DEA moves to ban 'kratom' months after Arkansas made it illegal

LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — The Drug Enforcement Administration announced their intent to ban the substance known as kratom, expected to list it alongside heroin, LSD and ecstasy, as Schedule I controlled substance. The move won’t affect Arkansans any more than it already does, since the state already banned the substance earlier this year.

Dr. Nate Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said kratom had been on the DEA’s list of drugs of concern for quite a while. Smith said the state acted faster.

“Scheduling in Arkansas, as with other states, is often times ahead of the DEA because the DEA has a fairly lengthy process,” said Smith.

Kratom is actually a tree, but the leaves of the tree when dried and ground up, can possess opioid-like effects. The substance, until recently classified by the Food and Drug Administration as a “supplement”, is readily available online to be shipped across the country. The substance is also found in convenience stores and gas stations, and was recently in Arkansas until last year.

Smith said ADH voted to propose adding the two psycho-active ingredients in kratom to the state’s list of controlled substances in 2015.

According to a document listing mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine as proposed amendments to the state’s list of controlled substances, it says the Department of Health was notified by a doctor at an Addiction Treatment Center in Springdale saying that some of his patients indicated they have been kratom. The doctor indicated that, “the drug exhibited an opiate agonist action and that the patients had purchased kratom at local businesses.”

The state legislate ended up listing mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine as Schedule 1 substances at the beginning of 2016.

“As we looked into it, this was a substance that had been on the DEA’s list of drugs of concern for some time; across the country it seemed like use was starting to ramp up,” said Dr. Smith.

Arkansas joins only a handful of states that acted ahead of the DEA, like Alabama, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Kratom’s advocates report that the drug can be used to treat a variety of maladies like post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. Those same advocates say some research has shown that kratom is a “natural” substance to help with opiate withdrawal, helping ween people off of drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers.

Smith acknowledges as a physician, that treating a patient for pain is a difficult situation. He says opioid painkillers are being over-prescribed, and even though kratom is said to help, the compounds in the drugs are “too similar” to the opioids themselves.

“A responsible physician has to look at not just the short term effects, but the long term effects,” said Smith.

Since kratom’s components are now listed as Schedule 1 controlled substances, clearly both ADH and the DEA believe kratom, “has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

The DEA’s ban on kratom is temporary, a two-year ban so the DEA can investigate and do more research on the drug. If research finds there is no public-health risk, kratom could be removed from the controlled substances list, but likely not here in Arkansas.