Introduding Earth Kratom from Long Beach, California

Today, I'm talking with Earth Heart Kratom, co-owner Brandon Bryant is a spirit technician who has a passion and expertise in plant medicines based in Long Beach, California.

Brandon, Tell me about your new business.

I'm importing kratom concentrate. Mood elevators
seem to be kind of hitting right now, people are finding
that they are effective.
I already work with other plant medicine
modalities so this seems to be a natural
expansion. Our source
for it is from the Netherlands, they do the processing and concentration.
The Kratom plant is usually from
Indonesia, but the strain
we sell is from Thailand. I put my order in for our
first large shipments, I have the
capsules and tools and hopeful to start sales in about a month.  

Kratom isn’t a session based medicine,it isn’t a psychedelic, it’s sold like a Tylenol.You can buy it in vape shops in California right now. We want to sell it with online marketing through our yet to be developed website; right now we are just selling it to
people we know.  I’ve bought a website. The plan is to import it, weigh it, and capsule it.
I can test for fentanyl and other research chemicals, so I make sure that none of that is in there.

Ibogaine is a session facilitated plant medicine that has helped many
people get off of opiates, including Brandon himself.

What is the big difference between Kratom and other opiate
kicking plant medicines?

It is illegal to offer services with Ibogaine, so Brandon
feels this fact, plus the ease of distribution are two
reasons to get into Kratom as a business.
In a Scientific American article, someone had been
using 10 ml of Dilaudid, a very strong opioid everyday.
His wife found out he was injecting and so he started on
Kratom and the story is that
he never had any dope sickness/withdrawal.
When he finally went to
the doctor, he wanted him off the kratom. The doctor
wanted him off kratom because, this is America and its
not FDA approved. When they took him off the kratom,
he STILL didn’t have withdrawal. It has a lot of promise
for me, as a recovering opiate addict, i often fear if I ever
get into an injury accident, then what am I going to do.
Kratom could be an alternative for that. It does affect
the opioid receptors in the brain, but so does coffee,
sex and everything else worth doing. I think in the same
sense it can be addictive like coffee is addictive, but I haven’t
found any research aside from headaches
and crotchiness as side effects.

It's great for my irritable bowel syndrome, i find when work

gets stressful and i get an episode of stomach cramps,

if I take 500-600ml (one capsule). I don’t currently have
chronic pain, and advil wouldn’t really help

with IBS problems. OTC painkillers don’t really help with
anxiety or depression, but Kratom seems to hit both; it works like
a standard painkiller and a mood elevator.

How does it compare to uses of medical marijuana?
I haven’t seen that cannabis is as effective as a pain killer,
CBD has some promising studies but there are some
psychosomatic stuff going with it.   

Do people get  high from doing Kratom?
Personally, i have not gotten high off it.  I’ve read stories
of people taking heroic doses off it so that they get high.  
There is some responsibility that the user has to take.
There is a potential for abuse but i believe it is way safer
than alcohol and safer than acetaminophen as far as what
it does for the liver. Any time we bring something into our
bodies, it should be to correct something and it should have
an end date.  We should always be striving to improve
our health. I measure [intake of anything] by the amount
of harm, and i do not believe that Kratom depresses the
respiratory system in the same way opiates do. Fibromyalgia
and other chronic pain conditions seem to respond well to it,
for people who rely on benzos for anxiety this could be a good
alternative for them.

Tanya J: Sexing, Scoring and Away from Home

My typical day...is a 30 -48 hour day and then a big 15 hour sleep.  Sometimes it starts at 7-8pm sometimes it starts at 3am...it really depends on so many things- where I am, who I'm with, how im working at that time (ie from the street or online), if I wanna go score, or if I have any specific plans. So even if i do very different activities or stick to wildly different times from day to day- I'm usually trying to take care of myself and people around me while working towards my own goals (making money, learning new things and trying to change some of the fucked up things in the world)  I use heroin basically every day..or at least I have done for the last 4 or So years... And I travel a fair bit - for work and to visit friends and family ...even when I don't plan on it I still end up moving around a lot.  A lot of the time its almost like there's this feeling that I'm being moved on or I'm about to be moved on. On the street in Narrm [Melbourne] police will issue sex workers and our clients "move on notices " if they think we are loitering with intent to solicit...and even if I dodge them, I see a regular client get told to move on & if he's seen in the area again its a 24 hour ban. And even if I rent an apartment there is this feeling of "how long will we last here" - places where sex workers and drug users have hung out for years keep getting gentrified so fast- and now im in Europe I similar things happening everywhere I go- in Amsterdam, in Oslo, in London...

