenhouses. 

“Food is a uniquely powerful tool to exploit,” the lawsuit states. “Aramark knows this.”

Images (cropped) via United States District Court Southern District of West Virginia

The post Prisoners Sue Aramark, Contractor for Both Kitchen Service and Commissary appeared first on Filter.

South Central Correctional Facility, one of the four Tennessee state prisons privately operated by CoreCivic, is one of many prisons across the country currently run by gangs rather than by corrections officers. But this particular prison is structured so that two of the living units are at the bottom of a hill, away from the rest of the buildings. About two-thirds of the people assigned to those cells are gang-affiliated, and the rest are newcomers or other unaffiliated prisoners who are simply unlucky. About 500 people altogether, grouped into pods of 128 people. Each pod is released one at a time to go to the chow hall—which is about 50 yards away.

Each time the gates open, out runs the first wave—at least 20 or 30 people flat-out sprinting as fast as they can. In the next wave behind them are the people who are either unwilling or unable to run, but who are walking very quickly. Finally, trailing behind everyone else are the gang-affiliated prisoners, who stroll at a leisurely pace. Once they get to the chow hall, regular kitchen service stops—they head to the front of the line and take tray after tray until they’re done. At least two trays each, but three or four if it’s one of the less-awful meals like hot dogs or chicken patties.

Staff stands by and watches. Once the kitchen runs out of food, the pickup window is closed, and that’s that. If you didn’t get any food, you’ll just have to run faster next time.

Each pod houses 128 people, but not all of them go to chow; only the ones who have no other option. So Trinity Services Group, the private contractor in charge of food service here, allocates enough food for maybe 100 trays for each pod’s mealtime, rather than 128; this is a common practice in prisons regardless of which contractor they use. But the portions are getting smaller and smaller. Multiple kitchen workers told Filter that they’re given smaller serving ladles than what the menu calls for. Nobody could get full from just one tray anymore. CoreCivic and TKC Holdings, Trinity’s parent corporation, did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment.

The food itself is repulsive. In the 10 years I’ve been at this facility there’s never been fresh fruit—even though it’s still provided at the state-run prisons. They have a different food service contractor, Aramark Correctional Services. But food quality is not the main concern for the unaffiliated folks at the bottom of the hill; they’re so hungry they’d eat just about anything.

“I was told one time, ‘As long as they’re killing each other and not us, leave them alone,'” one officer said. “So that’s what I do.”

Like in prisons across the country, many people incarcerated here are older or disabled or both, and they’re the ones who suffer most in this “survival of the fittest” nightmare where only the fastest and strongest get to eat.

The only other source of food is commissary, which sells actual food—junk food mostly, but edible, unlike what’s served at chow—at prices far higher than most can afford. There are very few jobs available at this facility, and they pay mere pennies per hour. I live in the pod where many of the people with jobs are grouped together, and less than half of us go to chow. But at the bottom of the hill, I’d say more than 80 percent go to chow. And for those who can afford to buy commissary, keeping it can be just as big a problem.

Neil*, in his 30s, is one of the runners. He doesn’t have much choice. Recently he went to pick up his weekly commissary order and was escorted back to his cell by four gang-affiliated prisoners holding shanks to his back.

“They took everything,” Neil told Filter. “Even my shoes.”

How can all this happen? Understaffing. There are so few corrections officers, responsible for too many prisoners, with little-to-no backup. They’re overwhelmed, and afraid for their lives.

“I come in every day and pray I get out alive,” one officer told Filter. “If you complain about the conditions, you’re just laughed at, like you’re not supposed to be scared. I was told one time, ‘As long as they’re killing each other and not us, leave them alone.’ So that’s what I do.”

One prisoner told Filter that in more than 20 years at this facility, he’s never seen anything like this.

“Gang members come to the chow hall in the PJs,” he said. “If the police can’t control something that small, what are they going to do about the big stuff?”

Many at the bottom of the hill are struggling to get enough food to stay alive. But they’re also struggling just to find somewhere to live.

Fred entered his cell and locked the door. Within 15 minutes, an officer had unlocked it and let three gang-affiliated prisoners inside.

Fred*, in his 40s, recently arrived at South Central and went to find his assigned cell. When he got there, he found two other prisoners already living there. One had two black eyes, and the other had a split lip and cuts across his face. Gang-affiliated prisoners had told them to live in that cell.

Fred thought that maybe the best solution was for the three of them to live there, so he joined the other two inside and locked the door. Within 15 minutes, an officer arrived. He unlocked the door, let three affiliated prisoners enter the cell, and then left. 

“They just started snatching my stuff,” Fred said. “When I tried to push back I soon found a shank [at] my back and my face pushed up against the wall.”

After they’d taken everything and left, Fred reported the incident, but staff refused to get involved. The next morning when his unit was called to the chow hall for breakfast, he didn’t get there fast enough to get a tray.

Fred tried asking medical staff about checking into protective custody—solitary confinement—because it seemed like the only way he’d be able to eat. Medical staff called the captain, who told Fred that no one was being checked into protective custody that day.

Fred is actually lucky. He has an option most people in his position don’t have: He can afford protection fees. Or rather, his family can. He called them and explained the situation, and begged them to send money to the people victimizing him. His family now pays $100 a week, and in return gang-affiliated prisoners no longer rob Fred, and make sure no one else robs him either. The weekly $100 fee still doesn’t buy Fred a tray at the chow hall. But now that he can keep the food he buys from commissary, life is more manageable.

Most people can’t afford weekly commissary, however, let alone weekly protection fees.

At any prison, it’s more and more common for newcomers to be robbed of all their property—even their thin mattress pads—the day they arrive. Then rather than their assigned cells, they’re forced to sleep in the halls or bathrooms or on the stairs.

There’s an old saying that describes a prisoner’s existence: “three hots and a cot.” Meaning that in prison the only things we’re entitled to are food and a place to sleep. How can the state justify handing us over to private contractors that don’t even provide those anymore?

