“We need to improve access to alternative pain relief options beyond addictive opioids. For some, kratom, a cousin of the coffee plant, can be that alternative. Like cannabis, it should be legal and available,” Rep. Polis said in a statement. “The FDA must end its bogus ‘public health warning’ that has already led to several cities banning kratom. Patients need and deserve options.”

Kratom Pioneer Calls for Government Regulation

One of the dilemmas faced by the FDA is that kratom products are considered dietary supplements, and there are few regulatory standards applied to their importation or ingredients. The only requirement for kratom vendors is that they don't make unsubstantiated health claims.

“I know that regulation is needed and I think that is something we conscientiously have to work towards,” says Duncan Macrae, the founder of Kratom.com and one of the first commercial suppliers to bring kratom products into the United States, Canada and Europe.

“I think that direct government regulation will eventually come about. But while everybody’s waiting for that to happen, I think that vendors in the industry that are making money from this should get together and start their own internal regulation to try to be more transparent,” Macrae told PNN.

“I can tell you for sure that there are a lot of adulterated products on the market, and vendors going in and out of business the whole time, changing names and companies. There’s no central body checking or controlling anything.”

Macrae says kratom vendors should certify their products and list their ingredients – or risk the government stepping in and banning kratom altogether.

“Right now the problem is that every vendor is labeling their product ‘not for consumption.’ And there’s no information about the product or what’s inside it,” he said. “This is the regulation we need to do from inside and hopefully the government won’t (ban kratom) because it is an extremely valuable medicinal herb and they will embrace some kind of regulation that makes sense, so that kratom can be administered safely and distributed safely and people will know exactly what they’re getting.”

Macrae is working to ensure the quality of his own products by growing kratom on farms in Indonesia, as opposed to just harvesting the leaves from trees growing wild in remote jungles. He’s planted hundreds of thousands of kratom trees, with hopes of somebody mass producing kratom tea, pills and extracts.

“I think this is the future for the industry and that is the product that we need to develop, and that’s what I’ve been working on,” he said.