Appeal Tribune Wednesday, February 1, 2017 3B
Could Oregon ban the
herbal supplement Kratom?
WHITNEY M. WOODWORTH
STATESMAN JOURNAL
More than a dozen bills have already
been proposed in the upcoming Oregon
Legislature dealing with marijuana, but
there is also one bill about a lesser-
known herb unheard of by many, fierce-
ly adored by some and almost banned by
the DEA.
For millennia, people in Southeast
Asia used the leaves from the tree Mitra-
gyna speciosa — more commonly known
as kratom — to combat fatigue and as a
traditional medicine.
The herb’s modern proponents claim
it can help with opioid withdrawal, pain,
fatigue, anxiety and depression. Its de-
tractors decry it as an “imminent hazard
to public safety,” citing 15 kratom-relat-
ed deaths in the United States during a
two-year period.
Senate Bill 518 would declare an
emergency and direct the Oregon Board
of Pharmacy to conduct a study to deter-
mine whether the plant and its drug de-
rivatives should be scheduled as a con-
trolled substance.
The move has many users and propo-
nents of the herb nervous.
“It’s a little bit of a surprise,” said Su-
san Ash of Portland, director and foun-
der of the American Kratom Associa-
tion. “We did not think we were going to
see a push in Oregon.”
Ash said she knows firsthand the life-
changing benefits of kratom. She
worked for years as an environmentalist
and advocate for places like the Audu-
bon Society of Portland and as a natural-
ist at Bryce Canyon National Park. She
left her job after a case of Lyme disease
went undiagnosed for eight years, sad-
dling her with lifelong fatigue and pain.
Doctors prescribed painkillers, and
soon she was addicted to opioids. She
went to rehab, but nothing seemed to al-
leviate the debilitating symptoms of
withdrawal. When someone from her
Lyme disease support group suggested
using an obscure herb called kratom, she
dismissed it as nonsense.
She soon faced two options: be on the
narcotic Suboxone for the rest of her life
or have nothing. Ash decided to give kra-
tom a try..
“It was like night and day,” she said.
“My withdrawal symptoms were totally
manageable.”
Because her case of Lyme disease
was diagnosed so late, it is now a chronic
condition, which she has treated with
kratom for the past three years. She
drinks a tea made from kratom leaves
two to three times a day. She describes
the effect as “espresso without the jit-
ters” and likens the pain relief to taking a
strong ibuprofen.
Ash formed the American Kratom As-
sociation in 2014 with the intent to sup-
port and protect consumers of kratom
and to educate potential consumers and
regulators.
She said imports of the substance in-
dicate that about three million to five
million people in the United States are
regular kratom users. It can be brewed
in a tea, chewed, smoked or ingested in
MOLLY J. SMITH/STATESMAN JOURNAL
Kratom is sold in powder or capsule forms in shops including Dizzy’s Smoke Shop. The herb,
which some use medicinally for pain relief, is under scrutiny by the Oregon Legislature.
capsules.
The substance has been on the DEA’s
list of drugs and chemicals of concerns
for several years. In August, the agency
announced its intent to label kratom as a
Schedule I controlled substance and
deemed it “an imminent hazard to public
safety.”
With the designation, kratom would
join the ranks of heroin, LSD and mari-
juana. Agency officials based the deci-
sion on the drug’s lack of accepted med-
ical use and high potential for abuse.
They also cited an uptick in calls to
poison control centers and deaths relat-
ed to kratom. Between 2000 and 2005, the
American Association of Poison Control
Centers received two calls related to
kratom. From 2010 to 2015, calls skyrock-
eted to 660.
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said kratom abuse can lead to
agitation, nausea, hypertension, sei-
zures and vomiting. DEA officials said
they were aware of 15 kratom-related
deaths from 2014 to 2016.