*Names have been changed to protect sources.

Image (cropped) via Washington Office of the Corrections Ombuds

The post Not All Prisoners Get Fed Daily. Here, It Depends on How Fast You Can Run. appeared first on Filter.

SNAP benefits are 100-percent federally funded by the Food and Nutrition Service under the United States Department of Agriculture, which is currently not disbursing that funding due to the government shutdown that began October 1. The USDA could tap into contingency funding, but has not given any indication it will do so, and the reserve wouldn’t be enough to stop November benefits from being disrupted anyway.

SNAP costs about $8 billion a month. However, despite pervasive misconceptions about public benefits, SNAP participation has been shown to create jobs and significantly bolster the economy.

Nearly 42 million people—about 12 percent of the US population—use SNAP. The program provides people living under the poverty line a monthly allowance, based on their income and living situation, to buy basic groceries. For example, a single adult making $20,000 a year could receive a maximum of $298 per month in SNAP benefits. A family of four living on $41,000 a year could receive a maximum of $994 per month. More than one-third of SNAP beneficiaries are children.

Some SNAP participants will feel the impact on November 1, while for others it will hit later in the month. Funds are disbursed to an Electronic Benefit (EBT) card that reloads once a month, and each state has its own schedule for disbursing the benefits. In most cases a participant’s EBT card will reload on a certain date each month based on where they live and the first letter of their last name. 

November 1 is also the deadline for states to begin full implementation of new requirements from Public Law 119-21, AKA the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed into law July 4.

SNAP requires able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD) to work a minimum of 20 hours a week; if they don’t, benefits are capped at three months within a three-year period. ABAWD can also lose benefits if they turn down a job offer or voluntarily decrease their hours, or can’t provide the required documentation to prove that they’re working.

But those requirements have exemptions for certain groups that face higher barriers to employment. People who are over age 54, or who are responsible for dependents under age 18, have not been subject to the ABAWD work requirement. Nor have veterans, people who are currently homeless, and young adults transitioning out of foster care.

After November 1, the upper age limit will be raised from 54 to 64. Caretakers will no longer be exempt if their children are over 14. Veterans, people without housing and young adults leaving foster care have been removed from the exemption entirely. All these groups represent people disproportionately impacted by the drug war and vulnerable to overdose.

Beginning in 2028, the federal government will also require some states to cover up to 15 percent of the costs. Those states will inevitably explore more ways to restrict access to the program.

The current government shutdown is the fourth time Congress has failed to pass a budget with President Donald Trump in office, and if not resolved by November 5 will become the longest shutdown in US history.

Participants in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program are on the brink of losing those monthly benefits as well. A much smaller USDA program than SNAP, WIC has never before lapsed during a government shutdown, but the National WIC Association is currently $300 million short of what would be needed to remain operational through the first half of November. Funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is also on hold. LIHEAP helps families cover monthly gas and electric bills so their homes have heating and air-conditioning.

Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits are unaffected by the shutdown in terms of funding, though services may be interrupted due to staff in those departments being furloughed.

Top image (cropped) via Delta County, Colorado. Inset graphics via United States Department of Agriculture.

The post SNAP Benefits Stop Amid Shutdown—and New Rules Restricting Eligibility appeared first on Filter.

“Food deprivation,” as the Department of Justice called it in its anticlimactic 2024 investigation of violence in GDC prisons, is common here. Food is withheld by corrections officers or by other prisoners, but even those who get three meals a day (weekdays at least) in the chow hall still talk of hunger pangs in their letters home.

It’s not uncommon to lose 50 pounds of body weight during the first months of incarceration. Even though in GDC we now get the privilege of lunch on the weekends, in the form of a peanut butter sandwich tossed on top of the breakfast tray. The breakfast tray itself arrives cold, wet with dishwater and mostly empty. After waiting 14 hours for that tray since dinner, many start the day irritable.

Behind every tray of soupy grits is a bean-counting bureaucrat who delegated food service to a contractor.

Malnutrition in prisons is linked to increased aggression against both corrections officers and other prisoners. Not surprisingly, research has also shown that modest improvements to prison food service—even just adding vitamin and mineral supplements—can significantly reduce rates of assaults, suicides and self-harm.

Across the country, food that’s expired or otherwise not fit for human consumption is a tried-and-true way for private contractors to increase profits. Behind every tray of soupy grits is a bean-counting bureaucrat who decided to delegate food service to a for-profit contractor. The contractor then pads its pockets at our expense without having to worry about the health conditions we’ll develop as a result; that’s the state’s problem.

Of course a healthy prison population would be less expensive to warehouse than an ailing one, but that assumes that anyone’s planning to pick up the check. Instead the state simply delegates medical care to a different contractor, and that contractor will inevitably disappear within the next few months or years as well. No one stays long enough to reap what they sow, except us.

Filter spoke with Bill*, a longtime food-service warehouse worker. Essentially he’s the guy who sets the weekly menu based on what’s available from the warehouse. Bill is currently incarcerated in one of GDC’s medium-security facilities, and has done kitchen work for most of the several decades he’s spent behind bars. Prior to prison he was a restaurateur with a formal education in culinary arts and nutrition. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

“Most of the staff think it’s signs of drug use, but it’s just being poor and not being fed proper meals.”

 

Jimmy Iakovos: What’s the food situation from a nutrition perspective?

Bill: It’s awful. I haven’t had three different vegetables in the warehouse to send to the kitchen in years … I’m having to piece together menus that are all carbs, starch and salt. That kind of diet causes diabetes and hypertension. 

All these bony 20-somethings … guys who have no money in here are wasting away. Their teeth are loose, bodies gray and bony. Some in my dorm are so desperate, they’re eating their issue of toothpaste to kill the hunger pangs. Most of the staff think it’s signs of drug use, but it’s just being poor and not being fed proper meals. It’s how the system’s built.

