Businesses can now start applying for licenses to sell and distribute kratom in Rhode Island.
According to the Rhode Island Department of Health, the psychoactive plant is used to self-treat things like pain, opioid withdrawal and anxiety, but the FDA has not yet approved any kratom products.
The new law will allow people 21 and older to purchase kratom from licensed businesses. But with applications opening Wednesday, it could be a while before kratom goes up on the shelves.
“The average kratom consumer is someone like me … OK, maybe a little younger,” said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the American Kratom Association. “It really deals with the normal stresses of daily life and the aches and pains related to it.”
Haddow is part of a national organization that has been advocating for the legalization of kratom in Rhode Island.
The state has a lengthy legislative history with the substance and was one of a few states to ban it in 2017. But after a few years of debate on Smith Hill, Rhode Island has now become the first state in the country to overturn that ban.
A spokesperson for the R.I. Department of Health said retailers will have to go through training similar to what’s already in place for tobacco products.
The law in Rhode Island does ban a synthetic form of kratom known as 7-OH, which federal health officials warn is addictive like opioids and more dangerous than morphine.
Some have pushed back on the legalization of kratom, including Portsmouth state Rep. Michelle McGaw.
“Without clean scientific trials, without going through a drug approval process, I’m not comfortable having a drug that works directly on the opioid receptors,” she said.
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