LOUISIANA ONE STEP AWAY FROM ENACTING KRATOM BAN

At all levels of the government, Louisiana has been one of the toughest states on kratom, even as the science and information around the plant has advanced. 

But in the wake of a ban bill passing through the Louisiana legislature, advocates are worried that anti-kratom voices may take the entire state back a step by passing laws limiting access to kratom in the state. 

A bill to criminalize the distribution and possession of kratom was passed in both chambers of the Louisiana legislature. The bill is now just a signature away from becoming law, and advocates are sounding the alarm about what such a bill could mean for kratom consumers in a state with one of the most restrictive criminal justice systems in the country, meaning that a potential veto is now the only remaining option to keep kratom legal in the state. 

State Sen. John Morris III introduced SB 154, a bill scheduling kratom, to replace the current law regulating the industry. A contentious 2023 legislative session saw bills introduced on both sides of the matter, eventually settling on a law that set a minimum age of 21 years old to purchase kratom and a carve-out for local kratom bans.  

Following a contentious hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill passed along party lines by a vote of 26-11, with 26 of the 28 Republicans in the Senate supporting the effort (two were absent). When the bill was sent to the House, it was heard by a committee that considers bills already passed in another chamber and was reported favorably by a vote of 10-1. That support was echoed in front of the entire chamber, where the bill passed by a vote of 86-6.

Despite the best efforts of kratom-friendly legislators in the House, a pair of amendments were rejected on the House floor that would have kept pure leaf kratom legal in the state. That leaves the governor as the only remaining hope to derail the ban. 

Home-Field Hijinx in Committee

The Senate hearing on the bill was in front of the Judiciary C Committee, which is chaired by the bill’s sponsor. From the outset of Morris’s testimony, it was clear that he had carefully crafted a message that danced around the facts and the prevailing science around kratom. 

For starters, Morris’s opening statement undercut researchers at Johns Hopkins, drastically minimized the science on what constitutes “good” kratom and targeted Super Speciosa for spurious reasons. Morris only mentioned 7-hydroxymitragynine twice (7-OH), both times when reading fact sheets about kratom, and both times Morris mispronounced the alkaloid as “hydro” mitragynine. 

When it came to vilifying Super Speciosa, Morris claimed he was able to illegally order kratom without age verification to receive a free sample of pure leaf kratom. Morris did not mention that the website contains terms of service that include “Must be 21 years or older to purchase Kratom” and an agreement that those accessing the website “are aware and in compliance with your local county, state, or federal regulations.” 

Super Speciosa’s website also directly references municipalities in Louisiana that have banned kratom and do not ship to local jurisdictions that have banned kratom. It is unclear where Morris was located when he ordered the kratom, but currently, there is no ban in Baton Rouge, where the state capitol building is located.  

During testimony by Mac Haddow, a fellow with the American Kratom Association, Morris confronted Haddow with the fact Super Speciosa was listed on the AKA’s website. Haddow vowed to verify that kratom was being distributed legally before presenting Morris with a piece of information that was left out in his attempted smear of a kratom brand that is not even located in Louisiana. 

“I can tell you that Super Speciosa is the company that provided the kratom to the US Food and Drug Administration for their study. It is a safe product,” Haddow said. 

> Read about the ground-breaking study here.

Identifying the Real Threat

Despite the contentious nature of Morris’ interactions, Haddow focused on products with adulterants and additives, which he said were the true danger to public health. 

“Banning kratom will criminalize 325,000 Louisianians who are kratom consumers,” Haddow said. “It’s easy to dismiss them against this narrative that you’ve heard… Let’s go after (adulterated products) and join the 15 states that have regulated kratom.” 

Morris’ agenda was also displayed during testimony from a pair of researchers associated with Johns Hopkins. First to testify was Dr. Jack Henningfield, a career researcher who has worked with various government and private agencies in the regulation field. When it came time for questions, Morris’ grilled a perplexed Henningfield about how much he receives in grant funding, with Henningfield eventually acknowledging that the company that pays his salary has contracts with the kratom industry. 

When Haddow and Henningfield were dismissed (they testified side-by-side), Morris accidentally referred to Henningfield as Dr. Smith. At that same time, Dr. Kirstin Smith, also a researcher at Johns Hopkins, was making her way to the table and clarified that she was the “Dr. Smith” that it appeared Morris was attempting to target with his comments about grant funding. 

Once Smith began testifying, she quickly worked to correct the record from the misinformation shared previously about kratom and research efforts. 

