SAN DIEGO — When Travis Thompson discovered kratom, he says he thought he found what he had been searching for; a safe and easy way to end his struggle with alcoholism.
Kratom
“It made me feel like I found the answer like I found the key to the mint or the beginning of a rainbow that I had been looking for,” Thompson said.
After just a few sips of tea inside a kratom bar in Tampa, Thompson quit drinking alcohol and began experimenting with what he thought was a natural, homeopathic cure to his addiction.
“it was an easy, easy transition. I mean, I got off alcohol almost instantly,” Thompson said.
Kratom is an herbal drug that comes from a tropical tree found in South Asia. Users claim the drug is energizing and can promote sobriety for people battling addiction.
Addiction, serious health risks
But similar to most users, Thompson didn't know what was actually inside the leafy powder.
This past month, the Food and Drug Administration sent letters to kratom manufacturers in California warning companies to refrain from marketing the product as a cure for opioid addiction and for making claims that the powder serves as an aphrodisiac, sleep aid, and energy enhancement.
According to the Congressional Research Service, as of November 2023, a total of 22 states have enacted regulations or outright bans on the sale and use of kratom.
A CDC report from 2019 found kratom was the cause of 91 overdose deaths in 27 states. The FDA warns against using the products and says users risk the chance of having,” serious adverse events, including liver toxicity and seizures.
Thompson said his kratom addiction prevented him from sleeping. He said he was experiencing regular panic attacks, cold sweats, and feeling like his legs were on fire.
"I was going temporarily blind. I was almost like having seizures,” he said.
California, like other states where kratom is prevalent, has no laws in place and has been slow to address the product that medical experts fear contains harmful, synthetic chemicals with little to no regulation or age requirements in place.
But that soon could change.
Assembly Bill 2365
In February, State Assemblymember Matt Haney from San Francisco introduced Assembly Bill 2365 which, if passed, places strict regulations on the manufacture, sale, and advertising of kratom throughout the state.
In an interview with CBS 8, Haney said the bill goes further than most states in the country. But the proposal also stops short of banning what could be considered a useful supplement, in some cases.
"There are no requirements for labeling, no requirements for specificity on doses, no age limits. And, even though California has the highest levels of kratom use, we are also the state that lacks any regulations," Haney said.
"The state should be ensuring that these products are safe and not hurting people, and right now, the state isn't involved at all," Haney said. "At the same time, many people use it in its purest form for things that should continue to be allowed. So we're trying to strike a middle ground here that protects Californians but that doesn't prohibit something that many Californians are using in that actually can be safe and beneficial."
Haney told CBS 8 that during his research, he spoke to doctors who celebrated the powder's effectiveness as an alternative to far more dangerous opioids.
However, Haney said, without regulation and age restrictions, more and more cities in California will begin to see kratom offered next to cash registers and more cafes serving kratom tea in their neighborhood.
That is already the case for San Diego County where several kratom cafes have opened that offer pure kratom powder.
Those promises, says Thompson, are exactly what lured him in and what resulted in serious health issues.
“It took about six months before I was I found myself in a full-blown opioid addiction,” Thompson said.
Accessibility
But even with ordinances in place, the ease and availability of scoring kratom powder will be a challenge for authorities to enforce.
That is the case in the City of San Diego where kratom has been banned since 2016.
Despite the ordinance, kratom can be found at smoke shops, gas stations and other retailers in the city. CBS 8 only had to travel less than a mile to find a stockpile of kratom at a Clairemont Mesa smoke shop. Inside, the store sold kratom in powder, capsules, and liquid form.
San Diego Police Department Lt. William Brown told CBS 8 that the police still enforce the ordinance, but rely on public complaints and intelligence from undercover officers in the field. Once a complaint is received by police, the complaint is vetted and investigated further.
San Diego lawsuit
Meanwhile, other kratom users who have become ill and struggled to quit using the powder are taking it up with the court.
A class-action lawsuit filed against MIT45 Inc. alleges that the company is misleading consumers about the addictive nature of its products.
A plaintiff in the lawsuit is a San Diego resident who became addicted to the drug after purchasing products from a local smoke shop.
"[Plaintiff] was wracked by intense physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms that were substantially similar to traditional opiate withdrawals," reads the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges MIT45 Inc.'s omission of any warning labels on its kratom products is negligent misrepresentation.
'Not how this was presented to me'
In Thompson's case, he said as his withdrawal symptoms intensified, he finally had a realization that led to his attempt to get sober.
“I realized that this is not how this was presented to me. This was presented that is an herbal tea. It's a medicine,” Thompson said. "I'm not alone. There are people out there just like me that are walking blindly into this into this plant."
Thompson said he hopes local and federal governments pass regulations that will inform kratom users about what they are trying before they become addicted.
"There needs to be a common knowledge for people who are my age or even younger, that this is a deadly drug if used improperly," Thompson said.
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