[Policy requires we follow] national dietary guidelines, but Georgia prisoners are lucky to be getting half the daily calories, protein and vegetables they need.

We serving clumpy milk, white bread roll, one spoon each of fruit and vegetable—as the “diabetic tray” [for anyone who needs a special medical diet]. It’s criminal, or ought to be.

Lunch and dinner, served together

JI: And the quantity of food is as bad as the quality?

Bill: Kitchen workers are being told to “shake the spoon”—bounce the serving ladle on the pot before dumping the portion onto the passing trays—thus shorting portions to stretch meals. Menus meant to feed 150 prisoners are feeding 200. The stated 4-ounce servings of meat just don’t happen … the reason we stopped serving chicken quarters three times a month was, it takes exactly half as much meat to feed 1,000 men some form of a chicken soup dish. 

My boss calls it “budget efficiency,” but it’s starvation.

“Malnutrition messes with your brain. It only costs a few dollars to just feed everyone a good meal.”

JI: How does that hunger play out in the cellblocks? 

Bill: It’s chaos. Hungry guys will steal anything. Soap. Shampoo. Radios. Even the dirty laundry is stolen, washed and sold for a honeybun to eat. The few who can get assigned to the kitchen are quickly rotated out for stealing food.

In the dorms though is where it gets ugly. Gangs control the blocks; stealing someone’s snacks or personal stuff can lead to fights, stabbings or even worse. A Ware State Prison riot in 2020 was blamed on days of bad food and medical neglect—inmates set fires and grabbed the keys from the fleeing guards.

Malnutrition messes with your brain. It only costs a few dollars a year per inmate to just feed everyone a good meal. A meal that is good for them. 

Thanksgiving dinner

JI: Who is the situation good for?

Bill: Private contractors. They save money serving us lightweight trays. They make bank off commissary sales of overpriced snacks. Malnourishment leads to sickness, which sends prisoners to the heath care contractor. They do little but [collect copays] and count the number of patients seen per month to justify their bill.

The top doesn’t see it as broken. Staffing’s down over 50 percent in [most] prisons. Some days meals don’t even reach segregation units. Inspections are a joke. They get advance notice, so facilities fake compliance—hiding the filth and boosting starvation rations for a day.

“End all the contracts. Get the spending back in-house.”

 

JI: Possible solutions?

Bill: The Maine Department of Corrections has a prison garden program where they’ve grown over 100,000 pounds of fresh produce a year and, instead of selling it as GDC does, they use it for better prison diets. 

End all the contracts. Get the spending back in-house. Then the actions of one division could be noticed when costing more in another division, such as how cuts in feeding increase costs in health and maintenance. That would reduce theft and violence, and save lots of repairing infrastructure. Instead, they starve guys to save pennies, and it’s turning cellblocks into war zones that cost millions.

*Name has been changed to protect source.

Images used with permission via They Have No Voice/Facebook

The post Georgia Prisons Are Deadlier Than Ever. One Reason? We’re Starving. appeared first on Filter.

In the ’90s we started getting a hot lunch in the chow hall on weekdays. The prison population was growing rapidly at that time, and the labor force far exceeded the available jobs. Half the population was left in lockdown 8 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, while the rest went to work. Which meant that when the cell doors were opened for evening chow, out poured a mass of people who hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and rather than continue to deal with that GDC made hot lunches the norm. Everyone in lockdown would be let out for a short lunch break midday, which calmed things down for a bit.

Still, on weekends and holidays you didn’t get lunch unless you worked those days. Or you got the diabetic meal, which was a sack lunch they’d let you go pick up at noon. 

“Diabetic meal” became a catch-all term for various “special diets,” which arrived to accommodate different medical needs of the prison population boom. High/low blood pressure diets; high/low cholesterol diets; allergen diets with alternatives to nuts or fish or tomatoes, etc. They were a money-suck. These days the only “special diets” are for food allergies; you get a card to carry around that says you’re allergic to nuts, for example.

Next came the “calorie diets”—meals simply labeled as 2,000, or 2,800, or 3,000. Chow hall trays with two bologna sandwiches, maybe more depending on your assigned calories, with some sort of canned goods on the side, plus milk.

“Additional meals” doesn’t refer to new kinds of meals, or a surplus of meals; it refers to “lunch.”

In 2024 GDC was allocated $1.2 million so that in the next budget cycle prisoners could have “additional meals” on weekends. This doesn’t refer to new kinds of meals, or a surplus of meals; it refers to “lunch.” Lunch being two cellophane-wrapped slices of white bread with a smear of peanut butter. And now that we get lunch seven days a week, lunch on the weekdays is the same peanut-butter sandwich as it is on weekends. Unless you have the nut-allergy card, in which case you can pick up two cellophane-wrapped slices of white bread with bologna.

On weekday mornings we must be up by 5 am, and breakfast is served at 5:30. But on days we’re not required to work—weekends and holidays—we’re allowed to sleep until 6 am. Coincidentally, weekends and holidays are when breakfast is pushed up to 4:30 am. At least one out of every three people will skip breakfast to get the extra sleep. As predicted, our “additional meal,” our “lunch,” must be picked up at breakfast. Now if you sleep until 6 am on your day off, you’ve forfeit both breakfast and lunch.

Because of this, on weekends and holidays less food is prepared for breakfast. Often too little for the number of people who do end up going to breakfast. When the prepared food runs out, anyone toward the back of the line gets a breakfast of whatever can be whipped up the fastest. Extra of whatever’s leftover, instead of whatever ran out.

So since we’ve begun getting our “additional meals,” which we can only get by forgoing our additional sleep, fewer people are getting lunch on weekdays, lunch itself is smaller, and breakfast is two biscuits and no eggs.

