In this Episode I interview Dr. Christopher McCurdy; a broadly trained medicinal chemist and pharmacologist who’s research focuses on the development of drugs to treat pain and drug abuse. Dr. McCurdy is also the Director of the University of Florida Translational Drug Development Core, and is internationally recognized as the expert when it comes to Kratom. He has done groundbreaking research on the plant, as well as studied the products sold from different suppliers to evaluate spiked alkaloid content.
Because of my interest in Kratom and the articles I’ve written in the past, I was really looking forward to this conversation. Dr. McCurdy is also featured in an upcoming Netflix Documentary on Kratom that will be coming out next year. If you want to know the current science behind Kratom without the media fluff or unsubstantiated claims (positive or negative), this is the Podcast Episode for you.
In this conversation we discuss a ton of great info, including:
- What is Kratom?
- Differences in alkaloid content, strains, etc
- How Dr. McCurdy’s career turned towards studying Kratom to treat Opioid Withdrawal
- Benefits of Kratom for pain, mental health, etc
- Risks of Kratom
- The legal future of Kratom
- Potential for Kratom synthetic drug development
- Sketchy suppliers and what to avoid
- What’s coming next?
..As we discuss in the interview, one of the biggest risks of Kratom use is getting adulterated strains from bad suppliers – I have been using Kraken Kratom (and they are an affiliate of the Podcast – you can see more info here), and have had a great experience. If that ever changes, I will be sure to update everyone immediately.
..for Audio of this Episode, visit iTunes or Google Play (for Android), or PeakMentalPerformance.Org