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ETHA is very excited to announce that our very own ETHA Co-Founder Alexander Karp was recently interviewed by world-renowned Holistic Health Practitioner Paul Chek on Paul's popular and widely listened to podcast. Alexander sat down with Paul  to describe his long and tedious journey to find pain relief with kratom, as well as the perils of an unregulated marketplace. The goal of this interview was to introduce kratom to listeners and provide these listeners with a safer, natural alternative to pain relief.

Christopher R. McCurdy, Ph.D., FAAPS, is a broadly trained medicinal chemist, behavioral pharmacologist and pharmacist whose research focuses on the design, synthesis and development of drugs to treat pain and drug abuse.

For over 20 years, much of his research has focused on opioid, Neuropeptide FF and sigma receptor ligand/probe design, synthesis, pharmacological evaluation and development. He has been successful in discovering unique and selective tools for sigma receptors, NPFF receptors and opioid receptors. He is an internationally recognized expert on Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), that is under investigation for opioid withdrawal syndrome.

When you use kratom in its natural form, the likelihood of addiction is very minimal. However, the potential for benefits is very high.  When looking at the likelihood of abuse, the scientific mechanism of kratom’s alkaloids and the diminishing returns of higher quantities of use minimize the possibility of abuse.