We used to be able to offset all this with commissary. But today it’s $6 or $8 just to fill a soup bowl with a Ramen, a little meat, maybe some pickle and crackers. Gone are the days when you could turn $2 worth of store goods into a meal and cup of coffee. Fond memories, like the days of the two-sandwich lunch.

Image (cropped) via Fulton County Sheriff’s Office/YouTube

The post “Additional Meals” in Prison Seems to Mean “Even Less Food Than Before” appeared first on Filter.

Per GDC business practices, and those of prison systems in general, this does not refer to more than three meals a day. I’d say it refers to lunch, but the concepts of breakfast, lunch and dinner are very subjective these days.

At the facility where I’m currently incarcerated, breakfast is lately served at 4:30 am on the weekends. Or somewhere around that time, whenever the corrections officer working the night shift does insulin call for the diabetic prisoners. We’re supposed to be allowed the opportunity to get eight hours of sleep, between 9 pm and 5 am, but the sooner we’re called to chow the sooner the night shift can go home.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, because if we skip it we don’t eat until 2:30 pm. That’s not the promised lunch, though; that’s dinner.

After 30-plus years of being subjected to GDC’s business practices, I will now make the same educated guess about lunch that everyone else who’s been here a while would make: Lunch will also be served at 4:30 am. It will consist of one cellophane-wrapped sandwich added to the breakfast tray, either bologna or peanut butter.

So if we don’t go to chow at 4:30 am, we’re skipping both breakfast and lunch. Which would you pick: food or sleep? If it helps, the answer has no bearing on whether you will go hungry.

We need commissary prices to go down, and they’re not even leveling off.

Chow isn’t a place people go if they can help it. Whether or not it’s the first meal of the day, the 2:30 pm dinner will involve beans that weren’t pre-soaked and greens that can be most generously described as “wet.” There are two kinds of rice: crunchy or globbed. The ovens are set at a very hot temperature that manages to achieve bread simultaneously burned on the crust, but raw in the middle. The meat-flavored patties come out the exact same way, but that’s okay since they’re not actually meat, just veggies, probably. Albeit very pink and cold.

The people on kitchen detail must rise at 3 am to start preparing the day’s so-called meals, but they are there to steal. To just make sure their own belly is filled, or to leave with sacks of toasted sandwiches to sell back at the living unit. The problem is that the amount of food available to kitchen workers to serve at chow is measured out days in advance, so every egg sandwich stolen to fill one hungry belly leaves another hungrier than before.

The only way to not be hungry all the time is to survive off food from commissary. But at any given time, more than half the people housed in this prison aren’t buying anything from commissary, because they can’t afford to.

The 4:30 am bologna sandwich is taking that $1.2 million and aiming it at the wrong problem, or at least the wrong problem to prioritize. No one is clamoring for more wet bread. We need commissary prices to go down, and they’re not even leveling off. GDC did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment.

For years the price of Ramen soups was stable. In 2022 when it rose from $.39 to $.48, it was a shock. Ramen soups are $.79 now.

In other state prison systems people might be fortunate enough to get paid a few cents per hour for their labor, but not here. It could make all the difference when commissary prices continue to rise by a few cents per item.

For a number of years, the price of Ramen soups had been stable, in the sense that it’d only creep up a couple of cents at a time. In 2022, when the GDC commissary prices rose sharply and Ramen soups went from $0.39 to $0.48, it was a shock. Ramen soups are $0.79 now.

The price hikes have continued, sometimes with only a few months between them. The most recent one was in April. This time in 2023, the price of saltine crackers was $2.28. It’s $3.56 now. A 3 oz bag of coffee that was $4.52 is now $6.32.

A neighbor who is terrifyingly proficient at math informs me that with about 50,000 people incarcerated in GDC facilities, even if just one person out of 10 buys some of these three staples from commissary each week, that would generate revenue for GDC upwards of $1.5 million in a year. Most people who regularly go to commissary buy more than Ramen, saltines or coffee; it’s common to spend about $50 each week.

Many of those people won’t eat all the food items themselves, but will sell them on at a 25-percent markup to prisoners sanctioned with loss of privileges at the time. You wouldn’t think loss of privileges would includes the privilege of spending any money we have at commissary, but if the powers that be had a firmer grasp of basic business principles they’d have found a pretext to ditch the smoking ban nonsense by now and simply put cigarettes in commissary at $10 a pack. This would generate unconscionable profits for our enslavers, who’d still probably get away with quietly pricing us out of anything to eat.

Photograph via Orange County Sheriff’s Department

The post GA Prisons to Get “Additional Meals,” a Bad Fix for the Wrong Problem appeared first on Filter.

Withholding food to punish us is unconstitutional, so instead people in solitary are given food that amounts to the same thing. But as the United States prison system becomes increasingly privatized, it feels like the regular chow hall food is slowly turning into Nutraloaf.

Over the course of the 28 years I’ve spend incarcerated, fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy have disappeared. At South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF) in Tennessee, where I’m currently housed, it’s not uncommon for a day’s worth of food to be a one bologna sandwich, one cheese sandwich and a few crackers.

SCCF is one of four Tennessee prisons currently operated by for-profit contractor CoreCivic, the second-largest private prison operator in the country. For every person it incarcerates, the company makes around $90 per day.

Australia spends the equivalent of over $5 on food per prisoner per day. Canada spends over $6. In the US, especially in the South, many prisons spend under $2. And increasingly outsource operations to private contractors promising to find ways to keep us alive for less. CoreCivic did not respond to Filter‘s inquiry about nutrition standards or food expenditures.

Most people incarcerated in the US are served food that no longer has its original nutrients. Instead, the food has been stripped down into starch, then “fortified” with meal-replacement powders, or served with a beverage containing the same.

Privatization tends to make meat products served in prison evolve into something… more. In addition to being frequently expired or unrefrigerated, meats can be stretched with fillers made from soy or other ingredients of unknown provenance, then mashed together Nutraloaf-style. Then the result will be served as something innocuous-sounding, like “meatloaf” or “casserole.”

