Kratom is supposed to be a natural remedy that comes from the leaf of a plant native to Southeast Asia.
But, a new investigation found much of what is being sold in Arizona smoke shops as kratom is actually a synthetic version that is much stronger than state regulations allow. One expert described it as “closer to morphine” than kratom.
So, where is the regulation enforcing those state regulations? Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, reporter for The Arizona Mirror, found that the regulators here don’t even collect data on kratom sales, and joined The Show to talk more about it.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning there, Jerod.
JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Good morning. Thank you for having me on.
GILGER: Thank you for coming on. So tell us first, like what state laws are supposed to be regulating Kratom in Arizona?
MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah. So in 2019, Governor Doug Ducey signed the kratom Consumer Protection Act. It's a type of legislation that we've seen in a lot of states that was pushed by kratom advocates. It basically put some, some guardrails on how kratom is sold and labeled in the state. It disallows certain levels of certain chemicals or for it to be cut with other things and regulates kind of like the way it is sold, especially to like minors. And that was passed in 2019.
GILGER: So you're reporting now that kratom with those levels that are supposed to be allowed is not often what's being sold here in Arizona. Tell us about this investigation and what they found.
MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah. So I was reached out to by a group called the Global Kratom Coalition and they, they had done some secret shoppers here in Arizona and some other states with similar legislation like Tennessee and found that there were these products that were labeled as kratom in smoke shops, gas stations, other places, that when they looked at it had a higher than 2% level of a chemical called 70H. That's one of the main, chemicals within kratom. And that's what gives kratom kind of its opioid-like quality. And state law says that we cannot have products that are over 2%.
Kratom, by itself just the leaves. has levels of 70 H that are far, far, far lower than 2% like closer to below 1% like in the zero point percentage range. Whereas these pills have upwards of 2% or they're finding much more in some of these pills.
GILGER: So who is supposed to be regulating this here? Who's supposed to be enforcing those laws, you mentioned at the beginning?
MACDONALD-EVOY: So according to the law, it says that the attorney general is one of the main people that would be enforcing this and overseeing it along with local PDs. What I found though was that the Attorney General's Office said they're reviewing the letter from this group about their findings. I have not gotten any other updates on that yet.
Then you have, law enforcement who say, you know, that they're aware of the law, they're aware that there are these smoke shops, they're selling kratom illegally, but they are, you know, some of them are saying that their hands are full with things like fentanyl or that, you know, they're just not investigating it.
GILGER: The Department of Health Services says they don't really track sales of this. What, what did they have to say about, about their role here?
MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah. And, and that's another area where this becomes complicated because you have conflicting state and federal kind of laws. The federal government is looking at this and trying to figure out how they want to maybe regulate it. And that's, that's leaving departments like the Ariz Department of Health Services kind of in an area where they're not sure exactly, you know, if this is going to become something that is going to be a Schedule 1 drug.
And so they don't know how to, it seems kind of regulated and they're watching to see how that plays out on the state and federal level before they seem to take any big action.
But they did tell me that they don't collect any data on sales of kratom in the state. So the kind of information on, well, how prevalent this is, how many people are buying this type of product is kind of a big unknown.
GILGER: Interesting. So some confusion over just, you know what the laws are supposed to be. What's the risk, Jerod, for people who are buying these products that have far higher levels of this synthetic, you know, in it like is there a risk of overdose? Is it addictive?
MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah. So kratom even just the leaf form is habit forming. There's been multiple medical studies that have shown that kratom is an addictive substance. And when you add higher levels of the opioid-like chemical that is one of the key things that drives that habit forming kind of mentality, you are going to increase the risk of that.
And these, these are being sold in places as and being labeled as kratom. They don't say until you get on the back in small print that you know that these are not FDA approved, because no kratom product is currently regulated by the FDA or any, any government like that.
So these are products that are basically just being made and put onto shelves and being sold as kratom when essentially they're just a synth, that chemical compound that mimics some of the effects of kratom but in much more potent doses and we have seen overdoses related to it here in Arizona, the numbers are smaller than in other places. Florida is seeing a much larger spike in overdose dose deaths from kratom. And but Arizona is reaching around 50 a year now, compared to around, I think it was 30 a few years ago.
And add on to that, that groups like the center for the Poison Control data center, you know, kratom itself is going to be listed just as kratom, but that doesn't include, you know, synthetic kratom or things like that. So it's hard to understand if, you know, all the deaths are contributed to synthetic kratom or kratom leaf so or a combination of kratom and other drugs.
GILGER: Last minute here, Jerod, just tell us where this stands federally. Like, should we expect the DEA at some point to, to look into this, to, to, you know, change the schedule of this drug?
MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah, the DEA has been going back and forth on this since 2011. They originally in 2016 said that they were going to, to make this a schedule one drug and which would deem that it has no medical use. But there was some outcry from people who, who have said that, you know, kratom can be used to get off harder opioids or it's helped them with other pain management things.
But they, so the DEA ended up kind of saying to the FDA, we want you to do a study on the main chemical compounds within it. And they've been kind of waiting for the FDA to finish that in order to make the determination ever since. So we're kind of in this holding pattern with how the DEA will classify this until the FDA completes its scientific studies which can, can take years.