Most days I spend a few hours texting/talking to potential clients and filtering through time wasters, and other people I get a bad vibe from.. And maybe on average I do one job a day.. Sometimes I might do three quickies (10-15 minute car jobs) in an afternoon,  other times I might do 3 bookings all week (and hopefully they are 1 hour or longer or otherwise I end up with no drugs and real sick hanging out)

But when work is really quiet it goes from good to double bad coz I'm not only broke but also going thru withdrawals for heroin and often also coming down off uppers ...but I'd rather have good times and some shit than just the same boring  same thing again and again. I enjoy being outside my comfort zone or challenging myself in different ways.

How do you travel over borders so much with a habit?

I have info and things on my devices but I just be vague and send heapsa texts but in trying to avoid extra risks .  I don't carry shit on me, they drug test everything I have twice for residue, question me for 3 hours as it is. It's like its better to be sick for 24 hrs than risk like everything when people are making fairly active watch. But anyway, finding shit, i dunno I think its easy in street based work ..either I find people somehow or I know enough people or place to go to then ask then to ask people  for things .. Like these days I just travel back and forth from Stockholm to Australia. I can get OST sometimes like methadone but I try avoid that now its easier being sick 24 hours than getting off and on methadone

I like to read a lot about history, take notes and share stuff with friends or my partner. If I don't make music or write poetry or spend time reading/listening to oral histories ...then I kinda sink down into a depressive hole... I need to do things like this to keep some hope in future or to distract myself from tendencies to be overly pessimistic & cynical

A big part of me taking drugs ( injecting heroin and smoking ice) is to find time and create the kind of mental state I want to be in to focus or relax or enjoy doing those kinds of things to the max... And also to treat myself and enjoy the money I earn from sex work- as a kind of investment in myself and how I feel.

How Can Medical Marijuana help with the Opioid Abuse and Mortality?

I am a stoner of 20 years with a medical marijuana prescription. While I admittedly smoke for recreational use, there was a string of five or so years that I used marijuana as an antidepressant and I identified as being “chemically depressed.” I tried to get prescribed “real antidepressants” but I was evaluated as not qualified by my local LGBTQ medical clinic. I don’t “have depression” but I do smoke to feel less depressed at times, if that makes sense. It is excellent medicine for me, but I have learned quite well how to use medicines to my advantage. Other people are not naturally introspective, or critical of their doctors or the system and unfortunately many are in situations or states of being not able to control well what is best for their body, mind and souls, which is why there are doctors, lawyers and police officers enlisted to take care of that for those that fall short of solid decision making. The enforcers of your choices are not always right, kind or ethical but what can you do if you can’t do? Nothing. Exactly. The recent Fentanyl overdose problem has created an unforeseen crisis that luckily many of my former heroin/opiate addict friends missed. B was one of them. B is a good friend of mine who is a daily user of cannabis wax and other psychotropics that he calls “plant medicines.” He chose to live in California, a state with legal access to cannabis specifically because he once lived in Ohio and had a wicked painkiller addiction problem. It was plant medicines like Ayauasca that was the gateway that helped him to kick his habit but he and I would agree that it isn’t any substance or plant or pill that can heal you if you are prone to addiction or abuse, it has to do with a desire to change your life and patterns. Some choose Ayuasca for this, others choose 12 step programs. Ayuasca and other plant medicines are illegal and probably won’t see the light of a brick and mortar dispensary with a neon sign in the window like your local medical MJ store but I find that plant medicine retreats were getting quite hip and pretty easy to find access to, even through Facebook event invites! Medical cannabis is for those on the alternative non clean and sober recovery plan and it works out great for a lot of people. Recent research has shown to reveal significant reduction in opioid prescription rates in Kentucky, Minnesota and Illinois. Worldwide studies have conferred in Israel and Mexico who were regular opioid presribed patients reduced usage where cannabis was legal or medical. CC, another former trusted opioid user friend who doesn’t use weed at all tells me,“Opioids are always going to be necessary for higher duty hardcore pain, people too often champion one at the expense of the other when there are so many kinds of pain and so many different kinds of individuals with different needs.” As a habitual weed user, I fully agree and understand this well as I’ve certainly moaned,”I NEED SOMETHING FUCKING STRONGER!!” while in unbearable pain because, if you smoke weed everyday, smoking more weed when you are have some sudden major injury is not going to cut it at all. Going back to the famous but simplified rat park study, in regards to emotional pain needs being met, I think cannabis works better for this type of pain than opioids, but I don't claim to represent all humans or all rats in the park. It’s about giving patients options and trusting that they can make choices. This sounds quite simple but its not, because there will always be some people who don’t like to or simply are unable to make sound or conscious choices at all.

