LEGISLATORS PASS KRATOM BAN IN CONNECTICUT

A final-week flurry in the Connecticut legislature saw a kratom ban pass as part of a bill regulating cannabis and hemp. 

That makes two states that have successfully targeted kratom in 2025, with advocates gearing up to work past this bump in the road to keep the momentum moving forward as it pertains to policy around the plant. 

Connecticut’s bill included a single paragraph that would schedule all forms of kratom, and it passed during a frenetic finish of the 2025 legislative session in the state. Despite a last-minute filibuster on a bill unrelated to kratom, lawmakers took the time to pass the wide-ranging bill updating the state’s legal framework on drugs and supplements. Now all that’s left for the bill to become law is a signature from the governor. 

What started as House Bill 6855 has now become Public Act 25-101 and is waiting for Gov. Ned Lamont's signature. This bill would allow state regulators to schedule kratom as of Oct. 1, 2025. 

Both houses of the Connecticut legislature passed the bill unanimously following a series of amendments that did not affect the wording that targets kratom. Upon passage, the bill became a “public act” (meaning it amends the general statutes of state law). Although there were two proposed public acts vetoed by Lamont in 2024, the overwhelming support of this bill has advocates planning for the worst-case scenario. 

Despite the support for the measure in both houses of the Connecticut legislature, local voices have pushed back against the proposed action in the name of science. 

Lack of Clarity on Natural Kratom Leaf

As part of an opinion piece published by the CT Mirror, Dr. C. Michael White set the record straight on including natural kratom leaf in the proposed public act. White is the Chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Connecticut, and specifically argued against how kratom has been portrayed alongside other substances. When attempting to ban kratom in Connecticut and other states, lawmakers have referred to the plant as “gas station” heroin alongside substances such as tianeptine. 

However, as prevailing research has shown, natural leaf kratom is only a partial agonist of the receptors commonly associated with opioids, meaning that prevailing scientific evidence clearly distinguishes between the safety profile of natural kratom leaf and its primary alkaloid, mitragynine. Lawmakers in Connecticut separated natural kratom from 7-hydroxymitragynine, the other active alkaloid found in kratom leaves, but both are still set to be scheduled should the bill be signed into law. 

That lack of clarity was called out in the opinion piece. 

“Legislation needs to draw that clear distinction to avoid ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’, which unfortunately is the case with this bill here in Connecticut,” said the op-ed, which was co-written by White. 

It continued: “HB 6855 explicitly identifies kratom’s leaves, stems, and extracts as a substance subject to scheduling by the Department of Consumer Protection. There are no requirements for public hearings, scientific evaluation, or consultation with medical and pharmacological experts. The bill does not specify the schedule placement, but contextually groups natural leaf kratom with unapproved drugs.”

Although the proposed measure calls for each element of the bill to be classified in the “appropriate schedule,” any classification of kratom as a controlled substance would all but ban the dietary supplement, as there is no approved medicinal use for natural kratom leaves. Instead, advocates and local voices alike are calling for natural kratom products to be separated from a bill that focuses on drug policy and synthetic substances. 

Kratom Regulation Still Gaining Momentum

The failure to adhere to the current science on kratom reflects a similar process that took place in Louisiana, where a ban bill was passed and signed by the governor after one legislator claimed “there is no such thing as synthetic kratom”, despite a medical doctor testifying about the dangers of artificially enhanced kratom. 

That ban in Louisiana is the first action taken against kratom since 2017 when Rhode Island became the sixth state in the country to ban kratom, and now Connecticut appears on the verge of making it two states to take action against the plant this year.

Although new kratom bans are a step in the wrong direction for residents in the affected areas, momentum is still strong in favor of regulating the natural supplement. 

For starters, attempts to schedule kratom at the federal level failed in both 2016 and 2018 and were rejected by the World Health Organization in a 2021 ruling. 

At the state level, South Dakota, Nebraska and South Carolina passed versions of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA) in 2025, while in Mississippi and Colorado, laws were passed targeting 7-OH products that are marketed as natural kratom. That makes it 17 states that have chosen regulation over restrictions. And despite a proposed ban in Texas, lawmakers changed course and kept the existing KCPA in place. 

Even existing bans on kratom are falling under increased scrutiny. Rhode Island’s legislature passed a bill in 2024 to overturn the state’s kratom ban before it was vetoed by the governor. Another attempt at a “Rhode Island Kratom Act” was introduced this session but held for further study as they attempt to find a bill that can make it past that final step and legalize access to safe, regulated kratom products in the state. 

Connecticut lawmakers also proposed a bill making it illegal to sell kratom to consumers under the age of 21, but that bill never made it out of committee. Still, it shows that there is an appetite and a pathway forward for natural kratom leaf in the state should Lamont put his signature on the bill that would schedule the plant.