Non-partisan advocacy to promote state and municipal regulation for botanical kratom in California for adult consumers. Also cats. | https://teapawt.org/t.co/gZ89Gl63Gc
California, USA
Joined March 2026
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I have used botanical kratom for over 8 years.
I read extensively from peer reviewed studies and value-neutral harm reduction literature before the first serving, and knew within about 30 seconds that dependency was possible, if not probable, with long term routine use of botanical kratom at the serving size I would require and planned for.
[If anything, the general search engine results between outdated consumer health portals and for-profit rehabs gaming SEO results, are far more pessimistic than what actual studies tend to suggest.]
I judged that it was a reasonable drawback for the benefits of routine use for debilitating pain, especially already being dependent on the Rx pain medication (2011-2018) that was stopped against my will.
I have used it in consistent amounts (2018-now) below my personal limit.
I still believe it was a good decision. Nothing is appropriate for all people, but it has been for me.
I also know that I was able to reduce to zero for a procedure within 30 days with no issue in excess of baseline pain. I without regret or reservation restarted it a week later post-procedure to continue manage chronic pain.
I wish others would take personal responsibility for their decision to put it, or anything else, into their body especially if done out of curiosity or a whim at the checkout counter with no self education; and not judge what other (especially well informed) folks like me have done deliberately for important health purposes to great success.
🤖 Made with AI
Regulate California Now retweeted
MGPI levels in botanical kratom are extreme trace, if that. So low they are below the LOQ for most instruments (including DEA), and so low where it may be non-zero there is legitimate scientific debate that they are forming during the mass-spec process.
The proposed standard of less than 1mg/g or 1mg/mL for 7-OH and MGPI with a 100:1 ratio to mitragynine is less than the current standard as DOJ intends to enforce it.
The “Feel Free” product wouldn’t be able to have even 0.4mg per bottle at 40mg mitragynine because of the ratio limit. They’d know before it came off the line if it was violative which is what they and consumers deserve.
The manufacturers wanted some quantified limit rather than vague assurances from DOJ about “enforcement discretion” for that extreme trace, and discretion that wouldn’t bind the states that automatically import the federal schedules into state law.
They did not require any evidence that the hospitalized patient actually consumed any cannabis during the period of study. The referenced study cannot establish that a single additional cardiovascular hospitalization occurred in someone who consumed cannabis.
It doesn't control at all for regions with relatively permissive medical cannabis policies, or that CA didn't pass recreational use until 2018 while it's population exceeds all 12 other states combined.
I don't care that much about cannabis or cannabis policy, but the ridiculous media reporting and claims by opposition organizations (for it and kratom) should be embarrassing to them.
Actual study: bmjopen.bmj.com/content/16/1…
JUST IN: Cannabis legalization in the U.S. has been associated with increased hospitalizations due to cardiovascular issues, including heart attacks.
The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal BMJ Open, looked at data from more than 50 million hospital discharges between 2012 and 2018 in the Western region of the U.S., where by 2018, 98 percent of the population lived in or bordered a state where cannabis use had been legalized.
It found that the legalization of recreational cannabis sales in the region beginning in 2014 was linked to an increased rate of hospitalization for heart failure, myocardial infarction (heart attack), and atrial fibrillation, compared to regions whose states did not broadly legalize cannabis. Atrial fibrillation refers to an irregular and rapid heart rhythm.
Specifically, each year of legal cannabis sales was associated with a 2.3 percent increase in hospitalization rate for atrial fibrillation, a 3.1 percent increase for heart attack, and a 3.7 percent increase for heart failure, the study said.
The Western region includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Individuals admitted to hospitals in this region were a median age of 51, compared to a median age of 55 for other regions. The individuals from the Western region also tended to identify more as Hispanic, Asian, or Native American and less often as black or white compared to other regions.
Regulate California Now retweeted
Interesting approach, but since when does an empty online registry determine whether scientific research exists? 🤔😂
I've spent over a decade in this industry, and I've never claimed kratom cures everything. But pretending there's no legitimate science because doctors haven't signed up for YOUR website? Come on. 🙄
Does kratom need more clinical research? ABSOLUTELY. But there's already published research worth discussing.
And since we're apparently sharing websites, feel free to check out KratomIndex.com, where we actually highlight scientific studies and research surrounding kratom. 🌿
You don't have to support kratom, but dismissing existing research while claiming to care about medical evidence is a pretty interesting strategy.
Science doesn't begin and end with your registry. And sarcasm isn't a substitute for evidence. 💚
kratomindex.com/
Regulate California Now retweeted
It doesn’t need to be FDA approved. That approval binds the manufacturers’ (health claims) and constrains practitioners. Supplements exist as a class for consumers to make their own choices based upon what works for them.
I use it for chronic pain. It works for me. There is no medical evidence it is doing me any harm (8+ years). No deviation from pre-use values in lab work, imaging. No increased pacing or defibrillation.
I only know what it is because my approved pain medication from my doctor was stopped against my will without warning or recourse.
If I stop some of my approved and prescribed medications I will not live long.
Other approved and prescribed medications (like farxiga as a risk reduction tool), if circumstances demanded it, I’d readily stop before kratom because they are doing me less good.
OTC pain medications are contraindicated (NSAIDs) or were not effective for me.
I’m glad this second pathway exists for consumers abandoned by the medical system or for whom all other options have been exhausted (or withheld from them.)
This insistence to hold to FDA drug approval is reasonable for a practitioner within the scope of the practice of medicine, but is horrifically narrow for citizens as a legislator, which Congress universally understood when passing DSHEA in 1994.
Regulate California Now retweeted
And some of us have been serving that life sentence for many decades.
