That reminds me, some kratom products have been found to be laced with actual opioids...
I'm not sure if it's still around, but Kratom Connoisseurs used to be a good forum.
To quote that real fast, the product your referring to was labelled as "krypton kratom" and was sold until 2008? ( could be wrong) and was laced with a synthetic opiate desmethotramadol which was the metabolite of tramadol. It is no longer made or sold and was responsible for many many deaths. To avoid this problem, do not buy from sites or smoke shops that advertise it as "legal highs" or in flashy eye catching packages. Just look for plain and simple leaf, not sites promoting crazy tinctures and concentrates.
I would steer clear of the sites posted at the beginning, only because the pricing is kinda high... and the second one almost has too much going on. Its hard to explain, but atfer you've dealt with a few bad sites, you start to get the look of the good ones.
It's awesome that you brought this topic up because kratom truly is an interesting plant with very interesting effects crazily varying from strain to strain, which there happens to be a good few, but just know the three main ones, bali, thai, and malaysian, all refer to the main areas in which they grow naturally in abundance. Their is also vein color which goes generally red and white, red being more relaxing and white being more energizing, as many would describe them.
I am of the firm belief that your experiences will vary depending on your opiate tolerances.
In my case, I wont go into any detail, but I happen to have a fairly high tolerance. Whats known as the Mu-opiod receptor in the brain is mainly what is tickled by opiates and by kratom as well. If you have ever done an opiate and know what that feeling is like, you'll never get to that point with kratom, at least IME. But, for someone as tuned into that sense as I happen to be, I def can say that it does a good job at keeping spirits up and mood lifted, and mostly gives a general sense of well being (euphoria) which in itself is energizing and motivating to me. I personally have never experienced any withdrawl from any form of kratom. Im sure anyone claiming that has never felt real opiate withdrawl. Which kratom happens to be amazing at curing. I find it hard to believe that a drug suboxone is legally given to addicts weening off opiates, when a plant can naturally do the same thing, with almost no negative side effects (IME). I cant really comment on to its effectiveness in chronic pain, since I do not suffer from such, but for pain in general any stimulation of the mu-opiod receptor will result in a lessened ability for nerves to signal over synapses, which translates into lessened pain. As for it being energizing, as I mentioned earlier, in my case, any stimulation of said receptor I find energizing, so I guess I wouldn't know the difference lol.
SO anyways, with all that being said, I have been fond of kratom for quite some time now, a few years really. So I happen to have a good amount of experience and places to go, which for obvious forum rules reasons, I wont post publicly, but feel free to PM me for suggestions.
As friedrich mentioned, kratom connoisseurs is an amazing site to get many many questions answered. It is an interesting application process, because they are very strict about how they represent their beloved plant, but it is worth a peek. Again, Im probably not allowed to post the site, but anyone who knows what google is, is already on the right path.
Hopefully this helps, and wasn't too long.