By Andres David Lopez | April 8 2015
At Smoke Shop Inc., a store that opened last month on West Atlantic Boulevard in Margate, where colorful hand-blown glass pipes and e-cigarette juice packages line shelves, co-owner Aaron Lorber, sells kratom, a powder and extract derived from a tropical tree leaf grown in Southeast Asia.
“I’m not a doctor,” Lorber said, “but I know it’s great for pain management and that’s what I push it as.”
A practitioner of jiu-jitsu, Lorber, 29, pointed to his cauliflower ear last week as proof of the hits he has endured. He’d rather take kratom to alleviate pain from training than risk becoming dependent on traditional pharmaceuticals, especially opioid medications, he said.
Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests users can abuse kratom. At low doses they experience a stimulant effect and at high doses they experience a sedative effect, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration fact sheet.
“Kratom consumption can lead to addiction,” the fact sheet states. “Several cases of psychosis resulting from the use of kratom have been reported, where individuals addicted to kratom exhibit psychotic symptoms, including hallucinations, delusion, and confusion. Withdrawal effects include symptoms of hostility, aggression, mood swings, runny nose, achy muscles and bones, and jerky movements of the limbs.”
While Lorber acknowledges kratom has some “habit-forming” properties, he said most people use it responsibly for mild pain relief and not to get high.
Smoke shops across Broward County stock kratom, and state Rep. Kristin Jacobs, D-Coconut Creek, is pushing state agencies to research the substance and determine whether it should be banned in Florida.
“I’ve talked to parents who have lost their children,” said Jacobs in front of the House Criminal Subcommittee last month, referring to cases in Palm Beach and Santa Rosa counties of deaths involving kratom in the system of victims.
House Bill 287 directs the Office of the Attorney General, with the help of the Department of Children and Families’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Program Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to gather information on kratom and make a recommendation on whether it should be placed in a controlled substance schedule.
According to the Florida Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, a substance is scheduled according to its “potential for abuse” and whether it has a currently acceptable medical use.
The bill Jacobs initially introduced called for setting kratom as a Schedule I narcotic, like cannabis and heroin, but it was amended in the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee to instead direct state agencies to gather data and make a report on the substance.
Jacobs said she plans to reintroduce a bill in January that would ban kratom in the state and make possession a misdemeanor crime. Both the Coconut Creek and Margate city commissions passed resolutions in support of a state ban last month.
Rick Riccardi, owner of Fellowship Living, a recovery center, spoke in front of the Margate City Commission before it passed its resolution supporting a kratom ban.
“It’s a new drug here over the last year or so,” Riccardi said. “The kids in recovery, they reassure me that it’s addictive as hell.”
To make her case in Tallahassee and to those interested in the issue, Jacobs employs copies of letters signed by a Nova Southeastern University epidemiologist and a University of Miami professor of neurology, who both cite the Drug Enforcement Administration fact sheet and the lack of research done on effects or beneficial claims, as causes for concern. She also possesses a letter from a psychiatrist who has seen kratom use among his patients.
“I estimate I have treated as detox unit inpatients a half-dozen severely kratom dependent individuals,” wrote Dr. Richard Seely, who specializes in addiction and practices in Weston.
Often, the people Seely treated used other substances, he wrote. They displayed opioid withdrawal syndromes, and were in severe discomfort for days after going without kratom.
Law enforcement officials also have sent letters of support for HB 287. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel reported his office has received few submissions into its crime laboratory related to kratom.
According to a Florida House of Representatives staff analysis, the impact of a ban on the state prison population would be insignificant. But for Jacobs, the purpose of the proposed legislation is to stop the growth of kratom before it becomes a larger issue.
She links the substance to the pill mill highway, to K2 and to Spice, arguing that it took too long for legislators to take notice. She brought up yet another emerging drug called “flakka.”
Manufacturers package new substances under intriguing names and clever marketing every year, Jacobs said in a phone interview. “We’re going to find ourselves behind this curve all the time.”
In his shop in Margate, Lorber sells kratom from multiple manufacturers, including Mayan Kratom, based out of southern California.
Wesley Todd, 34, the owner of Mayan Kratom grew up in the Treasure Coast and currently resides part-time in Volusia County. He said he travels so often to meet with distributors all over the world he rarely spends time at home in Florida.
Todd started distributing under the Mayan Kratom brand in 2011 and the market is growing so fast that it seems like his business can double from one month to the next, he said in a phone interview.
A bottle of Mayan Kratom containing 15 grams of leaf powder retails for $14.95 online. His company, which employs about 25 people, moves up to 8,000 kilograms of raw product per week, he said.
Todd declined to confirm whether kratom has made him a millionaire but admitted that he spends a lot of money on marketing, lobbying and providing free samples.
Todd believes the research and report proposed in the state legislature will acquit kratom of being harmful or addictive.
“I’m really excited about what Kristin Jacobs has done in asking for actual reviews and studies,” he said.
