Submitted Photo Mitragyna speciosa or kratom is commonly taken in capsules or as powder mixed with drinks by individuals seeking to alleviate pain and to mitigate opioid-related withdrawal symptoms or cravings. A House bill introduced in North Dakota’s 69th Legislative Assembly session would classify kratom as a Schedule I controlled substance. Photo from Adobe Stock.

An unregulated herbal substance sold throughout North Dakota has fallen under the crosshairs of legislators in Bismarck, who have introduced a bill seeking to classify it as a Schedule I controlled substance.

House Bill 1101 was among the flurry of legislation introduced at the beginning of the 69th Legislative Assembly session, and would amend the North Dakota Century Code to add mitragynine, also known as kratom, to the list of Schedule I opiates. If passed, HB 1101 would list kratom alongside substances like fentanyl and its many derivatives.

The bill was introduced for its first reading on Tuesday, and was referred to the Judiciary Committee for a hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 13.

Mitragyna speciosa is a tree in the coffee family native to Southeast Asia that has been used since the 19th century as a multipurpose remedy in traditional medicine, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Kratom contains bioactive alkaloids like 7-hydroxymitragynine, which provides stimulant-like effects, as well as effects analogous to those of opioids and sedatives like relaxation and pain relief. Users of kratom reportedly use it to alleviate opioid-related withdrawal symptoms and cravings, to alleviate pain and to help manage mental health problems, according to the NIDA.

Rep. Jeremy Olson, a Republican from District 26 who is the majority caucus leader, is one of the sponsors of the bill, and said he did so on behalf of the team at Providence House, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Arnegard.

Despite kratom and its derivatives not being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, kratom products have become ubiquitous in the last 10 years through online sources as well as on the shelves of brick and mortar vendors and convenience stores.

Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy at the American Kratom Association (AKA), said the number of kratom consumers in the United States has grown from 3-5 million people in 2016 to more than 20 million people today. Haddow said kratom consumers vary from those using it in lieu of a cup of coffee, people with depression seeking to elevate their mood, and a growing segment seeking to address acute and chronic pain with a plant-based therapy to replace pharmaceutical products.

Information released by the FDA in August 2024 said kratom was not appropriate for use as a dietary supplement, and has not been approved to be prescribed or sold as an over-the-counter drug product. The FDA said kratom use requires further study, citing concerns around its abuse potential and opioid-related effects that could cause physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms and respiratory depression that could lead to death. The FDA has made attempts to schedule Kratom at the federal level, but those efforts are currently stalled pending further study.

Logan Jangula, the clinical director for Providence House in Arnegard, identified the availability of kratom throughout the state as the primary driver for requesting the legislation, in addition to its reported addictive properties.

“Kratom is available at any gas station or corner store. The bill was introduced to limit the access to kratom due to how addictive the drug is,” Jangula said. “We’ve seen kratom here at the treatment center before. At low doses it acts like a stimulant, and at high doses it acts like an opioid because it attaches to the same receptor cell in the brain. It can cause problems, and some people actually have to take suboxone to get off of kratom because the withdrawals mimic opioid withdrawals.”

Jangula said in his experience kratom posed a danger for those in recovery from other substances like methamphetamine, cocaine and opioids, requiring the facility to use specialized tests for kratom for patients of their outpatient clinic.

“To my clinical judgement, I don’t see how that would be safe to have it out there for usage and it’s not regulated, when it’s doing literally almost the same thing,” Jangula said. “I’ve never heard of overdoses from kratom, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been overdoses from kratom.”

Haddow pushed back against claims that kratom is dangerous, citing testimony by FDA representatives in a recent court case involving a kratom importer where the FDA testified the agency had not yet determined if the substance was dangerous or not. Haddow noted the FDA was in the process of conducting a three-year study into the addiction liability of kratom, and took issue with information the FDA has made available on its website describing it as addictive.

“We don’t ban substances because of what we don’t know. We ban substances because of what we do know,” Haddow said. “There’s no basis for there to be any argument for scheduling kratom.”

Kratom is currently unregulated in most U.S. states including North Dakota, but has been banned or classified as a controlled substance Arkansas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Vermont, and has been subject to localized bans in certain cities in California, Mississippi, New York and Oklahoma.

In contrast, 13 states including Utah, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Maryland and Virginia have adopted Kratom Consumer Protect Acts (KCPA), legislation developed by the AKA. As of this month, 10 other states are in the process of drafting or considering similar bills which would regulate kratom.

Haddow said the model creates requirements for vendors selling kratom products that ban the preparation, distribution and sale of kratom that is adulterated or contaminated. In addition, the KCPA requires all kratom products to be sold with labels containing the amount of mitragynine in it, and bans the sale of kratom to anyone under the age of 18. Haddow said he had made contact with Olson and shared a model of KCPA with him, and was hopeful it could be pursued in favor of scheduling kratom.

“No state has banned kratom since Rhode Island did in 2017 at the behest of the FDA. No one has done it. The better regulatory approach is to regulate the product so that it is properly labeled and that it meets product specifications so that you don’t have adulterated products on the marketplace,” Haddow said. “That limits the potency so you don’t get artificially spiked products which are dangerous. We think that provides adequate protections for consumers and benefits consumers to make sure they can go to a store and will know with some confidence that the product that complies with the state’s standard is one they can safely consume.”

Research into the use of kratom has become a focus of the NIDA, which itself is a federal government research institute under the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NIDA has indicated it is particularly interested in studying how kratom use may impact opioid abuse, which has been a significant driver of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States, and committed $100 million in funding to study it further.

“The vast majority of the results of those studies document that kratom is in fact a potential tool for fighting against the opioid epidemic because it has beneficial effects in weening people off of opioids and managing acute and chronic pain as a replacement therapy for those opioids,” Haddow. “Kratom is, as NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow says, part of the solution. It’s not the problem.”