Sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters, the “Florida Kratom Consumer Protection Act” would impose several regulations on the recreationally consumed plant in the state.
Gruters filed the bill (SB 136), titled the “Florida Kratom Consumer Protection Act,” if passed and ratified, the measure would ban the sale of kratom to people under 21 and require processors to ensure products are devoid of dangerous, non-kratom substances that affect the quality or strength “to such a degree that it may injure a consumer.”
Violators of the law, would be fined $500 for the first offense and up to $1,000 each time thereafter. Sellers of kratom products containing prohibited substances would be exempt from such a fine if they prove “by a preponderance of the evidence” that they “relied in good faith upon the representation of a manufacturer, processor, packer, or distributor of the kratom product.”
Gruters added a line to this year’s version of the bill that the prior iteration assumed: the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, now headed up by former Senate President Wilton Simpson, would be the agency responsible for enforcing the new regulations.
~ Florida Politics
