Kratom Ban Draws Protests

Demonstrators gathered outside the White House Tuesday to demand that a natural product from Southeast Asia called Kratom be kept legal in the United States. The substance is not an opioid, but it contains alkaloids that act on the same brain receptors as drugs like heroin, without producing a high. But, as VOA’s Greg Flakus reports from Houston, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will add it to its Schedule 1 list of illegal substances by the end of this month.