A Virginia family is sounding alarms about kratom, billed as a natural and safe substance despite addictive traits, as officials consider restricting it.
MIDLOTHIAN, Va.—When Cameron Francis was a 22-year-old student at a Christian college, he thought he had found a near-miraculous, innocuous alternative to alcoholic drinks.
An athlete featured on posters promoting Liberty University’s cross-country runners, Francis took his sport seriously. But he would occasionally drink with his buddies. His girlfriend, a teetotaler, disapproved.
So, Francis searched online for something else that would help him feel more social at weekend parties.
“And that’s where I came across kratom,” Francis told The Epoch Times.
He regrets that discovery now, eight years after he first got his hands on the imported, opioid-like substance derived from a tropical evergreen.
At the time, kratom was relatively obscure in America. The federal government didn’t even survey drug users about it until 2018, a year after Francis encountered kratom.
Since then, kratom products have surged in popularity, availability, and controversy.
Although backlash from kratom advocates killed a proposed national ban in 2016, lawmakers outlawed or restricted kratom-containing products in more than 20 states.
This summer, citing continuing concerns about toxicity and addiction, federal agencies took steps to ban a synthesized kratom-type product. Known as 7-OH, it’s 13 times more powerful than morphine, the Food and Drug Administration said.
These commercial products are created through complex chemical reactions using the kratom-based 7-OH compound—resulting in 500 percent more 7-OH than is naturally found in kratom leaves, according to ACS Lab, which is federally licensed to test substances such as kratom.
Currently, products containing 7-OH are sold unregulated, “making gas stations and convenience stores risky places where kids can purchase these drugs as easily as buying candy,” the FDA said.
Industry advocates such as the American Kratom Association agree curbs are needed, while saying that less-potent kratom products are safe and should remain legal.
Francis said that, based on his experience, even those types of kratom are dangerous.
By Janice Hisle
