regulators began to lock down access to opiates<\/a> amid an addiction epidemic.<\/p>\nThe FDA says 1.7 million Americans aged 12 and older used kratom in 2021 and the number has grown to as many as 15 million today.<\/p>\n
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![\"Brave]()
<\/p>\n
Brave Botanicals packaging for one of its kratom products. \u201cImported from Indonesia and packaged with love in Austin, TX,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
Court filing<\/p>\n
It comes from the evergreen Mitragyna speciosa tree found in, among other countries, Indonesia.\u00a0The FDA says the product is not approved to be used as a drug, not lawfully marketed as a supplement and is unsafe.<\/p>\n
\u201c7-OH (one of the active ingredients found in kratom) \u00a0is a potent opioid that poses an emerging public health threat,\u201d the FDA said in a recent report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has psychoactive properties and can depress respiration much like\u00a0opioids. The FDA has found its effects on the process can be three times stronger than morphine.<\/p>\n
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report this week that hospitalizations from a single kratom exposure had jumped 1,200% from 2015, from 43 to 538. Serious negative outcomes from its use had also risen from 76 in 2015 to 919 in 2025, with 233 associated deaths among the 7,287 serious medical outcomes through the 10-year period.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of the hospitalizations and overdoses have been associated with recreational use.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The substance is often used in combination with other drugs, making it difficult to link a death to kratom.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s especially dangerous because the products sold in the U.S. often have far more 7-hydroxymitragynine than occurs naturally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Texas has passed limited regulations on the product since 2023, prohibiting its sale to minors and restricting the amounts of 7-OH allowed in the products. Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s office has sued companies found to be selling the product with excessive amounts of the chemical.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Live Free Now<\/p>\n
The kratom Hamilton ingested came from Brave Botanicals. The company is\u00a0owned by Bush, a far-right influencer and self-described \u201cradical activist.\u201d The packaging features a cartoon\u00a0version of him, soul patch and all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"John]()
<\/p>\n
John David Bush is seen on his \u201cLive Free Now\u201d podcast. A judge has ruled a wrongful death suit against his company Brave Botanicals will be heard in Travis County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Screengrab of Youtube<\/p>\n
Bush is a do-your-own-research, extreme limited government, personal-freedom loving kind of guy, according to his website and podcast. His podcast \u201cLive Free Now\u201d is largely focused on tips for removing ones self from modern society. Its description:\u00a0\u201cExit the Beast System and Enter the Private Realm.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Kratom promotion and sales appear central to his ideology.<\/p>\n
Self-sufficiency, homesteading and cryptocurrency communities typically aren\u2019t welcoming to law enforcement or other government influence, and Bush has been associated with ideologies like sovereign citizens, a movement that doesn\u2019t accept state and local governments. Participants have at times made their own license plates, ID, taken over other people\u2019s property and had numerous violent altercations with police.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bush, though, has rejected violenc<\/a>e, according to previous news reports.\u00a0<\/p>\nHis attorney argued in court documents that Travis County was not the right place for the trial, as neither Bush nor his companies are housed in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Hamilton\u2019s attorney, though, cited the labeling of the products as well as other online representations that state the kratom was imported to Austin and packaged there.<\/p>\n
The judge agreed, ruling Monday the case would stay in Travis County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Uchka\u00a0of CaraMax Corp. displays lighted signs in September at the CHAMPS Trade Show in Austin. The three-day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-230570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}