One might look at the above menu for SCCF prisoners and think, That looks pretty good! But nothing is ever as it seems on paper. The fruits and vegetables are dehydrated, rock-hard, slimy or some combination thereof. All potatoes are dehydrated, and usually not quite rehydrated when served. Biscuits are not the kind you’re picturing, but flat squares cut out from a sheet pan. The beef is a vile, grayish substance we call “smeat.” It has the texture of dog food.

CoreCivic oversees SCCF, but is only responsible for operating the facility itself. Kitchen service is outsourced to another for-profit contractor, Trinity Services Group, which in the past has reportedly used deli meats labeled “not for human consumption.” Trinity did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment.

There are around 150 privately operated prisons in the US, and only around 8 percent of the nation’s prisoners are housed in one. But kitchen service at publicly run prisons is still outsourced to private companies for profit.

In some facilities, Trinity or another private contractor also operates the commissary. Of course, when the same company controls both kitchen and commissary, you can expect that the food served in the chow hall will be as cheap and repulsive-tasting as possible, with extra servings of mold and maggots. Thus driving more prisoners to the commissary items, which are marked up as much as possible.

When prisoners are tasked with the food service, rather than everything being contracted out to private companies, the food is better.

Even in facilities run by the state or federal government, prisoners do not necessarily get three meals per day. Some corrections departments have cut back to two on the weekends. Some only guarantee three daily meals to prisoners with jobs. Meanwhile, the portions themselves have grown smaller. Even the two portions of milk we used to get per day have been reduced to just one.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Some prisons have their own gardens, with watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, eggplant and the like. Some even facilitate horticultural trainings. Some bake their own bread.

When prisoners are trained as cooks and bakers and tasked with running a facility’s food service, rather than everything being contracted out to private companies, the benefits go beyond just those prisoners who gain hireable skills. The food is better.

One way of keeping a prison population’s health care costs down is to ensure they have adequate access to fruits, vegetables, whole grains and protein. Another is to pay a for-profit company to replace these with wet bread while the medical bills are either ignored or sent to a different private company

Top photograph via Office of the Inspector General. Inset photograph via Filter; menu and other materials were received by mail.

Correction, May 1: This article has been updated to remove an incorrectly named health care contractor.

The post The Private Prisons Industry Is Changing What Constitutes “Food” appeared first on Filter.

That first night was very intimidating. My only tools were a couple of packs of mustard, crackers and summer sausages left over from the chain bus. I quietly arranged plate of crackers, each with a slice of sausage and garnished with mustard. I held it out to my cellie and said, Here, I made us some snacks.

At first he didn’t know how to respond to that, but we ended up eating crackers and talking the rest of the night. The next day, his gang was involved in a major fight. Shortly before it started he came back to the cell and told me, Stay here. You’ll be alright.

Food can be a form of violence harm reduction in prison.

I’m not a fighter. But I do love to eat. In every prison I’ve been in over the course of 28 years incarcerated, food has been my way of becoming valuable to those who might otherwise be more inclined to harm me. And over the years, it’s become a way for me to not just defuse threats to my own safety, but also the safety of neighbors, many of whom are also older, queer or otherwise especially vulnerable. Food can be a form of violence harm reduction here.

I’ve hosted many conflict-resolution meetings to which I lured both parties with promises of food. I tell them I’m not going to try to change their opinion, I’m just going to facilitate and they can each say their piece, but first we’ll have some food.

People lower their defenses when they’re eating. They allow themselves to be more vulnerable. They also tend to listen better when their mouths are full. Food can be an equalizer in prison. We all have to eat, and we all appreciate something that has actual flavor, which is not typically anything you’ll find on the trays in the chow hall.

It’s hard to make a tray of shit taste like food. But with food items you can afford to buy at commissary, or from kitchen workers hustling them out on the side, you can then get creative with the microwave in the day room.

A good hustler can smuggle out cabbage, carrots, onions, celery, rice, instant potatoes, oatmeal and the like to willing buyers, usually for around $1 to $3 per item. Or rather, the equivalent value in commissary items, since those of us fortunate enough to have jobs only make a few cents per hour, and thus USD is a currency that’s hard to come by.

I was a decent cook before prison. After I began my sentence, it didn’t take me long to begin experimenting. These are a few favorites that are also relatively accessible and don’t require you to have a lot of money, since none of us really has the means to buy as much commissary as we actually need to eat well on a regular basis.

Microwave Cabbage

I use a plastic calculator to roughly chop the cabbage. In a large microwave bowl, I’ll mix one pack of seasoning from a beef ramen noodle cup with three tablespoons of water. Then add the cabbage on top. Cover tightly with a garbage bag, or plastic wrap if I have it. Microwave 12 minutes. Uncover and stir in butter, salt, pepper or whatever other seasoning might be available.

Microwave Carrots

Raw carrots are almost impossible to chop without real utensils, so I break them in half and microwave them in a quarter-inch of water for six minutes, covered with a garbage bag or plastic wrap. Once steamed, they can be rinsed in cold water and easily cut up however you like. Put them back in the bowl but with no water this time, and cover with butter, a few sugar packets, salt and pepper. Cover with plastic, microwave six more minutes.

Tuna Patties

This calls for two packs of tuna and a sleeve’s worth of crushed-up crackers, though chips will also work. Add three-quarters of a cup of mayo, three squirts of ketchup or hot sauce, and additional seasoning if you have it (garlic powder; onion powder; pepper flakes). Form into patties and place in a well-buttered microwave dish. Cook uncovered for four minutes; turn; cook for three more minutes. They’re great with rice, if you have it.

