Good Morning Greetings from Oregon ☺︎ And a big Thank You for all your hard work to keep this healing plant legal in our country! Like many others, I started using it to wean myself off of pain meds and learned along the way how valuable it is for mood and energy. About a year into taking around 3-5 grams per day in the mornings, I decided to begin the process of stopping my anti-depressants. Another year later and I'm done with pharmaceuticals, feeling better and managing both pain and depression naturally. As my local vendor is having supply issues, I'd like to access the safe vendor list on this site and am having trouble locating it. Please advise, Thanks!

@bunelda thank you for your thank you. Lol On behalf of the AKA, it's very much appreciated when someone says thanks vs. some sort of bashing The frustration is understandable, as most of it is based on our fears. But they are spread far and wide, doing a lot of teaching and work!

@bunelda Welcome to our community, bunelda ...  It's a pleasure to meet a fellow-Oregonian & congratulations for your triumph over pharmaceuticals!!! The AKA does not have a vendor-list nor do we endorse any particular vendors because we are an advocacy group. I can, however, give you the link to our website so you can access the list of vendors who have joined our GMP Standards Program. Here is the link to the website & again, these are not AKA endorsed or vetted vendors, they are vendors who have joined the GMP Standards Program ... https://www.americankratom.org/ If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask me, ok?

@ska Thank you and I certainly understand why you do not endorse. My local vendor is a nurse who retired early to make kratom available to folks after seeing first hand the damage done with long term pain medication. She's traveled far and wide meeting with farmers and arranging her supply chain, only to have it disrupted in the last year. Given her devotion to clean and healthy supplements, I'm surprised she's not on the list of GMP vendors yet. There's no shortage of vendors in my area, but I'm wary to purchase a herbal supplement from convenience stores advertising with clapboards along the sidewalk...lol. It sure has grown in popularity! Sorta good, sorta terrible...you know what I mean. Thanks again for the link. I'll spend some time looking at the vendors toward finding the right one for me.

@bunelda I completely understand your misgivings about buying from brick & mortar establishments, *especially* due to the fact that you had such a stellar & devoted person from whom to purchase your Leaf. I so very much wish there was an easy answer for finding a good & reputable vendor but even the kratom forums that have thrived so well for *many* years with their own Trusted (as in well-vetted + reviews) Vendors, have been having a terrible time lately. With the increased scrutiny plus the hysterical hype from the FDA combined with the terrible shipping issues, being able to find a reputable vendor has become even more, "wild west" than it was before. As for the GMP Standards program, it is still in its infancy so will take time to become truly & fully useful  As for your local vendor, is she still pursuing this or has she given it up due to all of the problems involved? Please feel free to PM (Chat) me. As a fellow-Oregonian, I would like to discuss this further with you if you wish, ok? 

@ska Good Morning Ska ☺︎ I'm unsure how to PM here, can you point me in the right direction? I believe she's keeping up her efforts, maintaining a limited range of varieties, hence my search for other reputable vendors. I've recently placed an order from a vendor mentioned on a post here somewhere and expect to receive it soon...will let you know how that goes. I spent some time with the vendor list through the link you sent and will likely give one of them a try as well. Given the controversy around it, I've chosen to be quite private about my usage until joining this forum. I'm candid & open about it with my naturopath though, and she is supportive, yet leery, preferring I use it less often until more is known about the long term side effects. It's great to be a able to discuss the current state of availability, efficacy, and legal status with a fellow Oregonian!

@bunelda Yes, I can. I keep meaning to create a guide for PM's (Chats) to add to my Forum Guide. I am not certain exactly what device you are using to access the forum so just know that your screens may not look exactly like mine but the symbols & menus are alike. My example will be me getting ready to send you a PM (Chat). First, you need to click on my name anywhere that it appears blue. The blue indicates that it is a link ...  Clicking on the "linked" name will take you to the profile page for that person & if you look to the right side of the screen you will see a 3-dot menu ...  Click on the 3-dots & the drop-down menu will have, at the very top, "Start New Chat With ... "  Click on that & a Chat Window will appear. Simply type your message (#1) then hit Send (#2).  To see if you have received a response to your Chat or even a new Chat look at your header bar on the top right side of your screen & you will see these symbols ...  When you receive a response &/or new Chat invitation a red number will appear over the Chat symbol. Please let me know if you have any further questions &/or ways to make this as easy as possible, ok? Your feedback will help me in creating an easy to follow Guide for Chat messaging & I will appreciate it greatly 

@bunelda Hello, Bunelda ... I am new here as well & was just curious where you were able to find a reputable vendor to order from. I will appreciate any help you or someone else can provide because, much like you, my vendor is having problems as well. *It is just so scary anymore.* *Thank You* ... :smile:

I appreciate that the AKA has set up the vendor’s GMP program I was looking for a new vendor and I saw excellent reviews of an individual and company that I was curious about, and there they were on your list as one of the first vendors to join the program as there were yet only a few names listed . It gave me confidence to try them, and I was not disappointed. I’m going to continue purchasing from them. I’m only four months into trying Kratom and this is the fourth vendor I have used. None of the previous vendors have yet signed up for the AKA GMP program. This is such a brilliant step on AKA’s part in so many ways. Thank you immensely for all you are doing. Love, JL

@josette well lookie here. Lol I was going to tag you here, as @ska has good diagrams, is forum savvy and just a pain. (😀😀😀just kidding), she has tons of information and is helpful!

@ska Good Morning Ska ☺︎ Great instructions! Though I hit a roadblock when I tried to 'start a new chat'....a message came up... *ERROR This user has restricted their chat messages. They must follow you before you can chat with them* It appears that I am following you so I'm not sure why this happens. Please note that I come to the forum on my laptop only, and get online about once per day, typically in the morning. Can you tell I'm a morning person...lol. At 57yo, I'm a wee bit of a luddite, choosing to use my phone for calls, texts, photos and mapping only....everything else I do on my laptop. I'm happy to share my # with you if you'd like to visit via phone sometime.

@josette Hi Josette ☺︎ I'm awaiting delivery from a new vendor and will let you know what I think of their product and service in time....though I believe the rules here prohibit posting specific names. Perhaps we can discuss such things in detail via private chat? Hopefully an Admin will jump in here and help us figure it out!

@bunelda Good Morning, Bunelda & yes, your inability to get a new Chat message to me was my bad. I missed a setting in my profile that restricted my New Chats to only people I, myself follow. As you can probably tell, there are some functions on this site (Chat) that I am not entirely used to yet. But I now have some additional details to add to my "Using Chat guide". If you're a luddite than I am too ... I do not access this or any other site on my phone either, which is why I have always been amazed by those who do. The setting I found *(Thanks to you)* is a privacy setting on my profile page ...  As you can see, I had the box ticked. I unticked that box ...  Then scrolled to the bottom of my settings page & clicked "Save Changes". Thank You for your patience with me Bunelda