Once a positive bill for North Carolina’s kratom consumers, HB 563 was gutted and revised by the Senate. Now, House Bill 563 seeks to regulate hemp products but also intends to ban kratom as a Schedule 1 drug. Kratom is joined by tianeptine and xylazine in this bill. Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi, a reporter at The News and Observer writes, “At higher doses, the herb drug can be deadly.” This inflammatory and false description of kratom reflects the FDA’s rhetoric surrounding kratom, and indeed, sponsors of HB 563 cite the FDA’s long-held stance that kratom products are dangerous to consumers. Sponsors of this bill are skirting their responsibility to let science guide legislation that concerns constituents’ health and safety and North Carolina kratom consumers are at risk.
The American Kratom Association is working aggressively with North Carolina’s legislatures to prevent kratom from being scheduled. But, we need your help. Please go to the North Carolina Protect Kratom page to message and ask legislators to remove kratom from the bill entirely. Let them know who kratom consumers are by sharing your story, and how kratom is a substance often used by veterans of the military. We need them to know vital kratom can be in saving lives, especially with veterans, in one of the top military states in the nation.
You can contact NC legislatures here.
You can read the full article here.
You can read the full HB 563 here.