Ayahuasca and Cuddle Sessions

Henry must have been on a low key binge because he put down $1800 on me plus dinner that day and in the weeks that I would know him, I only got one more $200 session out of him and we eventually parted into the land of no contact. He had given me some odd things from his last move: a bodyboard, a few speakers, a stereo receiver. I remember his bedroom being full of my asthmatic dust trigger to the point that I couldn’t even have a peaceful session there because I was sniffling and needing to sneeze every 5 minutes. We had transitioned into friends after our 12 hour date because mostly we cuddled a lot. I even got to play my singing bowls and do some things I don’t usually do with people. (Its 12 hours and he is on drugs and I know how to think like i'm on one so, you get to use lots of creativity...and bond intensely). I told him once he told me that he was on meth at the moment that he was absolutely NOT going to receive a frantic speedy energy session, the kind of vibe from clients that I would accept because I thought that I needed that money but I didn’t; the kind of session that had my wrist hurting because I would be playing hand job robot provider to a tweaked out client who kept thinking he was just about to cum. Never again, I said after a few of those sessions. Henry wasn’t like that at all. He was seeking spiritual advice from me. He was calm. He wanted intimacy and cuddling. We did that. We got along well. I enjoyed our time together. I started to plan for a future session. I had recently become friends with a friend who was a DMT facilitator. His friend was an ayahuasca facilitator and even though B, my friend had complaints about I’s personality defects he raved about his services and how their sessions doing ayahuasca helped him kick addiction to prescription pain meds. Now B still does lots of drugs, usually of the psychedelic ilk, but I suppose he wanted to mainly kick the opiates when he enlisted I. I talked to I about Henry and asked if it would be beneficial for a crystal meth user? He said that it works best with the chemical bonds that are in opiates but he has had success with patients who did have cocaine and meth addictions. I believe that the plant opens up channels that you might use the other substance to forget or numb, if you are willing to open and cleanse those cords and unmet needs then I think it would help with any addiction or pattern of behavior that you were ready to relinquish. We talked about options for future sessions, but Henry seemed to have gone big just once with me. I suggested that we go to a cuddle party, and I remember I even paid for his ticket if he would try it. I don’t remember exactly but I’m sure there was information in our session that would lead to me suggesting we go to a cuddle party. He didn’t make it. I went alone. In the end, I sent him information on doing ayahuasca sessions and he never really followed that path either. I wasn’t try to rescue him, but I wanted to just use my expertise and explore some avenues he may have thought did not even exist in the world. I think this is my job now with drug users. I would love to set up some Tibetan Healing bowls in a rehab facility for as much money as some of these people are paying to “get clean.” I’d love to be the luxurious healing goddess serenade for your come down.

Breaking Good or Bad?

He came to me through my print ad.  I had a deal in the weekly newspaper of LA that never to failed to double its investment every time I ran it despite this business being supposedly all internet based, there still are people who don’t have smart phones or know how to use a computer.  These numbers are dwindling but I seemed to have found a worth while niche for myself regardless.  Because I had already been through hell and back with too many drug addict late night clients, I had for the last four years working started to screen all of my clients and charging more per hour.  My screening before was really based upon whether they sounded fucked up on the phone and if they asked me “Do I party?” was an automatic disconnection.  Even if I did love to do coke with my clients, any person who asked me if I partied was guaranteed trouble for me based on experience.  I started to see only professional working men.  Men who weren’t afraid to tell me the truth about who they were and what they really wanted from their hearts, who weren’t afraid to confess that their hearts were broken and needed healing.   I now had a screening process which required an internet name  and phone number search and verification of government ID.   I have one memory of an addict from my pre-screening times who blew his rehab money on me and more heroin but came to me in a way that was anything but dangerous, so I do have some good words to share about those times.  When I laid close to his heart,  I could feel the drugs pulse through his body so strongly that I got a contact high without any needle penetrating me.  I can’t do IV drugs, it takes a skilled phlebotomist and a butterfly needle to get a blood test from me and I have more than once been the recipient of having an unskilled nurse miss a bunch of time and create purple blotch bruises all over my arm and hand where they finally used a vein.  On the night that I held the rehab ditcher, his heart was injecting into me, and it felt like love.  

