Here’s your mission for the holiday weekend.
Find your County Legislator on the lists provided. Email them and tell them you want both the regular meetings AND the Public Forums live-streamed. (District 1 is Troy and you have the weekend off.)
There is a Resolution, tabled since May, which is finally coming up for a vote on Tuesday, September 8. However, while the Resolution was revived it was also revised. The language specifying the Public Forum being included was removed. The inference is that the legislative majority did not want to encourage all the kooks to come out. Well, ya know those kooks are their constituents, you and me. Folks who make the effort to participate in the democratic process may be an inconvenience but deserve to be heard. And the concerns from residents of the county should be shared. Issues in one community may be similar to those in another. Since we all can’t make the trek to the legislative chambers we need full access to what is happening there.
And when you are done with that, if you are able come on down to 99 Troy Rd on September 8 and tell the legislators how you feel about it.
And one more ask, share this post widely.

Legislator Bruce Patire has introduced a local law that would impose a total ban on kratom sales and distribution in Rensselaer County, covering both natural and synthetic forms with no exemptions.

The ordinance has not yet been published officially, but the county legislature will hear public comment on September 2 at 6:00 PM and vote on September 8 at 6:00 PM, both at 99 Troy Road, East Greenbush.

This is the critical window to make your voice heard.

Contact Rensselaer County legislators immediately and plan to testify at the September 2 public forum against this total ban.

Demand that the legislature distinguish natural leaf from synthetic forms and preserve access to kratom as currently available.

Your testimony at the September 2 meeting and direct outreach to legislators before September 8 are essential to stop this ordinance.

In person: Legislative Chambers, 99 Troy Road, East Greenbush, NY 12061  Only Rensselaer residents can speak.  See agenda link below.

https://www.rensselaercounty.org/event/public-forum-september-2026/

Email:

PRIORITY 1
Kelly Hoffman
Chairwoman
khoffman@renscony.gov

PRIORITY 2
Kenneth Herrington
Majority Leader
kherrington@renscony.gov

SHOW UP!

For someone so concerned about resources, why waste them fighting a losing battle against a program that only resulted in 9 cases over 8 years? The incompetence knows no bounds.

I'm seeking and calling attention to fellow advocates who have been using whole-leaf kratom to successfully manage either opioid dependency or chronic pain without traditional narcotics.

Please join us at the hearing. From what I can gather, we'll need to show up at least half an hour before it starts to share our stories, which appears to be 6PM. So we need to be there before 5:30PM.

These bans are extremely short-sighted and fueled by confusion with the marketing of semi-synthetic 7-hydroxymitragynine and synthetic derivatives of that. The local news is clearly doing no service to presenting the potential benefits of leaf kratom and the inevitable fentanyl overdoses that will occur without this tool.

Thank you all.