Texas looks into kratom regulation

Two bills, House Bill 861 and Senate Bill 497, were introduced in early March.

Currently, kratom is unregulated in Texas, spurring a spokesperson of the American Kratom Association to refer to the state as “the wild West in this marketplace” because of the potential for selling adulterated, and possibly unsafe, kratom products. The two bills would establish manufacturing standards and proper labeling. Failure to comply would result in steep penalties.

“We want to protect consumer access to safe kratom products, so we advocate for that around the United States,” said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the American Kratom Association, according to KXAN, Austin. 

Photo credit: ThorPorre, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

The state Senate passed the bill in mid-March. Later that month, HB861 came out of House committee and was distributed to legislators. In early April, the House referred the bill to the Department of Public Health for review.