I held my rehab ditcher for hours in his doze off until the sun rose and I left.  But this wasn’t my current client.  I had screened him on the phone based on the story that he told as he was one of the founders of one of the hugest LA festivals that everyone and their mother knew the name of.  He had brought in Jane’s Addiction and the Chili Peppers and probably started his journey somewhere around there with the rest of them.  His name was confirmed listed in the Wikipedia history of the festival and matched the name on his ID and the depth of knowledge that he had about music festival history which I also ask casually when I screen people for truth or lies.  He had just move home to live in the home that he grew up in, where his mother lived in the back. In my current need to be safe and sane in my work I eliminated anyone who told me they used crystal meth.  I had put this in practice for at least 4 years since my last interaction with a user was chasing one such down the street with a stun gun because he was trying to stalk and harass me.  The client in front of me, we’ll call him Henry seemed calm and sweet.  He was in his fifties and face showed the aged wrinkles of years of rock and roll living.    He soon confessed to me that he was a lifelong addict and always had trace amounts of meth in his body, even as he stood before me.  I appreciated and felt his truth.  I went with him to the local bank to withdraw my fee which would cover my time for the next twelve hours as well as paid for me to eat well in a nice restaurant because, a 12 hr session requires a meal and rest break.  It was a large chunk to say the least, but none of these sessions that I did for these guys do I retain any sense of guilt for.  I never manipulated what I was offering, they came to me willing and wanting something else beside the equally as unsober hostess for their addictions which they probably had grown tired of spending money on by this time in their lives.   I hoped I was a catalyst to some kind of change.  I can never be sure what I effect I have had on the lives on any of my clients.  I can not even base it on their words of affirmation or adoration even as those could also be lies.  

Crazy Sexy Mental Illness Accountability

It is truly amazing the human capacity to withstand pain and repeat cycles of violence before breaking.  Some fucked up relationships can go on for decades.  But the lab rats when left alone with heroin laced water will always overdose and die.  At some point the mind inside the user’s body decides NO MORE.  Either by death or detox, something finally gives.  It is a slow suicide.  Even calling it that is a catch phrase that rings true to me when i describe being suicidal to people.  I would do whatever drugs clients did or put in front of me.  I once traded sex for pills from a pimp.  I was trying to get Oxycodone but he gave me something weaker.  Vicodin.  I can’t commit suicide with Vicodin!  Or maybe it is possible but i just ended up throwing up for half a day.

Is suicide a choice?  Do you support your friends in making this choice?  Is it like when a friend gets an abortion?

I posted this on my Facebook.  People convinced me it was not a choice because it was a mental illness.  No sane person would make this choice they said.  I thought back to fucking that pimp (not my pimp) for those pills.  What was I thinking?  That it would take just 3 to OD on oxy for me and I could die alone and unnoticed because the world as I knew it was pointless.  My narrow tunnel of darkness was a form of mental illness I reasoned.  My logic was indeed skewed.  I felt at the time that I was “trying to become a drug addict” because at least a downward spiral would count as having “direction” since most of my depression at the time was the result of having lost an identity around being a sex worker founder of an organization, getting arrested and jailed and feeling like my life had no direction.  The feeling that being denied the right to work a teaching job was a good reason to give up entirely on any future.  Mental illness.  No sane person chooses addiction.  Or do they?

