Category: Civic Leaf

Every year, as Memorial Day approaches, we pause as a nation to remember the men and women who gave everything in service to the United States. These Servicemembers—our brothers, sisters, parents, children, and friends—died believing they were protecting the ideals that define our nation: liberty, justice, and the unalienable right to self-determination. They believed they were fighting for a country that would honor their sacrifice by safeguarding freedom for generations to come.

And yet, as we place flags on graves and solemnly recount their courage, we must ask ourselves a painful question: what happens when the freedoms they died for are slowly, deliberately, and systematically being taken away?

This Memorial Day, we must look beyond the barbecues, the long weekend, and the momentary patriotism. We must look inward and ask what kind of country we are becoming. Because the truth is stark: our government—at both state and federal levels—is actively dismantling the very liberties our Servicemembers swore to defend.

Let’s speak plainly. In recent weeks, Alabama and Texas have passed sweeping bans on Delta-8 and Delta-9 THC products, effectively outlawing any hemp-derived cannabinoid that may offer relief to those seeking natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. These laws do not target dangerous street drugs or unregulated black-market substances. They target regulated, tested, naturally-derived compounds that many Americans rely on for pain relief, anxiety management, PTSD treatment, and more.

These aren’t fringe compounds. They’re part of a broader movement toward herbal and plant-based autonomy—an idea as old as medicine itself. And they’re being criminalized in broad daylight.

At the same time, Kratom—a plant used for centuries in Southeast Asia and by thousands of Americans today—is once again under legislative attack. Despite mounting evidence that Kratom poses far less risk than pharmaceutical opioids, and offers significant therapeutic benefits, multiple states are dusting off the old playbook and pushing bans that defy science, logic, and compassion.

So, on Memorial Day, we ask: what are we doing?

If the ultimate sacrifice was made in defense of liberty, why is liberty now being buried under bureaucracy, misinformation, and corporate lobbying?

The Civic Leaf exists to shine a light on exactly these kinds of threats. We are not just Kratom consumers. We are veterans, nurses, caregivers, teachers, laborers, and voters. And many of us know the cost of freedom firsthand. Some of us have worn the uniform. Some of us have held our brothers-in-arms as they took their final breath. Some of us have stood graveside in quiet agony, wondering how to honor the memory of a fallen friend.

The answer, we believe, is not just remembrance—it is resistance.

We must resist the false narratives that say Kratom is a danger. We must resist the lawmakers who confuse morality with control. We must resist the corporations who fund prohibition to protect their profits. And most importantly, we must resist the apathy that tells us, “This is just how things are.”

Because this is not how things have to be.

This Memorial Day, The Civic Leaf calls on every American who values freedom to take a stand. Contact your representatives. Educate your neighbors. Speak up in town halls. Share your story online. Demand that your state adopt responsible, science-backed Kratom regulation—not bans. Push for transparency in cannabinoid laws. And question every politician who cloaks authoritarian policy in the language of safety.

Remember: safety and freedom are not mutually exclusive. But when safety is used as a smokescreen for prohibition, it becomes oppression in disguise.

Alabama’s Kratom consumers should not be criminalized for seeking relief from pain. Texans should not be punished for using hemp-derived THC to manage PTSD. Veterans should not be denied access to the very natural remedies that help them survive civilian life. These are real people—many of whom once carried a rifle in service of the very flag that now flutters above their state capitol.

They deserve better. We all do.

We have reached a pivotal moment in this country’s story. The war on natural substances is not just a policy failure—it is a betrayal of the values we claim to uphold. If freedom means anything, it must include the right to make informed choices about what we put in our own bodies. It must include the right to use a plant instead of a pill. It must include the right to seek relief, healing, and wholeness without fear of prosecution.

And if we allow those rights to be taken away—silently, slowly, and without a fight—then we dishonor the memory of every American who died believing they were defending freedom.

Memorial Day is more than a moment of silence. It’s a call to action.

Let us honor the fallen not just with flowers, but with fire. Let us turn grief into purpose, and mourning into movement.

Because freedom isn’t something we inherit.

It’s something we must protect.

And sometimes, protection means saying: Enough.

Enough bans. Enough lies. Enough fearmongering.

This Memorial Day, let us renew our vow—not just to remember the dead, but to fight for the living.