Prison Fruit Cake

Begin with one box of oatmeal pies, crumbled up. Add half a cup of peanut butter, one pack of trail mix and one pack instant oatmeal. Add half a cup of liquid milk, if you have the powdered milk to prepare it from, or make the equivalent from water and creamer. I like to add raisins from the Raisin Bran cereal. Cook uncovered for three minutes, until the center feels firm. Then flip it out onto the lid. For a glaze, mix two tablespoons of jelly with one tablespoon of butter, nuke it enough to melt, then drizzle.

Time and again, I’ve de-escalated conflict through a trusty recipe. I’ve found this a much more appealing option than picking up a shank and sinking my opinion into someone. But more than just decreasing conflict, a meal that has been prepared with care—and seasoning—helps restore the humanity that is chipped away by each pile of slop we’re handed in the chow hall. I’ve been served trays of prison food containing everything from rat turds to used Band-Aids.

The food we make for our fellow prisoners provides a framework for living in community, as it does on the outside. We bring food to new neighbors to welcome them and introduce ourselves. We share meals with those we know well or want to know better. We share how our day went, the good parts and the bad. We remind each other we’re human.

Cropped photograph via Office of the Corrections Ombuds

The post The Recipes I Use to De-Escalate Violence in Prison appeared first on Filter.

In 2022, GDC Ramen soups—the primary prison food staple—rose from $0.39 to $0.48, a 20 percent increase. Hydrocortisone cream rose by nearly 45 percent, Tylenol by more than 33 percent and coffee by more than 15 percent.

Petitions reviewed by Filter asked GDC to meet recent price hikes with corresponding increases in weekly spending caps. Prisoners face spending limits that are determined by factors like their security level and the limits set by state systems, and in some cases by availability of certain products. These caps remain unchanged.

“The sale of bad food to prisoners, besides being unconstitutional, is also an unethical, predatory and extortionate practice.”

“Ramen soup, a pack of cheese crackers and a soda—that allowed a $50-a-month budget to get me through with a few hygiene items. Maybe a box of oatmeal pies a couple of times a month. Or a dollar to spare to feed someone else a meal when the weather was just too miserable to go to the chow hall, or if you just wanted to help someone out,” J.D., 42, incarcerated at Central State Prison, told Filter. “Now, a dollar won’t buy a soda.”

The increased prices are not reflected in the quality of products available. Food, beverages and medications are frequently expired—often not just by days, but by months. The petitions being circulated emphasize that without increased spending limits, it’s nearly impossible for prisoners to stay healthy.

“It’s our position that the sale of bad food to prisoners, besides being unconstitutional, is also an unethical, predatory and extortionate practice by GDC and its commissary vendor, Stewart Candy Company,” Emily Shelton, the founder of prison reform nonprofit Ignite Justice, told Filter.

According to GDC standard operating procedure, state prison prices are set by the Department and “subject to change without advance notice.” Commissary prices at county facilities are set locally.

“I’m now spending $40 a week to buy what $25 used to.”

Though it’s clear that prisoners are not given the means to meet rising prices, it’s not clear whether the private companies contracted to provide commissary items, like long-time GDC vendor Stewart Candy Company, have caps on just how high they can raise those prices. GDC did not respond to Filter’s request for comment. Oklahoma vendor contracts, which Shelton obtained through open records requests, also did not indicate any guidelines or restrictions around price increases.

Prison commissary prices are intended to be lower than commercial retail prices. However, lack of oversight means this is not always the case. In Nevada, a 2022 audit found that the majority of commissary prices had been marked up compared to retail prices—some by 40 percent. In Kentucky, deodorant sticks being sold for $1.98 at local Walmarts now cost $4.52 at prison commissaries.

“At one time, my folks were sending me $25 every week, and that was just enough,” Zombr3x, 28, incarcerated in a Middle Georgia Correctional Complex prison, told Filter. “I’m now spending $40 a week to buy what $25 used to.” 

Though it’s standard for commissary prices to go up each year as new annual budgets and vendor contracts are set, in previous years many systems had seen increases of perhaps 2 or 4 percent. Shelton, who collects data on such increases nationwide, said the 2022 increases seem to begin at around 8 percent and go up from there. The Oklahoma private prison where Shelton’s husband is incarcerated proposed a 10.5-percent increase. Since the beginning of the pandemic, systems across the country have seen about a 25-percent increase overall.

Albert, 49, incarcerated at Dooly State Prison, criticized the practice of charging one dollar each month simply for prisoners to keep money on their commissary accounts. Visits to medical staff already come with $5 copays, plus another $5 for any medicine prescribed. This often means relying on commissary for over-the-counter items, or going without them. Even the act of putting $20 on a commissary account costs loved ones a $3.50 fee, for the prisoners fortunate enough to have them.

Commissary purchases are not luxuries. They are the difference between eating and going hungry, between having warm clothes or freezing.

“When you don’t have no one, no family … you gotta fend for yourself,” TearDrop, a 29-year-old trans woman at Valdosta State Prison who relies on sex work to survive, told Filter. “In here store [goods] is your coin, your currency … it’s definitely more now [and] a girl’s gotta eat.”

Commissary purchases are not luxuries. They are the difference between eating and going hungry, between having warm clothes or freezing through the winter. The price hikes mean fewer and fewer prisoners are able to buy toothpaste, or Tylenol, or denture cream, or underwear. This is true of prison systems nationwide, but it is excruciating for those impacted by a system so gravely overcrowded and underfunded as GDC, where prisoners are sleeping outside and the understaffing crisis has left prisoners and their families pleading for administrators to call in the National Guard, to no avail. 

“Everyone in here is still a legal slave paid not even a single cent, and folks on the streets rightfully have to look after their own bills,” 57-year-old GDC prisoner Jimmy told Filter. “Maybe that’s why these states have the most trouble; hungry prisoners cannot be expected to behave.”

Top photograph via Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Inset screenshots of GDC prisoner backchannel platforms via Anonymous.

The post Drastic Commissary Price Hikes Leave Prisoners Without Food, Medicine appeared first on Filter.