Lily Fury wrote to me and many others on Facebook personally apologizing for the Bambi Ortiz fiasco in which she created a digital character or three that represented all of the social justice rainbow spinning a fundraiser for a victim raped by a NYC cop story that pulled the heartstrings of many people workers and non workers in the sex worker rights community, who has been in the last five years working hard to implement social justice into the organizing structure with conscious visibility and its own form of affirmative actions which would show up in events, conferences, marches and media campaigns like Bambis.  Bambis photos were sexy.  So was Harmony, her Latina persona.  So was the Asian one she created too.  She would pull my bisexual sweatshirt strings towards her full lips and whisper about the good times we could have if we were alone in New York City on my next visit.  Haha it was all from Lily pretending to be women (plural) of color).  I fucking donated to her and I didn’t even have the money for my own rent.  I was promptly refunded after this whole shit was uncovered but the whole community was outraged as they should have been.  The campaign had gone viral and she had effectively embezzelled a few thousand dollars.  I don’t know what happened to the money, but she would be posting happy white sand beach photos with her tribe and girlfriend “sorry not sorry” as the caption in bold during the uncovering of the fiasco.  Mental Illness. Narcissism.  

“I’m sorry.  I’m bipolar and have schizoaffective disorder.  I had just been incarcerated and was in heroin withdrawal in a terrible state of mind.  I’m continuing on my journey of self growth for my daughter.  I know what I did was fucked up and will always regret it but unfortunately I can’t go back in time.  I can only move forward and learn from my mistakes to be a better person.”

The rest of her blog, like the rest of her writings are well written literate pieces, explaining the situation in a transparent recap, step by step from her brain to our community.  Lily asked to add me into a sex worker group on FAcebook.  Bambi Ortiz never personally reached out to me, but Harmony and her Asian persona had.  I even tried to forward a media interview to one of her personas!  

“No thank you.”  I said.” I do not think you should be organizing sex workers.”

“I’m not,” she said,”It’s just a support group.”  

She was gathering up who were still willing to be her allies.  I was speaking to her on FAcebook.  I hadn’t blocked and unfriended her.  I told her I forgave her and wished her the best, but she and her crazy are the reasons I continue to stay away.  Like an abusive ex.  Don’t.  Call.  Me.  I’ll.  Call You. NOT.

What's the opposite of ADDICTION?

I had seen the TED talk and video by Johann Hari espousing that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety it is connection. My sex worker friend and I discussed the over simplicity of this video and its valiant attempt at a reframing of an old paradigm. Half of it works for me. But, my friend J whom I have known to be in a long term relationship with a partner who died of a heroin overdose and who still has occasional use and a brand new relationship seems to defy the new norm this video maker wants us to believe. Hari is a staunch opponent of the war on drugs and this video is one that hopes to support its final obliteration in the Western minds with talks and viral animations on social media. My friend J currently does outreach to risky user communities who would be the addicts in the first isolated rat park model. "I appreciate where the video maker is coming from but such a complex issue can never be over simplified. Also it is important to recognize the rat park is a outdated study that does not include the system of of oppressions that humans face." For those of us that work or have worked closely, intimately with users and addicts we know that there is a lot more that solves or transitions chaotic or destructive use for someone.

This video doesn't speak to my experience, but maybe you? I kicked my marijuana addiction, but I still don't have my connection/inclusion needs managed...maybe I do. It's getting better here in Japan, AND once I get to Cali, I pick it right back up along with the connections that I miss, but with a NEWFOUND and successful bond with the substance knowing I can stop for any number of weeks, months etc...Weed for me came/comes with connections...its not simple, its deep deep in the crevices of the no love zone, dare you travel down there?