For the ones who never made it home. For the ones trying to hold their lives together here. And for every future generation who deserves to live in a country where liberty still means something.

This is our civic duty. This is The Civic Leaf.

There are few things more personal, more sovereign, than the body you live in.

You wake up in it. You carry your pain, your joy, your history, and your healing in it. And unless you’re breaking the bones or violating the consent of someone else, what you choose to do with your own body should not be up for debate. It shouldn’t be up for legislation. It certainly shouldn’t be up to politicians who can’t even pass a basic budget without breaking into performative tantrums on the House floor.

But here we are—again—watching another round of moral panic thinly veiled as “public safety” roll toward the community. The target this time, like many times before, is a plant. A leaf. A choice.

And it’s always the same story: something natural, something not owned by a pharmaceutical lobby, something that doesn’t generate profit for the “right” people suddenly becomes the newest public enemy. Not because it’s dangerous. Not because it’s killing thousands. But because people are choosing it. Because they’re opting out of the tightly controlled system of suffering, sickness, and debt that props up entire industries.

That scares them.

It’s not about the leaf. It’s about control.

They say it’s about safety—but they ignore the safe use by hundreds of thousands of responsible adults. They say it’s about protecting people—but they criminalize those very people in the process. They say it’s about health—but they refuse to look at the thousands who’ve used this plant to get off opioids, manage pain, reduce anxiety, or simply feel functional again.

Here’s the truth: if this was really about protecting health, we’d see bans on soda before plants. We’d see legislation targeting the companies dumping microplastics into our bodies and our babies, not the small vendors selling crushed leaves in heat-sealed bags.

This is about power.

And more and more people are waking up to that fact.

Whether you’re the kind of person who believes government should have as little say as possible in your day-to-day life, or the kind of person who believes people must come together to fight for the rights of the vulnerable—this fight is yours.

Because it’s our bodies on the line. Our freedom. Our future.

The war on the leaf is just one small branch of something much larger. It’s a war on choice. A war on self-determination. And a war on the kinds of communities that refuse to be quiet and compliant.

It’s not just about banning a plant—it’s about criminalizing independence. It’s about criminalizing compassion. It’s about making sure that if you’re going to find relief, you’ll do it in a way that feeds the machine, or not at all.

And that’s where we draw the line.

Because this isn’t just a fight to keep something legal—it’s a fight to remind our lawmakers that we decide what happens to us. It’s a fight to tell unelected bureaucrats and well-funded lobbyists that we’re not interested in being managed, manipulated, or muzzled.

And if you’re someone who’s ever had to weigh the cost of a prescription against your rent…

If you’ve ever sat in a waiting room and realized your doctor is legally prohibited from recommending what actually works for you…

If you’ve ever found hope in something outside the system, and realized it was only a matter of time before that hope was declared contraband…

Then this is your fight, too.

But it’s not one we can win alone.

This is going to take every voice. Every perspective. Every personal story and every ounce of collective courage we can gather. It’s going to take parents and veterans, blue-collar workers and students, truckers and teachers. It’s going to take the left and the right and everyone in between remembering that before we were divided by slogans and parties, we were human.

We still are.

So whether you believe in personal freedom as the highest virtue, or community solidarity as the best defense—we need you. Right now. Not tomorrow. Not when the next hearing gets scheduled. Not after it’s too late.

The time for passive hope is over.

The time for standing shoulder to shoulder, even with people who don’t vote like you or pray like you or dress like you, is now.

Because if they take this—if they successfully tell us that we don’t have the right to put something natural into our own bodies—what else will they come for? What else will they decide is too dangerous, too independent, too threatening to the institutions that feed off our dependence?

We know how this story goes.

But this time, we write the ending.

Not with silence. Not with hashtags. But with action.

Speak out. Show up. Write your representatives. Share your story. Support the vendors who refuse to cut corners. Educate the curious. Protect the vulnerable. And never, ever let them forget:

This belongs to us.

Our bodies. Our choices. Our communities. Our voice.

And we’re not giving any of it up.

That thought drifted through my mind this morning as I woke up — and the more I sat with it, the more I realized how perfectly it fits what’s happening around us right now.

In Texas, a law is moving forward — SB 1868 — that threatens to strip away access to kratom. And at first glance, it might seem like just another political fight. Another bill. Another debate. Another headline.

