Just yesterday, I was in Washington, D.C., advocating for meaningful consumer protections for kratom when I walked into the United States Botanic Garden, steps from the Capitol. In its Medicinal Plants collection stood a tree I know very well: Mitragyna speciosa. Kratom.
The irony was nothing short of astounding. I then came home to New Hampshire, where Sue Homola is calling for that same botanical plant to be placed into Schedule I. I read her argument thoroughly and spent days crafting a comprehensive response addressing her claims point by point, but I was asked to substantially shorten this piece. What follows is only a fraction of that rebuttal.
What I will not abbreviate is the central problem I see in her argument: traditional botanical kratom, concentrated products, semisynthetics, synthetics and research chemicals are repeatedly discussed under the same umbrella. Critical context is lost when evidence concerning one product, or a fundamentally different product, is applied to the leaf itself.
If we are seriously contemplating the draconian act of criminalizing possession of a botanical plant, scientific precision and intellectual honesty should be the bare minimum.
Let’s get on the same page, shall we? Mitragynine is the predominant alkaloid in botanical kratom, while 7-OH is an active metabolite found in leaf, when detectable, at trace levels. FDA’s analysis of 341 botanical samples found a mean of just 0.01% 7-OH. That illustrates the fundamental difference between natural leaf and concentrated, or semisynthetic products sold under kratom’s name. This distinction is central to this entire debate. What I am fighting for is natural whole-leaf kratom.
Homola’s respiratory-depression comparison is not evidence about whole-leaf kratom. We have actual human data on the plant. In a National Institute on Drug Abuse direct-observation study, regular consumers self-administered their usual whole-leaf powder doses, ranging from 1.1 to 10.9 grams. Researchers reported no adverse events and no clinically significant changes in respiration, blood pressure, heart rate or temperature.
Similarly, a randomized study of 116 healthy adults also tested dried botanical kratom in single and repeated daily doses. Researchers reported no serious adverse events or deaths and concluded the product was safe and well tolerated at the studied doses.
Can kratom cause dependence? Absolutely. Pretending otherwise would be as intellectually dishonest just as pretending its risk profile is equivalent to classical opioids. A Johns Hopkins survey of 2,798 consumers found 2% met criteria for moderate or severe kratom-related substance use disorder. Forty-one percent reported using kratom to reduce or stop prescription or illicit opioids, with 411 reporting more than a year of continuous opioid abstinence attributed to kratom.
The evidence extends beyond individual studies. The World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence reviewed kratom, mitragynine and 7-OH and found insufficient evidence to recommend a critical review for international scheduling, instead keeping them under surveillance. None of this means botanical kratom is risk-free. Everything carries risk. Risk alone does not justify treating fundamentally different products as interchangeable.
Then there are the “kratom deaths.” The CDC examined 27,338 overdose deaths across 27 states. Kratom was detected in 152, just 0.56%. Fentanyl was listed as a cause of death in 65.1% of those cases, and multiple substances were detected in almost all. Only seven had kratom as the only substance detected, and CDC cautioned that additional substances could not necessarily be excluded. Again, detection is not causation. Reports of mitragynine-positive deaths have even included fatalities involving gunshot wounds. A toxicology finding does not, by itself, establish what caused a person’s death.
Now my favorite rhetoric may be the label “gas station heroin.” This is not a scientific classification. It is inflammatory language that obliterates distinctions federal regulators themselves recognize. Calling traditional botanical leaf “gas station heroin” because manipulated products are marketed under the kratom umbrella is pharmacologically indefensible.
Perhaps the most astonishing part of Homola’s argument is her assertion that New Hampshire lacks consumer protections. We tried to create them. I know because I was there. I testified alongside many others in favor of regulation. As introduced, Senate Bill 557 proposed regulating kratom products and prohibiting sales to anyone under 21. The official Senate Judiciary Committee hearing record documents 92 people in support and specifically lists Homola among the opponents. Her testimony was summarized as arguing that the bill did not go far enough and effectively legalized natural kratom. It is my strong opinion that you cannot oppose legislation designed to create consumer protections and then weaponize the absence of those protections as evidence that criminalization is necessary.
Also, food for thought: why are we making this so complicated? Existing food safety and botanical frameworks already address good manufacturing practices, contamination, labeling and product quality. The American Herbal Products Association has botanical manufacturing guidance and kratom-specific guidance distinguishing the plant from synthesized alkaloids. Existing frameworks could be examined for age restrictions, independent testing, truthful labeling and enforceable manufacturing standards without assuming an entirely new regulatory bureaucracy is necessary.
Let’s remember, I was in our nation’s capital fighting for those consumer protections and found myself standing beside a living kratom tree in the Medicinal Plants collection of the United States Botanic Garden. I listened to heartbreaking and heartwarming stories from people whose lives have been forever changed for the better because of kratom. Those voices deserve to be part of this conversation.
New Hampshire, we are not Massachusetts. Do better.
Do not allow industry greed and chemically manipulated products to erase the distinction between those products and the botanical leaf itself.
Jenn Mercier is a mother, business owner and health freedom advocate from southern NH.