GEORGIA LAWMAKERS INTRODUCE BILL TO ROLL BACK REGULATIONS, BAN ALL KRATOM

Two years ago, lawmakers in Georgia ironed out a set of regulations on kratom sales that gave the state a comprehensive, science-backed approach to protecting customers. 

That still wasn’t enough for the sponsor of the bill, who is now attempting to give new meaning to one step forward, two steps back. 

Rep. Rick Townsend recently introduced a bill in Georgia that would make all forms of kratom a Schedule I substance in the state and wipe out the existing laws that were passed during the 2024 legislative session. Those laws took effect on Jan. 1, 2025. After a year of reasonable regulations and developments surrounding the kratom question, Georgia citizens are facing a fresh challenge to their access of a plant that is legal and supported at the federal level. 

Upon introduction of the bill, the American Kratom Association (AKA) condemned the bill in a press release: “The Townsend bill will instantly convert hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Georgia consumers into felons and expose them to extended jail terms, despite their use of products that are currently lawful and safely formulated under Georgia law.”

Latest Attempt to Relitigate the ‘Kratom Question’

Townsend’s new bill, LB 968, is a carbon copy of the starting point of the bill that eventually became a law. Rather than take on the kratom question with a nuanced approach, Townsend reverted to a bill that would schedule all of the alkaloids found in the kratom plant as Schedule I, despite the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) making a clear distinction between natural kratom leaf and products with enhanced levels of 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH). 

In that release from the AKA, advocates for kratom made it clear that the latest attempt by Townsend ignores the fact that “federal leaders have been clear: the real danger to consumers is highly concentrated synthetic, chemically manipulated 7-OH knock-offs — not responsibly manufactured natural kratom leaf products.”

If Townsend’s new bill were to receive serious consideration, it would make “two terrible mistakes” in targeting natural kratom leaf and repealing the protections already signed into law in Georgia. 

“Rep. Townsend’s bill not only fails to protect consumers, it puts kids at high risk,” said Mac Haddow, a senior fellow with the AKA. “He has personally criticized Georgia’s existing kratom law for weak enforcement — yet he has repeatedly refused to support the very enforcement authorities the American Kratom Association has advocated to target bad actors and dangerous synthetics. This bill abandons smart regulation in favor of mass criminalization.”

Examining Existing Kratom Regulations

The bill that passed in 2024 was LB 181. It started with the same language that would have scheduled the alkaloids of the kratom plant, but was immediately switched to a substitute at its first committee stop. What emerged was a version of a Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA) that set specific requirements for what products qualified as kratom and how such products should be labeled and sold. 

Georgia’s version of a KCPA was one of the most comprehensive in the country. The proposed age requirement for purchase was raised from 18 to 21 during that process, and the law was tweaked to ban anyone who wasn’t at least 21 years old from even possessing kratom products. Changes to the bill also set requirements that kratom products needed to be stored behind the counter or in a secured display that was only accessible to store employees.

As far as the type of products that could be sold, Georgia’s KCPA bans adulterated products and makes it illegal to sell products with synthesized alkaloids or any food additive that is not “generally recognized as safe in food products.” Unlike other kratom regulations, Georgia’s law even went so far as to set the maximum amount of both mitragynine (the primary alkaloid found in natural leaf kratom) and 7-OH that could be included in a single serving of a product labeled as kratom. 

The aim was to make sure that all products in the state matched the chemical profile of natural kratom leaf products. 

From the law: “All kratom products sold in, or delivered to, this state shall be derived from the natural kratom plant, and any manufactured or processed kratom product, including kratom extracts, shall not be modified, chemically or otherwise, processed, synthesized, or otherwise treated in any way that increases the levels of mitragynine or 7-hydroxymitragynine, beyond those described.”

Georgia’s KCPA includes important requirements for labeling and testing that offer safeguards for responsible kratom consumers. It also includes penalties and a robust enforcement mechanism to hold producers accountable for providing their customers with the information they need to make informed choices when purchasing kratom products. 

In the end, the bill was advanced out of the Georgia Senate by a vote of 49-3 and then passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 164-6.  

In total, the bill was sent to committee three times, had four different versions substituted by those committees and even added a floor amendment in the state senate before it was signed into law by Georgia’s governor. It was introduced by Townsend on Jan. 31, 2023, and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp on May 2, 2024. 

Advocates for kratom regulations are encouraged to email Townsend at rick.townsend@house.ga.gov to express their support for the existing KCPA in the state. 

“Rep. Townsend is not protecting consumers,” said the AKA’s release. “He is ignoring the chief health authorities in the Trump Administration who protect the health and safety of consumers, undermining proven state safeguards, repeats an outdated and discredited anti-kratom narrative pushed by ambulance chasing trial lawyers, and is pushing a prohibition that unfairly punishes responsible Georgia natural kratom leaf consumers.”