But this is not just about one bill.
It’s not even just about one plant.

It’s about something far deeper.

The “sport” is what we see on the surface:

Committees voting.

Politicians making speeches.

News articles spinning the story.

The “game” is the real struggle underneath it all:

Who gets to decide what you put in your body?

Who holds the power to define what’s “safe” and what’s “dangerous”?

Will freedom mean something real — or just another word we use until it’s inconvenient?

In moments like these, it’s easy to get caught up in the noise.
It’s easy to feel like a spectator, watching someone else’s game being played.

But the truth is: we’re not spectators. We are players.

Every call you make to your representative, every story you share, every post you write — it’s a move on the board. It’s a step forward in the real game that matters.

Health freedom.
Bodily autonomy.
The simple, powerful right to choose what is best for ourselves.

This is bigger than kratom.
This is about whether we preserve the dignity of choice, or surrender it to fear and control.

Stay focused. Stay steady. Stay in the game.

History isn’t written by those who played a beautiful sport and lost politely.
History is written by those who understood the game, fought for the truth, and refused to quit.

Let’s be those people.

Grab your coffee. Take a deep breath.
Then make your move.

Your freedom is worth playing for.

The Texas Senate just voted to pass SB 1868, a bill that would effectively ban all kratom products in the state.

It’s disappointing — but not surprising. We knew they were going to try. Now the battle moves to the Texas House, and if there was ever a time for the kratom community to raise its voice, it’s right now.

The American Kratom Association’s legislative team is fully engaged and fighting hard to stop this terrible bill, but they can’t do it alone. They need every single Texan who values their rights and their health freedom to stand up and be heard.

Here’s how you can help:

Email your State Representative.

Call your State Representative.

Share your personal story about how kratom has made a difference in your life.

Tell them that you support keeping Texas’s current kratom law in place.

Urge them to oppose SB 1868.

Even if you’ve never contacted a lawmaker before — this is your moment. Every email. Every phone call. Every voice matters.

The reality is simple: If we stay silent, they will take kratom away.
If we stand together, we can stop SB 1868.

The American Kratom Association has made it easy to take action. Visit protectkratom.org/Texas for everything you need: legislator contact info, talking points, and tips for reaching out.

Texas consumers have a choice to make right now: fight or forfeit.

Let’s fight.

There’s a bill on the table in Texas—SB 1868—and if passed, it won’t just regulate Kratom, it will criminalize it.

This bill seeks to classify naturally occurring plant alkaloids—including mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine—under the same legal category as heroin and fentanyl. You read that right: the same compounds found in a leaf that’s helped millions manage chronic pain, anxiety, and opioid withdrawal would be treated as felony substances.

Let’s be clear—this isn’t about protecting consumers. This is about control. SB 1868 would:

Add Kratom to Penalty Group 1 under Texas law

Make possession or sale a felony

Penalize producers and vendors of natural Kratom, while doing nothing to stop the real danger: synthetic, adulterated, and mislabeled products pushed by bad actors

This kind of overreach doesn’t promote safety. It punishes people who are choosing a plant over a pill.

Texas consumers deserve better. They deserve regulation that protects them—not criminalizes them. They deserve access to safe, lab-tested, natural products—not fearmongering, misinformation, and outdated drug war tactics.

Freedom isn’t just about waving a flag. It’s about the right to make informed choices about your own body. And if we allow legislation like SB 1868 to pass unchallenged, we’re waving goodbye to that right.

Stay informed. Speak out. Let Texas lawmakers know this isn’t the kind of “protection” we asked for.

Contact Your Texas State Senators

To express your concerns about SB 1868, reach out to your state senator. Here’s how you can find and contact them:

Find Your Senator: Use the Texas Senate Members Directory to locate your senator by district.

Contact Information: Each senator’s page includes their office addresses, phone numbers, and email contact forms.

Reach Out: Call or email your senator’s office. When contacting them:

Introduce yourself with your full name and address to confirm you are a constituent.

Clearly state your position on SB 1868.

Share personal stories or reasons why this bill affects you or your community.

Be respectful and concise.

Your voice matters. Let your senator know that you oppose SB 1868 and support the responsible, regulated use of natural wellness products.