Supplement or street drug?

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 18th of June. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. 

Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

First up on The World and Everything in It: Kratom, supplement or street drug?

U.S. Poison Control says use of kratom is rising. It’s a southeast Asian tree and people use the leaves for tea. It started gaining popularity in the U.S. about 15 years ago.

Now, people can buy Kratom derivatives in gas stations and smoke shops in the form of liquid, gummies, pills, and even imitation ice cream cones. Some say Kratom helps people detox from opioids…others say it’s not well-regulated, putting users at risk.

BROWN: At least six states already ban the Kratom plant outright, and more ban its stronger derivative 7-OH.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: In 2022, Patti Wheeler’s twin sons, Wyatt and Gannon, were living together in Texas. They were both 27.

One day, Gannon heard a loud thumping from Wyatt’s room and found him having a seizure. He helped Wyatt onto the floor.

WHEELER: And he just died right there in his brother's arms, and you know, Gannon couldn't do anything about it.

Texas called it a combined toxicology death since he had things like NyQuil and Prozac in his system, but Kratom was the most prevalent.

Wheeler thinks Wyatt started using it about six weeks before he died as an alcohol replacement. He did the same thing with natural Kratom for a few months in 2014.

But this time, he used O.P.M.S, a brand of liquid synthetic Kratom mostly made up of the active components of the plant: mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragenine, or 7-OH.

WHEELER: I just think he, that he had no way of realizing that they were, you know, 50 to 100 times more powerful than the powder that he had consumed in 14.

The Food and Drug Administration warns against using kratom because it’s not well studied, and specifically warns against using the brand O.P.M.S because of links to severe health complications and death.

It’s hard to know the exact number of people Kratom has killed, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a 1,200 percent increase in exposures between 2015 and 2025. Going from a few hundred, to a few thousand.

U.S. Poison Control is on track to receive about 60 percent more calls about Kratom exposure than last year.

KAIT BROWN: Not all Kratom products are the same.

Kait Brown is the Clinical Managing Director for America’s Poison Centers. She’s based in Utah, where they pronounce it “KRAH-tuhm.”

She says the Kratom plant has very little of the active components that can make it dangerous, but synthetic products are mostly comprised of them.

BROWN: That's where we're seeing the market for Kratom moving in the United States recently, which is really raising concern.

The active ingredient 7-OH binds to opioid receptors and can have the same breathing and heart-rate slowing effects as the drug. And since it’s binding to opioid receptors, some research shows that people who stop regular Kratom use can have withdrawal symptoms.

As concerning as that is, Brown says the bigger problem is poor labeling.

BROWN: Someone that maybe regularly uses Kratom, or just someone who's at the gas station and sees a new kind of small beverage shot, may not know that they're getting a really large dose of something that has opioid-like effects.

Kratom is considered a supplement like vitamin D or melatonin, so it isn’t subject to the same regulations as something like Ibuprofen. That means it can be mislabeled.

Kratom advocates like the American Kratom Association agree that synthetic Kratom is dangerous, but they point to some studies that say natural Kratom is a safe alternative to alcohol or drugs, and can help people detox from opioids.

Lorenzo Guerrero owns Bulk Kratom Depot. He started selling Kratom after it helped him stop drinking alcohol. He doesn’t like 7-OH products because they reflect poorly on the plant.

GUERRERO: I've been drinking it for, I don't know, a few years now? And I go to the doctor, just like everybody else, and I get checked out, and he tells me that I'm healthy.

He says all types of people buy his products and drink Kratom in tea in the shops he visits. He says it’s a growing community, at least in his area near Tampa, Florida.

GUERRERO: Everybody should use everything responsibly, whether it's Kratom, whether it's coffee, whether it's sugar, everything, everything in moderation, and Kratom included in that.

Right now, Kratom remains legal in Florida, and the state’s 7-OH ban is set to expire at the end of the month.

Last summer, the FDA recommended the Drug Enforcement Administration schedule 7-OH as something that doesn’t have health benefits and does have potential for abuse. The DEA currently lists it as a chemical of concern.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Seminole, Florida.

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