The popular mood-enhancing supplement kratom is now illegal to possess or sell in Tennessee.<\/p>\n
According to a social medial post by District Attorney Bryant Dunaway, any business or individual that had previously been selling the substance should stop immediately. The simple possession of kratom is now a class A misdemeanor, while manufacturing, delivering or selling of kratom or possessing kratom with the intent to sell is a class C felony.<\/p>\n
Since the new law went into effect, at least one arrest involving kratom possession has been made in Putnam County. On July 13, the Monterey Police Department answered a call for an intoxicated person at the Shell Station and eventually arrested Brian Chase Johnson, 42, of Knoxville, for DUI, vandalism and possession of kratom.<\/p>\n
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the abuse of kratom has increased in the United States over the last decade. In a 2024 Mayo Clinic article, clinic staff warned of the dangers of kratom, an herbal extract made from the leaves of a tropic plant native to southeast Asia. The most common ways it is consumed in the United States is trough oral ingestion of tablets, capsules or as a powdered extract.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“People who use kratom report that at low doses, kratom acts as an upper, called a stimulant,” the article said. “That means it makes them more alert and gives them more energy. At higher doses, people who use it report that it reduces pain and makes them feel calm and less anxious, also called a sedative.”<\/p>\n
The article said that although some people claimed kratom helps them with pain or opioid addiction, there is no evidence that the substance has any positive medicinal qualities, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns of possible dangers.<\/p>\n
“Poison control centers in the United States received more than 3,400 reports about use of kratom from 2014 through 2019,” the article said. “These included reports of death. Side effects reported included high blood pressure, confusion and seizures.”<\/p>\n
The article went on to admit that kratom-related deaths are relatively small compared to rates of other drugs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Nearly all deaths from kratom also involved other drugs or substances that might have been harmful,” the article said. “Many of the problems linked to pain medicines happen when people take them at high doses or for a long time. Experts don’t know what level of kratom can cause those problems. People can overdose with kratom, but it’s rare.”<\/p>\n
According to the DEA, kratom has been known to cause psychosis in some users “where individuals addicted to kratom exhibited psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations, delusion and confusion.” Kratom users have also been known to experience anorexia, weight loss, insomnia and seizures.<\/p>\n
The Tennessee legislature approved HB1649 prohibiting the possession of sale of kratom as of July 1 passed 78-9 in the state House of Representatives on April 8 and by a 23-2 vote in the Senate April 16. Governor Bill Lee signed it into law May 7. With the law going into affect Tennessee joins Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Vermont, Wisconsin and Connecticut as the eight states that have outlawed kratom. Rhode Island had previously prohibited kratom, but the state overturned that ban earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In addition to prohibiting the sale and possession of kratom, the bill, according to Dunaway’s memo, requires medical examiners test for kratom when an overdose death is suspected and requires treating physicians run toxicology tests in suspected overdoses or suspected neonatal abstinence syndrome. The new law also requires the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development to list kratom as a drug.<\/p>\n
Critics of the new law call it an overreaction that will lead to needless criminal prosecutions and potentially lead to Tennesseans to seek opioid relief through more dangerous options. Writing for the Reason Foundation in April, criminal justice and drug policy analyst Sephria Reynolds-Tanner said the state’s kratom market has approximately 38,000 customers and generates around $19 million in sales, with the state collecting $1.3 million in sales tax revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Should one of these bills become law, it would eliminate a market that brings revenue to Tennessee\u2019s government while also potentially adding millions to incarceration costs,” Reynolds-Tanner said. “Meanwhile, the state\u2019s corrections system is already under strain, raising questions about its capacity to absorb additional individuals.”<\/p>\n
Reynolds-Tanner said that of the 3,500 overdose deaths in Tennessee in 2023, a majority were from fentanyl and tramadol.<\/p>\n
“Research suggests that people actually use kratom to avoid the dangers of both legal and illicit opioids,” she said “A 2025 study in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse found that regular kratom consumers use it to manage opioid dependence and avoid illicit drug use. Similarly, a 2022 analysis of more than 6,000 public comments submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which were submitted during a comment period attached to a 2016 proposal by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, found that many users report turning to kratom to manage opioid withdrawal and maintain abstinence, warning that criminalization could push them toward illicit opioids.”<\/p>\n
Reynolds-Tanner said it was unlikely that banning kratom will lead to fewer overdose deaths in Tennessee, noting that when legal access is denied, individuals will sometimes seek illicit access to substances. Several Nashville-area news outlets reported earlier this week that the Robertson County Sheriff’s Office arrested a gas station employee who was selling kratom out of the trunk of his car. He has been charged with a class C felony under the new law, with additional drug and money laundering charges also possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The popular mood-enhancing supplement kratom is now illegal to possess or sell in Tennessee. According to a social…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1115,103,61,60,342,43,446],"class_list":["post-565898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-crime","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-local","tag-news","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}