After the DEA’s announcement, an
outpouring of senators, representatives,
doctors, scientists and kratom users con-
tacted the agency, imploring it to recon-
sider. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore, penned a
letter with Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jer-
sey, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New
York, urging the acting DEA administra-
tor to allow more time for experts and
the members of the public to weigh in on
the benefits of kratom.
“Given that we are in the midst of a
drug crisis and there is promising evi-
dence of kratom’s potential medical
benefits, including the possibility of
new, safer medications for the treatment
of pain, we believe that placing kratom in
Schedule I without adequate time... may
have unintended consequences,” the let-
ter read.
The American Kratom Association
organized protesters and a petition gar-
nered more than 140,000 signatures. By
Oct. 13, the DEA withdrew its intent for
scheduling and opened up a public com-
ment period. PBS News Hour reported
the agency received about 23,210
comments online — an “abnormally high
amount.”
Dr. Michael Moss , a medical toxicol-
ogy fellow and emergency room physi-
cian with Oregon Health & Science Uni-
versity and Oregon Poison Center, said
he is not aware of any local deaths
caused by kratom. The poison center,
which receives about 60,000 calls a year,
has not seen a surge in kratom-related in-
cidents.
“We have not seen a huge rash of these
cases in Oregon,” he said.
Moss said he remains wary of the sub-
stance.
“It’s still a drug. It’s still a chemical,”
he said, adding that kratom, which is
available in smoke shops and online, is
largely unregulated.
He said it’s safest to avoid kratom, but
if people do seek out the substance, they
should exercise extreme caution.
“You never know what exactly you’re
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going to get,” Moss said.
Kratom can be a stimulant or pain re-
liever depending on the dosage and type
of leaf. Ash said she supports making
sure kratom is safe for consumers, the
dosage is correct, the herb is uncontam-
inated and that product with kratom are
not advertised to children.
The DEA claims of kratom having a
“high potential for abuse” are way off
base, Ash said. It doesn’t taste good —
she compared the flavor to a strong
green tea mixed with dirt — and if some-
one tries to take enough to get high, they
usually just make themselves nauseous.
A lot of people lump the substance into
the same category as bath salts and syn-
thetic cannabinoids like “spice,” but it is
completely different, Ash said.
Jessica Peterson , manager of Dizzy’s
Smoke Shop in Salem, estimated less
than one percent of her customers buy
kratom to use recreationally.
Most people use it to help them break
their opiate addictions or for pain man-
agement.
“I believe it’s a huge benefit,” she
said. “We’ve watched people come off
opiates and become functional people.”
About a year and a half ago, the sub-
stance started growing in popularity.
Customers shared their stories of recov-
ery with Peterson, and she came to be-
lieve in its ability to help people.
“I look at it differently now,” she add-
ed.
The store took it off of their shelves
after the DEA’s announcement but re-
stocked after the reversal.
“I had customers on the verge of
tears,” Peterson said.
Oregon Board of Pharmacy executive
director Marcus Watt said kratom was
on a list of drugs to make controls on last
year, but the board dropped it due to lack
of negative feedback. The board works
with law enforcement, emergency room
personnel and doctors to determine a
substance’s impact in the community.
They look for drug busts, emergency
room visits and overdoses to help deter-
mine whether to embark on a study. The
board didn’t hear from anyone with
strong negative feelings about kratom,
Watt said.
If ordered by legislators to study the
herb, the board would hold public hear-
ings and meetings to investigate wheth-
er the effects of kratom warrant making
it a controlled substance. A normal study
and review takes about three to six
months. Declaring a public health emer-
gency would lead to a quicker, two-
month study.
Six states, including Vermont, Indi-
ana and Alabama, have banned the sub-
stance.
Ash said she hopes Oregon officials
take their time, wait for the DEA to make
its ruling and talk to people who’ve bene-
fited from kratom use, law enforcement
and doctors before deciding its future in
the state.
“This has a huge potential to help in
the nation’s opioid epidemic,” she said.
Email wmwoodwort@statesmanjour-
nal.com, call 503-399-6884 or follow on
Twitter @wmwoodworth
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