#chronicillness #ChronicPain
Regulate California Now retweeted
Once again chronic pain patients, many of whom have exhausted all other options and are are treated worse than animals in PM practices, get ignored along with other law abiding citizens because some retailers aren’t complying with the law the state already has the power and duty to enforce.
It is illegal and wrong to sell these products to minors, or sell products in formulations not legal in the state, just like alcohol and tobacco.
Enforce the law. It is your job and ultimately your failure if it isn’t happening.
Patients and consumers shouldn’t have to take the hit for what you and the state’s law enforcement personnel are failing at.
Regulate California Now retweeted
My Life. My Pain. My Strength. My Fight for Natural Botanical Kratom.
People go to the beach and hunt for free shells to take home.
When the same people order scallops, clams, mussels, or oysters for dinner they near universally throw the shells they paid for in the trash.
Regulate California Now retweeted
A new effort in Congress is raising serious concerns and spreading misinformation.
The American Kratom Association is alerting advocates to a letter attributed to Rep. Harris from Maryland that is circulating among congressional offices and promoting sweeping restrictions on natural kratom.
Obviously, the AKA strongly disagrees with efforts to treat natural botanical kratom the same as synthetic and chemically manipulated products. Natural botanical kratom should not be Scheduled.
The DOJ, DEA, and HHS support this position!
botanicalkratom.org/?emci=8a…
Yet certain members of Congress are calling for broader restrictions that could extend to the natural kratom plant itself. Anti-kratom crusaders have met with them and spread misinformation and fear.
Let's set the record straight.
📣 SHARE YOUR STORY WITH CONGRESS
Your elected representatives need to hear directly from the people whose lives could be affected by federal kratom policy.
We encourage every kratom advocate to contact their congressional offices, review the issues, express their views, and share their personal experience with natural kratom.
Visit: protectkratom.org/congress
The advocacy page provides a way to reach congressional offices.
When you contact your representatives, consider sharing:
Why natural kratom is important to you or your family.
How kratom has affected your quality of life.
What losing legal access to natural kratom would mean for you.
Your views on the distinction between natural botanical kratom and synthetic or enhanced 7-OH products.
❤️ YOUR VOICE MATTERS! Share your story today:
Thank you for being an engaged and informed kratom advocate.
Regulate California Now retweeted
Explicitly defining what is, and perhaps more importantly, is not kratom is paramount. This document is meant to define and delineate different kratom products and will provide evidence-based guidance for local, state, and federal governments regarding regulation of kratom and kratom-derived products.
frontiersin.org/journals/pha…
The addiction recovery industry when it isn’t trying to block alternative self-treatment options.
Low rates of success, high costs to insurers and the government, and inhumane treatment of patients and their family at some of their most desperate.
dailynews.com/2026/10/21/aft…
Regulate California Now retweeted
Natural kratom and dangerous, enhanced opioid products are NOT the same.
HHS is following the science and drawing a clear line between the two.
HHS' new recommendation gives @DEAHQ precise, science-based thresholds to target concentrated 7-OH and MGPI products without sweeping natural botanical kratom into Schedule I.
Regulate California Now retweeted
“A pair of identical bills now before Congress, known as the End Gas Station Heroin Act, would pull synthetic and highly concentrated kratom-derived opioids off store shelves while leaving natural kratom alone. Sen. Bernie Moreno introduced the Senate version, S. 5383, on August 8, 2026, and Rep. Lance Gooden followed with the House companion, H.R. 10272, on September 3. The Senate bill sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee, while the House version has been referred to the Energy and Commerce and Judiciary committees.
The legislation adds 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, along with their salts, isomers, and synthetic analogs. Both compounds occur naturally in kratom in small amounts, and the bill protects that natural presence with a specific exemption: kratom leaf and finished kratom products remain legal as long as they contain no more than 1 milligram of these compounds per gram for solid, powdered, or encapsulated products, no more than 1 milligram per milliliter for liquids, and no more than 1 part 7-OH and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl combined per 100 parts mitragynine by mass. That exemption disappears when the compounds have been synthesized, chemically converted, concentrated, enriched, isolated, or otherwise produced through manufacturing. A product cannot borrow the protection meant for the natural plant once it has been engineered into something else.
The Senate bill's path runs through Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee's chairman, who recently declared on X that all kratom is deadly, that it should not be sold anywhere, and that it is killing children. Grassley is right to be alarmed about 7-OH and right to want it off the market. But his blanket condemnation of kratom is shortsighted.
As @bluelivesmtr Blue Lives Matter pointed out in response, 7-OH and similar products are NOT kratom, and banning synthetics will only make honest consumers safer. Treating them as one and the same aims at the wrong target and ignores the very distinction this legislation was written to draw.”
lawenforcementtoday.com/putt…
Regulate California Now retweeted
MEDICAL REVELATION ON
OPIOID POISONING DEATHS
BY UPSTANDING PHYSICIAN
(URL here is about dermatologist
turned coroner re opioid deaths)
E.V.E.R.Y.O.N.E.....S.E.E.......T.H.I.S
This is exactly what the Riverside County Ordinance is supposed to do: stop underage sales and the sale of dangerously adulterated products and is the model other counties and cities in California should adopt.
Write up: riversidesheriff.org/m/newsf…
Manipulating people emotionally or through deliberately misleading statistical argument is shameful no matter the cause or issue.
It tells you right away how comfortable they are with manipulation and dishonesty, which will almost certainly get worse the more it enriches them or serves their purposes.
Depends on what the start risk was. If it was already 5-10% a 46% increase is astronomical.
If it was 0.001%, a 46% increase is still effectively never.
To be deliberately alarming is exactly why it is communicated as percent increase instead of absolute risk. It is manipulation not education, and I don’t even care about cannabis that much.