GEORGIA’S NEW KRATOM LAWS TAKE EFFECT AS SOME PRAISE, OTHERS QUESTION APPROACH

With the calendar officially in 2025, the collective eyes of kratom advocates across the country are zeroing in on Georgia and its new approach to offering a regulated market to customers. 

Georgia’s legislature passed a law last spring that went into effect on Jan. 1. Some view it as a potential template for state-level kratom regulation moving forward. It's a law that started as a proposed ban and then shifted to a robust set of regulations under the same set of legal codes that define and regulate controlled substances. 

The only issue is that advocacy groups for kratom have pointed out a lack of mechanisms to enforce the law. Now, Georgia’s new approach to kratom will be tested as a variety of state and local agencies apply the robust regulations to its kratom market, with advocates and kratom consumers waiting with bated breath to see if the state can find a way to enforce the law in a fair and measured manner. 

Intent of the Law

On its face, HB 181 is a comprehensive approach to regulating kratom that addresses the concerns that have been identified in establishing a safe market for kratom: It requires an age limit for purchase, bans adulterants and other “injurious” additives and sets a simple structure for the responsibilities borne by kratom producers and sellers. It lays out label requirements and limits what type of products can be sold. It also sets specific limits on the concentration and serving sizes of kratom’s active alkaloids. 

Georgia's new law is an approach that has already made an impact in kratom discussions across the country. At a board meeting in Dare County, North Carolina, the gathered commissioners held up HB 181 as an example of a regulation that would serve consumers better than a ban. At a Board of Health hearing over a potential ban in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, multiple public speakers referenced the Georgia approach as a preferred outcome to prohibition.

Underneath, however, advocates for kratom have noticed one key fact about the law: It does not contain enforcement mechanisms by a state agency, leaving local authorities to levy penalties and press charges against those who violate the law. With such a robust regulatory approach falling on the shoulders of small shop owners and local authorities with little knowledge of kratom, advocates questioned the motives behind the measure. 

Regulation Without Enforcement

According to Mac Haddow of the American Kratom Association(AKA), the new law, written by the same lawmaker who sought to ban kratom in the first place, is a carefully worded gift to trial lawyers and others who want to demonize kratom. 

“Rep. Townsend strongly condemned the previously passed Kratom Consumer Protection Act because there was no assigned state agency to regulate kratom, and the AKA agreed with him on that,” Haddow said. “But his bill as passed has no assigned state agency to regulate kratom – only making his top-dollar trial attorney campaign contributors richer at the expense of Georgia kratom businesses.”

When HB181 passed in May of 2024, the AKA indicated that it would renew its objection to the law in the 2025 session due to Georgia’s legislative schedule. While advocates wait to take this matter back to the state house, it leaves local kratom sellers and producers in a gray area that could cause backlash for violating the law. 

The law calls for specific conditions in the legalized kratom market. For example, concentration ratios of 150 mg of mitragynine per serving and the label requirements call for product labels to include the amount of mitragynine contained in kratom products. Without a state agency to help with those requirements or to enforce these measures, it leaves the burden of compliance to small businesses and manufacturers and relies on local law enforcement to uphold these specific rules. 

Advocates, including the AKA, have said it is unreasonable to expect small-time players to uphold the law, and instead point to the final bullet point of the measure as the true reasoning behind the bill: 

“Any person who suffers injury or damages as a result of a violation of this Code section may bring an action in any court of competent jurisdiction for actual damages, including general or specific damages,” per the enrolled text. 

Georgia’s legislative session began on Jan. 13 and will continue until April. That creates a short window for advocates to make meaningful changes to the law that is now in effect. For Haddow, it’s of vital importance to act now and protect the “product standards and labeling requirements that are needed.” Until then, Haddow said the current law leaves kratom producers in the state exposed. 

“There is only one beneficiary of Rep. Townsend’s kratom bill – other than his own political campaign account – and that is a group of trial attorneys who want to sue kratom manufacturers and retailers for their own profit,” Haddow said, continuing:

“The Georgia citizens who purchase kratom for their health and well-being are less protected today than they were before this legislation was passed.”