Or is it a drug product, currently sold in head shops and other venues without regulation in the US and subject to potential contamination—one that in some eyes could be foisted upon an unsuspecting public, some of whom could possibly become ill, addicted or even die from consuming it?

The people who want to make kratom more accessible want it to be regulated—but not like a drug or a medication.

More and more, it’s looking like the best of both worlds—a plant that can be a beneficial regulated product, if used correctly—although, as is often true of currently unregulated substances, more research is needed.

The people who want to make kratom more accessible want it to be regulated—but not like a drug or a medication. The American Kratom Association (AKA), with the support of thousands of letter-writers, is pushing for it to be regulated instead like a vitamin or food supplement. This means it would not be prescribed, nor sold over-the-counter.

But that scenario would require approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which under the leadership of Commissioner Scott Gottlieb seemed bent on characterizing kratom as dangerous enough to be made illegal, period.

But with the March 5 announcement of Gottlieb’s resignation, things are looking up for kratom and the many Americans who use it, according to C.M. (“Mac”) Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the AKA.

“We are very glad that commissioner Gottlieb will be replaced by someone who will have a more reasonable view,” said Haddow—although not all of the reported contenders to replace Gottlieb have stellar drug policy records. Haddow doesn’t blame Gottlieb, however, for the FDA’s anti-kratom bias, which he says was there for years.

“But right to try ought to apply here,” said Haddow. “By God, we should do it.”

The Dietary Supplement Pathway

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 explicitly does not apply to tobacco, but does apply to anything intended to supplement the diet that contains a vitamin, a mineral, an herb, an amino acid, or other “concentrate, metabolite, constituent, extract” intended for human consumption.

It must be labeled as a dietary supplement, and not as a part of a conventional meal or food item. DSHEA cannot be applied to a new drug, antibiotic or biologic.

This is the pathway that Kratom advocates hope to take to legitimacy—far from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, where marijuana, for example, still resides. Placing kratom on Schedule I—banning it—would not only deny millions of the potential benefits of the plant, advocates say, but also have adverse health and legal consequences for the many Americans who already use kratom for reasons as diverse as pain management and pleasure.

As the first campaign manager for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah, now retired), who sponsored DSHEA, Mac Haddow gained a lot of experience in this area. The FDA commissioner at the time, David Kessler, hated DSHEA, according to Haddow, and said the law was so bad that he told the agency not to enforce it.

Before the 1994 law, vitamins and dietary supplements were not regulated. But unscrupulous vendors, trying to increase their market share, were selling supplements that were killing people, said Haddow.

“So, is kratom natural? Yes. Is it a vitamin? No. Should it be studied? Yes.”

In fact, kratom has also been found to cause some deaths, though a very small number in the context of overall use: 11 deaths (of which only two resulted from kratom use only, the others from combinations with other substances) and other harms were noted by a recent study of kratom exposures reported to US poison control centers from 2011 to 2017.

“These reports were not simple call-ins,” H. Westley Clark, MD, JD, dean’s executive professor at Santa Clara University and former director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, told Filter. “These people needed either EMS or hospital interventions, with symptoms ranging from agitation and irritability to seizures, tachycardia, nausea, vomiting and hypertension.”

There were 1,807 reported exposures during this period, with multi-substance exposures associated with higher risks of health care facility admissions and serious outcomes.

Clark is skeptical of moves to get kratom approved through DSHEA. “So, is kratom natural? Yes. Is it a vitamin? No. Should it be studied? Yes.”

But that still doesn’t imply that kratom should be banned.

The Kratom Ban Pathway

Haddow joined the AKA in August of 2016, when the federal government announced that it was considering scheduling kratom on the Controlled Substances Act under the emergency scheduling authority of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Less than two months later, thanks significantly to the AKA’s efforts, that proposal was withdrawn.

Back in the early 1990s, when Haddow had worked in the dietary supplements field, advocacy was limited to what could be done on the ground. In cases where supplements were banned “people were so upset at not having their vitamins,” said Haddow.

The threat of scheduling kratom as a controlled drug still lingers.

Fast forward to 2016, and kratom advocates were able to harness the internet to push for the withdrawal of the proposed ban. Thousands of people were mobilized to write in, saying that they had used kratom to successfully step down from opioids, or to avoid using opioids altogether in pain cases.

That’s when the DEA invited the FDA to do an “eight-factor analysis” to determine whether kratom should be placed onto Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

The AKA contracted Jack Henningfield, PhD, of Pinney Associates, to conduct a separate analysis of this issue. He had been working on kratom in his consulting life, and he concluded in the resulting review that kratom shouldn’t be scheduled, because this would create public health problems that did not exist as long as kratom was legal.

As Haddow put it, kratom use existed, and mainly by people who were using it as an alternative to opioids or NSAIDs for pain management. “More people would die if they couldn’t get it,” said Haddow. They would be forced onto the black market, where illicit fentanyl was already killing people.

However, the threat of scheduling kratom as a controlled drug still lingers.

A Case of Kratom’s Use for Depression

Murray Holcomb, MD, is a general surgeon based in Austin, Texas. He has been helping his son, now 30, who has suffered from depression and anxiety since college. After years of treatment that failed, Holcomb and his wife finally found kratom for their son.

“My son had ECT, went to Mass General and the Mayo Clinic,” Holcomb told Filter. “He was prescribed increasingly high doses of Xanax, and was never an opioid addict.” But he continued to have severe depression and anxiety.

He did have a job working as a contractor for Apple, however, and was on the verge of being recommended for a full-time job there. That all changed when he forgot to scan two items at Walmart and was arrested for shoplifting.

After a night in jail, Apple withdrew the possibility of an offer for advancement and forced him to resign as a contractor. Then a friend of his died from an opioid overdose, and it was too much. He started drinking —a lot.