“Kratom is complex; it’s not this easy botanical that fits into a bucket,” Smith said. “It is not an opioid, mitragynine, even now there is work going on at NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) showing that the binding affinity of mitragynine at the mu-opioid receptor is extremely low, lower than we thought before.”

After Morris had claimed that Smith had not done any “studies” and instead referred to her work as “surveys”, Smith corrected the record to highlight both the user surveys and the clinical work she was supervising using federal dollars. Multiple witnesses corrected Morris to explain the variety of studies and government-funded research that have gone into pure kratom leaf. 

“NIDA has spent about $16 million studying kratom; FDA is, with Baylor University, doing the second part of a two-part study on safety and abuse potential,” Smith said. “FDA has already done a study where they found that doses up to 12 grams were safe and well tolerated.”  

“Whatever it is, it is not anything like a traditional drug of abuse,” Smith said. 

Residents Plead for Regulation

Witnesses testifying against the bill directly told Morris that the danger of an unregulated market lies in the products masquerading as ‘kratom’ that have significantly different chemical profiles, particularly 7-OH. The voices testifying in favor of the bill only spoke about kratom in general terms without mentioning how other states have regulated kratom. Haddow gave the first testimony where the risk of 7-OH was brought up. 

“7-Hydroxymitragynine is the bad actor; a synthesized version of that is sweeping the marketplace and does exactly what you describe, and you should be banning it in this bill,” Haddow said. 

Advocates for kratom tried every avenue available to them: Smith was one of the scientists who created a website warning of the dangers of 7-OH and testified about those risks; Haddow and Henningfield laid out the scope and findings of available research that was being done on behalf of the federal government; and a lifelong Louisiana resident named Troy stepped up to the mic to tell his personal story with kratom, and how this bill would make him a criminal. 

To conclude his testimony, Troy told the committee that they should support a different bill under consideration–a version of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act that is stalled out in the House Committee on Appropriations. 

“What they want to ban is not the kratom I take. It should not even be called kratom,” Troy said. “So I urge you to group up with Mr. Boyer and let’s do something because people here are ready to regulate it, they’ve regulated it in a bunch of other states.” 

More Misinformation on the House Floor

The misinformation from the bill’s sponsors continued on the floor of the House of Representatives when the bill was presented. 

Rep. Villio presented the bill and started with an outdated list of concerns and information before claiming “there is no synthetic version of kratom” when asked about the subject. According to Villio, the kratom leaves are “adulterated” by heat, lighting and other forms to become the “very very dangerous kratom on the market.” 

Villio also said, “We don’t know the dosage” of kratom leaf that can be taken, despite the FDA’s recent dosage study of pure kratom leaf indicating the opposite. At one point, Villio claimed: “They are making medical claims that this is a dietary supplement and an herb.” 

Kratom leaf is a naturally derived product and has only been regulated in the United States as a dietary supplement, which is not the same classification as products used for medicinal purposes. At no point in the testimony did Villio mention the alkaloids in kratom, specifically 7-OH, despite the testimony of federally funded researchers in the Senate hearing. 

When Villio's time was up, Rep. Beryl Amedee and Rep. Peter Egan tried to propose a pair of amendments that would leave a legal cutout for naturally occurring kratom leaf. Amedee spoke out against the “enhanced and synthesized” versions of kratom and in favor of kratom consumers who opted to use kratom as a dietary supplement. 

“When we ban a plant…without a bunch of dangerous additives, I think that we are limiting people’s access to things that could help,” Amedee said. 

Amedee pushed back against the claim that synthetic kratom products exist. In her proposed amendment, Amedee specifically targeted the alkaloid percentage of 7-OH as a limiting factor of what was allowed to be sold as a kratom product. The language is similar to the 16 other states that have passed laws regulating pure-leaf kratom. The amendment failed by a vote of 80-16. 

Egan was next and offered a similar amendment ot Amedee in an attempt to create a legal, regulated market for natural kratom. Specifically, Egan specifically pushed back on claims that he was proposing the amendment on behalf of a lobbyist. 

“I can tell you right now, I do not know who or what ‘the industry’ is,” Egan said. “I was not approached by a lobbyist.” 

Egan was the first voice on the House floor to say “7-hydroxymitragynine” and correctly identified the role that 7-OH plays in naturally occurring kratom vs. those products that have been adulterated and enhanced. 

“What is totally available in gas stations is by and large, for the most part, the ramped-up version,” Egan said. “I totally agree with Rep. Villio that it’s toxic, it’s dangerous and it needs to be banned.” 

Despite his best efforts to set the record straight, Egan’s amendment also failed by a vote of 76-12.