Hari's animated video touches briefly on trauma and its pull towards addiction, but Gabor Mate focuses more on it in his talks and theories. I appreciate his approach as well, as he has also done medical work on the most at risk area of Vancouver for most of his career. Mate quotes Eckhart Tolle saying,"all addictions begin in pain, and END in pain." and I again have to say, that wasn't true for me. My dependence began as a love bonding, continued as a love replacement and then ended with triumph and surprise. I started using marijuana daily with a partner as many people start using harder substances in relationship. Its all a fun party til you can't turn the music down when you want to right? While my daily use with that boyfriend began as a fun time, I realized how wonderful of a painkiller it was when we I used it to sooth me during our breakup. I can still describe it as "a mother's nipple when I am crawling in the darkness crying like an infant." And once I had started using weed as a coping mechanism, I seemed to never be able to stop for nearly 20 years. From the age of 22 until 39 I probably smoked every day minus great efforts to abstain for 2.5 months 1 or 2 years in a row. The typical quitting streak was 2-3 weeks. I fully felt addicted because I could NOT STOP despite my greatest efforts. I had great connection with weed. I started my career in sex worker activism when Robyn Few got me higher than a kite in a roomful of prostitution activist stoners. With the enthusiasm of MaryJane AND Robyn Few together in a smoky room we planned the beginnings of Sex Workers Outreach Project on a national level and organized Desiree Alliance in its origin years. So then, why was I not able to quit? I had a boyfriend most recently 2 years ago who tried his hardest to shame and compel me into quitting. That was the worst. So here, I am threatened with losing this new relationship over cheating on our agreement that I wouldn't smoke unless I was nauseous and felt like I needed it medically when I had a stomach infection. But the teen rebel in me HATES any exterior control so she will always cheat despite the consequences. Interventions for someone else's good do not work unless the person is on board with seeing her usage as a problem. I remember 3 of my housemates were trying to get me to cut down smoking on my bong everyday. I managed to do it for them for about 3 weeks as well. And when I confessed that I had given up one of them said,"oh it wasn't for us that you were doing it, it was for YOU." HA HA. I did end up getting kicked out of that house for other reasons but it was quite the unideal disconnected human tragedy that would drive someone deeper into addictive behaviors not away from them. Some humans can be so stupid about their caring techniques. The connection of AA works as a community replacer for many people to finally "get clean," engage in mentoring relationships and have an endless global community that will support them dropping in without an appointment at ANY TIME OF THE DAY. That IS the opposite of addiction for them for sure. And to them addiction is a medical disease. The AA model would probably not work for me either. I can be a lone wolf probably due to my trauma history. "why do people use?" Gabor Mate says,"because they have deep emotional problems that they don't have the means to resolve on their own." And he also acknowledges that with right support, addicts need to learn to BE WITH THEIR PAIN not try to escape it. Perhaps, it wasn't until I defied the boundaries of possible and moved to Japan that I was also able to simultaneously defy my other impossibility which was abstain from using cannabis for months. I consider my addiction issues resolved even though I still use the substance. J does as well, even after going through a detox program saying that was "kicking was the worst experience. one of the worst of my life. i couldn't do it again..."

I remember studying Lisa Najavits "Seeking Safety" group therapy model as a possible model to adapt for a sex worker support group I wanted to start to support myself. This group therapy model was meant to support the "co-occuring disorder" of PTSD mental illness and drug use as a coping mechanism during trauma recovery. The problem was the Najavits group model didn't seem to understand sex work outside of a risky behavior or crime and we sex worker activists begged to differ. But, in our defiance we often covered up our wounds with more substance and more sex work, AND many of us transformed our sex work addictions into sex work ACTIVIST ADDICTIONS. The glory of the fight, the media attention, the sexy community that came out of the woodwork to join you...it all seemed like the best thing to do with your time and money. Until we discovered that we couldn't escape our trauma that way. It only multiplied in a roomful of hurt people, who often went through their current coping mechanisms of hurting the community that they were supposed to be so happy to have found. I knew that I was coping with marijuana for several reasons and soothing myself from post traumatic stress disorder triggers was definitely one of the main reasons I never saw myself ever becoming sober, especially during the escort years where sexual violence and more trauma was an all too often occurring tragic continuum that I lacked the ability to deal with.

Mate states that "all addictions originate in childhood trauma." and since I earlier gave the visual of sucking on a bong feeling like the equivalent to sucking on a mother's nipple when screaming in the darkness, I'm sure I can agree that there is a strong childhood, if not infantile wound that I am attending to. A wound that I can't even put into talk therapy rooms because it likely occurred before my brain could even form words. Gabor Mate also talks about ancestral trauma. He had grandparents who were survivors of the Holocaust in Hungary, during this time all Jewish babies were meant to have incessant crying "problems." I have been hearing we hold ancestral wounds in our bodies for 5 or more generations. Finding connections when the substance connection is no longer enough. It is the courage to dig into the wound with the bravery of self growth instead of the usual escape. The CONNECTION that I lacked was the strength to connect to my pain, explore it, excavate it, overcome it, heal...When did the pain of rejection that I so needed to medicate begin? I am still discovering the truth of these imprints, with and without the aid of natural and synthentic substances.