His parents put him in a long-term intensive residential treatment program, and he followed it. “He did the program—12 Steps, not drinking, on Prozac and Buspar—but still, six months into the program, he had anhedonia and was disphoric,” said Holcomb. “He wasn’t getting any better.”

“His depression lifted immediately, he regained his footing, and he’s been fine for three years.”

Then, three years ago, he started kratom, and within five days, the anhedonia and dysphoria  went away. “His depression lifted immediately, he regained his footing, and he’s been fine for three years.” Holcomb said.

Holcomb thinks there are three classes of patients for whom kratom is suited: those with previous opioid addiction; those with chronic pain; and those (like his son) with treatment-refractory depression.

These don’t sound like conditions for which a vitamin or nutritional supplement would be appropriate, do they? “The manufacturer should not be making those claims,” conceded Holcomb. “But people can make their own decisions.”

Understandably, after all the years worrying about and caring for his son, Holcomb was very concerned when it seemed in 2016 that kratom might be banned. “When they thought this might happen, the psychiatrist put him on Suboxone,” said Holcomb.

Suboxone is a medication demonstrated to reduce mortality for people with opioid use disorders. But the effects of losing kratom for Holcomb’s son, who had never had opioid use disorder, were terrible—the anhedonia returned with a vengeance.

Holcomb’s son has since returned to using kratom, and once again saw a dramatic improvement in his condition. The cost of his kratom is about $100 a month, said Holcomb. His recommendation—advice his son follows—is that anyone who takes it should not take alcohol, benzodiazepines or other opioids.

Although Holcomb’s son was never suicidal in terms of making attempts, his depression was so bad that he was not functional. “It’s unbelievably distressing to think kratom could not be available.”

But is there proof that kratom relieves depression? As ever, more research is needed. But you could ask the same thing about some of the labeled medications, which have the same effect as placebo, notes Holcomb. He doesn’t dismiss the placebo effect. “Perception is important,” he said. “If you’re happy, you’re happy.”

The dose that Holcomb’s son takes is “medium”: 5 grams twice a day of ground-up leaves. And he experiences no side effects, Holcomb said. He has since told his story on Capitol Hill as part of advocacy efforts for kratom access.

Distribution, Recreation and Excessive Health Claims

Kratom, the plant, grows in Indonesia and Thailand. It is imported to the United States either as a raw leaf or, more commonly, as a powder. Because of concerns about salmonella and other “cleanliness” issues related to both harvesting and shipping, brewing tea from the raw leaf is not preferable; the powder form, sold in bottles of capsules, is more common. But, even in these forms, the big concern is that because the market is unregulated, the kratom powder could have had things added to it.

The first import ban resulted from a cluster of nine deaths in Sweden 10 years ago. But what should have been made public—and wasn’t at the time—was an investigation showing that in all nine cases, the product had been mixed with Tramadol, a synthetic opioid.

“People tried to spike the effect of kratom with Tramadol,” said Haddow. This suggests that the market for kratom does include people who want the fuller effect of opioids, not an opioid alternative.

The AKA is promoting any regulation that would ban spiking, require clear labeling, and make the product a dietary supplement.

However, Haddow doesn’t think kratom would ever truly be a recreational drug. “It tastes so terrible that you gag on it,” he said. “And it does cause gastrointestinal distress” if too much is consumed. “People could be hurt,” he said. Of course, the same is true for other dietary supplements and even vitamins.

Despite these concerns, the distribution network for kratom is expanding, said Haddow.

He is a bit concerned about this. “We’re trying to protect the consumer, and they’re trying to expand the marketplace,” he said. “There are no controlled studies, We want to look at drug interactions.”

The AKA is promoting any regulation that would ban spiking, require clear labeling, and make the product a dietary supplement—not an over-the counter or prescription drug. “It’s not a drug at all, we think it should be a dietary ingredient,” said Haddow. In this way, his organization is taking a very different path from marijuana proponents.

The cause isn’t helped by excessive claims around kratom’s benefits. Haddow recalls coming across a kratom booth at a conference two years ago, where there was a sign saying kratom would cure cancer.

“I asked, ‘How can you make that claim? That’s an impermissible health claim.’” He was told that the company’s lawyer approved it. The lawyer in question turned out to be a real estate attorney.

One area of FDA crackdowns of which the AKA does approve is the making of such unsubstantiated claims.

A “Mild Mood Boost” in Limbo

So what does the AKA say kratom does? “The same thing as a dietary supplement,” said Haddow. “It gives you mild pain relief and a mild mood boost.”

Some people would say that this is why people drink alcohol, or use other drugs. It is possible to push the herb definition, but there is no doubt that some people do take kratom for recreational purposes as well as therapeutic ones.  

Almost everyone agrees that a total lack of regulation is not good.

Occasional news reports, such as this one from 2017, of kratom being stolen from head shops underline this. Head shops, of course, are not normally associated with vitamins, nutritional supplements or health foods. “It appears from the head-shop robbery that as a vitamin or nutritional supplement label, [kratom] would require a wink and a nod,” said Clark, adding that people should be made aware that kratom, no matter why it is being used, has potential risks.

However, Clark believes that regulating kratom as a dietary supplement would have one advantage. “The one good thing that could come from the vitamin or nutritional supplement label would be the good manufacturing processes,” he said. With the current, unregulated form of kratom sales, he asked, “who decides how much you should take and how often? Consumers should be informed about dosage, risk and adverse consequences of a psychoactive substance.”

Kratom right now appears to be in limbo. Almost everyone agrees that a total lack of regulation is not good. Advocates, scientists and policy experts point out the harms to users that would be caused by regulating it as a drug. But as long as the DEA, the FDA and others view kratom as an opioid, it remains to be seen how realistic the dietary supplement path really is.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Correction, March 14th: This article was updated to clarify that Jack Henningfield was contracted by the AKA.

The post Dietary Supplement? Or Drug? The Kratom Regulation Debate appeared first on Filter.