America Is Trying to Decide What to Do About Kratom

A plant-based powder you can pick up with your lottery tickets and energy drink is now at the center of a fierce drug fight. The Wall Street Journal's Sumathi Reddy reports on kratom, which comes from a Southeast Asian tree leaf and is legally sold in gas stations and convenience stores. As Reddy explains, kratom "contains the psychoactive compound mitragynine and trace amounts of 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, both of which bind to the same brain receptors as opioids." In 2023, "synthetic and semi-synthetic derivatives, like 7-OH" hit the market.

Some see kratom as a source of addiction and a cause of fatal overdoses; defenders insist it's a lifeline for people with chronic pain. The CDC found kratom present in more than 5,200 fatal overdoses between 2020 and 2024, and poison-control calls involving it have jumped roughly twelvefold in a decade. Some want the substance prohibited outright, and Connecticut, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kansas have done that very thing; other states are pushing for tighter rules around derivatives instead. Christopher Deoudes, who heads one of the country's largest kratom distributors, is in the latter group: "We always say kratom is closer to a food or dietary supplement or a beverage, and 7-OH is closer to a drug." Read the full story here.