What to do with kratom? Utah lawmakers are wrestling with how to deal with the so-called “natural opioid.”
Kratom shows up in vape shops and gas stations around Utah, where advertisers package it as an energy booster, mood improver and relaxant. The main substance that produces these effects is called mitragynine. The drug isn’t a controlled substance, and it doesn’t have any recognized medicinal uses. Still, many people use it for pain relief or to wean themselves off of stronger opioids.
Utah first regulated kratom seven years ago with the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, which set two important precedents. It limited the amount of the chemical 7-Hydroxymitragynine in products and forced kratom to have product information on its packaging.
This session, Utah lawmakers have a few different approaches to expand regulation.
Republican Sen. Evan Vickers is sponsoring SB48, which would regulate 7-Hydroxymitragynine, and SB101, which would tax kratom.
Republican Sen. Michael McKell is taking a much broader approach with SB45, which would classify kratom as a Schedule I Substance, making it illegal to sell, deliver or own.
Michael Moss, the medical director of the Utah Poison Control Center, said that as a plant, kratom “grows in Southeast Asia, like Thailand and Malaysia.” Its leaf acts as a mild stimulant, kind of like a coca leaf or a tobacco plant. But taking a couple of grams of kratom will start to increase its effects.
According to Moss, kratom addiction acts like most other opioid addictions.
“The brain gets used to them. You develop tolerance and dependence, and then withdrawal,” he said.
But what really makes Moss nervous is 7-Hydroxymitragynine. In its natural form, kratom contains small amounts of the chemical. But products containing much higher amounts have been popping up more frequently around the United States.
“The best we can tell is they're probably making this in a lab, just because there's so little of it present in the leaf.”
This, Moss said, is where the dangers of addiction really start to ramp up, because it’s possible to overdose on 7-Hydroxymitragynine.
Opioid overdoses occur when the drug impacts the part of your brain responsible for breathing. If someone takes too much of a certain drug, or a combination of drugs, their lungs can stop functioning. 7-Hydroxymitragynine is no exception. Scientists at Johns Hopkins have found that it can be more effective at binding to opioid receptors than morphine.
Megan Broekemeier, the opioid fatality examiner in the office of the medical examiner in the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, said that since 2014, the state has seen a steady increase in the number of deaths involving kratom. But they’re still just a fraction of the totals. Utah, Broekemeier said, sees between 600 and 700 overdose deaths each year.
“There have been 219 kratom-involved overdoses in our state over 10 years,” she said. “A pretty small proportion of the total number of deaths.”
And, she said that 94% of kratom-related overdoses involved multiple substances.
“We do see the number of deaths peak in 2023,” Broekemeier said. “And, I can't predict the future, of course, but it's very possible that we're on track to see that higher number again in 2025.”
Vickers’ bills this year would tax kratom and further regulate 7-Hydroxymitragynine, also known as 7-OH, as a Schedule I drug (though an exception for very low levels would still allow kratom to be sold in its natural state). But McKell wants to ban kratom altogether.
In his bill, McKell listed Mitragyna speciosa, the plant’s scientific name, as a Schedule I drug.
“There's a really big misconception that 7-OH is the only problem,” McKell said. “It's not. Mitragynine is a serious problem as well.”
His bill puts everything related to kratom on the list of illegal drugs, including things derived from the plant. If McKell’s bill passes, it would essentially negate Vickers’ bills and the old Kratom
Vickers’ regulation and tax bills picked up support from several people at a Jan. 21 Senate committee hearing. Ryan Niddel, CEO of Diversified Botanics, a kratom manufacturing, sales and distribution company based in Draper, Utah, said he’s in full support of Vickers’ legislation, specifically the ban on 7-Hydroxymitragynine.
“It's not really to regulate or not, it's whether we're able to regulate intelligently based off of science,” he told the committee.
The tax bill for kratom moved out of the Senate to the House for discussion on Jan. 23, and the ban on 7-Hydroxymitragynine is poised to follow the same path.
A committee hearing for McKell’s full ban was a different story. More than a dozen Utahns spoke, both in support and in opposition.
Most of the voices opposed to the outright kratom ban cited their experiences with chronic pain. One woman said she spent six years hardly able to get out of bed before finding relief with kratom. A father spoke about finding relief with the drug after a serious car crash.
But plenty of people spoke in support, citing addiction and the overdose potential as reasons to get rid of kratom in the state of Utah. Several parents spoke about the struggles their children have faced. And a group of students from St. George spoke in person about how easy it’s become for their friends to buy the drug.
Ultimately, the bill got a favorable recommendation from the Senate Business and Labor Committee.
All three kratom bills have received enough support to continue moving through the Legislature.
Ethan Rauschkolb is an intern with Amplify Utah and KUER covering the Utah State Legislature and other local news.
