Kratom - need some advice...

[Neuroborean]

getting Kratom with quality alkaloid content.

the thing is that kratom doesn't have 1 or 2 alkaloids, it has around 40 different actives.
The conditions/factors that affect the quantity of each alkaloids are very very complex: place/soil, period of the year, individual tree/genetics, wild vs plantation, tree age, drying/fermentation process...

It's quite certain that those factors make real differences and you can even feel subtle differences between vendors because of how their supply could have different methods and how those factors are in each supply area.
It's also quite certain that those factors are almost impossible to standarize so the "recipes" the vendors or suppliers have for each strain are different, so you mostly cannot rely on those marketing names.

Mitragynine and 7-ohm are the most active alkaloids but getting a "balanced leaf" or a "stimulating leaf" or a "potent opioid-like leaf" is something real, that surely depend on those complex factors and on those different alkaloid ratios (that you cannot really control easily).

I agree that the potency overall depends on the "alkaloid content" if you refer to mitragynine content, because most people want to find a potent leaf in terms of mitragynine feeling (that is basically it's uplifting, adrenergic stim-like activity) but well, I think it's more nuanced than that (even if it's not as varied as the number of strains there are).

 

[Keif' Richards]

the thing is that kratom doesn't have 1 or 2 alkaloids, it has around 40 different actives.
The conditions/factors that affect the quantity of each alkaloids are very very complex: place/soil, period of the year, individual tree/genetics, wild vs plantation, tree age, drying/fermentation process...

It's quite certain that those factors make real differences and you can even feel subtle differences between vendors because of how their supply could have different methods and how those factors are in each supply area.
It's also quite certain that those factors are almost impossible to standarize so the "recipes" the vendors or suppliers have for each strain are different, so you mostly cannot rely on those marketing names.

Mitragynine and 7-ohm are the most active alkaloids but getting a "balanced leaf" or a "stimulating leaf" or a "potent opioid-like leaf" is something real, that surely depend on those complex factors and on those different alkaloid ratios (that you cannot really control easily).

I agree that the potency overall depends on the "alkaloid content" if you refer to mitragynine content, because most people want to find a potent leaf in terms of mitragynine feeling (that is basically it's uplifting, adrenergic stim-like activity) but well, I think it's more nuanced than that (even if it's not as varied as the number of strains there are).

Of course. We actually are on the same page here. I think it's similar to Cannabis and while I'm not a botanist or chemist, I assume that this level of complexity must be an inherent part of the evolution of life on the planet. There are millions of processes going on in the body and I think science in general and especially us here at Bluelight, barely scratch the surface,

I'm a big Cannabis user, but consider my knowledge of Cannabis as a drug to be lacking. When they originally tried to "medicinalize"Cannabis, I believe it was a pure THC spray, as that was taken to be the "active" part of the plant. Now we have knowledge of all these different Cannabinoids, the entourage effect and everything in between. We know that it's not as simple as simply THC, yet THC content is still the basic standard for measuring the potency of Cannabis. It is the baseline for which "value" is determined and everything else from an economical standpoint is "extra". We see this changing all the time as knowledge expands, but today, we still have to rely on these relatively simple metrics so that we don't get lost in complexity when describing these things to the masses.

There are folks out there who know all about Kratom, probably chemists at this point and I'm sure, a few weekend warriors with awesome knowledge, but at this point, the best information, I feel, is to go with Mitragynine content which is similar to how we treat Cannabis.