Editor’s note: This is our last chance to protect access. Speak out now:
https://www.protectkratom.org/louisiana
Then keep reading to understand who’s really behind the push to outlaw kratom—and why they’re rushing it through.
Charlie Hoyle, a systems analyst in New Orleans, remembers exactly when he decided to stop drinking. “I made an effort to stop drinking alcohol around the beginning of COVID,” he said. “I was drinking daily until I started drinking kratom. As I started drinking kratom, my craving for alcohol was greatly reduced, and I wasn’t spending most nights in bars and waking up most mornings with a hangover. I eventually stopped drinking and haven’t had a drink since 2021.”
For Tyler Patin, an architect and regular at Euphorbia Kava Bar, kratom became part of a holistic approach to pain management after a lingering back injury. “Prescription painkillers felt like a temporary fix with heavy side effects,” he explained. “Over-the-counter options barely dented the muscle aches that followed me from the drafting table to job-site visits. After reading peer-reviewed studies and talking with others in the wellness community, I decided to try a low-dose red-vein kratom tea. Within about half an hour, the tension in my shoulders eased and the sharp pain in my lower back softened into something manageable—without the mental fog.”
That first experience became a routine for Patin: “Measured, mindful use, paired with stretching and physical therapy, that lets me stay active in the studio and on construction sites while keeping prescription pills off my desk.”
These aren’t fringe testimonials. They’re part of a growing, grounded movement of Louisianans—over 300,000 by some estimates—who use kratom not to get high, but to get through the day. For some, it’s a harm-reduction tool. For others, it’s a path away from painkillers or alcohol.
And yet, unless something changes immediately, their voices and their freedom won’t matter. The Louisiana House is voting on Senate Bill 154 tomorrow, and Republican lawmakers already say they have the votes to pass a full criminal ban. “I’ll do what I can,” one legislator told us, “but Republicans already have their votes.” That’s how urgent this is. This ban is being fast-tracked through the legislature—without compromise, and without listening to the people who will be most affected.
But if Senate Bill 154 passes, all of that could soon become criminal.
Sponsored by State Senator Jay Morris, the bill would ban kratom statewide. Supporters argue that it’s a dangerous, opioid-like substance. But as this investigation will show, that claim ignores both the science and the stories of people like Hoyle and Patin—and masks a much deeper political and financial agenda.
The Bill That Could Make Thousands Criminals
Senator Morris has framed the bill as a public health measure. In committee hearings and media statements, he has cited the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s stance that kratom is unsafe and addictive. “It is not approved by the FDA for any medical use,” Morris said, adding that people who rely on kratom are “essentially self-medicating with an unregulated substance that acts on the same receptors as opioids.”
He has also pointed to anecdotal cases of withdrawal symptoms and even suicide, including the tragic story of a young man whose mother testified that kratom played a role in her son’s death. But experts say these cases often involve other substances or adulterated kratom products—and that the science doesn’t support sweeping generalizations.
The FDA has issued multiple warnings about kratom, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported on cases where kratom was detected in overdose deaths. However, the CDC’s own data from a 2019 review of 27 states found that of 152 kratom-involved deaths, the vast majority involved other substances. In only seven cases was kratom the sole substance detected, but the agency cautioned that other substances could not be ruled out due to toxicology limitations.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) acknowledges this ambiguity. While it confirms that kratom has been linked to some overdose deaths, it emphasizes that “nearly all cases involved other drugs or contaminants.” In other words, while deaths attributed solely to kratom are exceedingly rare, they are not entirely nonexistent—and scientific certainty around causation is limited.
This distinction matters. Because unlike tobacco, alcohol, or even prescription opioids—each of which cause thousands of deaths annually—kratom remains a far less lethal substance by comparison. Yet under SB 154, Louisiana would become one of only a handful of states to outlaw it completely, making no distinction between raw kratom leaf and adulterated extracts.
Follow the Money – Who’s Funding Senator Morris?
In politics, few things speak louder than a campaign finance report. And when it comes to Senator Jay Morris, the Republican lawmaker behind Louisiana’s proposed kratom ban, those reports reveal a pattern worth examining.
Since launching Senate Bill 154, Morris has positioned himself as a defender of public health, citing concerns over addiction and regulatory uncertainty. But a deeper look into his campaign contributors shows that some of his strongest financial backers come from the very industries that stand to benefit if kratom is outlawed.
According to public filings with the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program, Senator Morris has accepted contributions from pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospital PACs, medical lobbying firms, and addiction treatment entities. Among them:
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp – one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies – contributed $500 to Morris’s campaign in March 2023.
- PhRMA, the powerful lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, gave him $1,000 in November 2023.
- HOSPPAC, a hospital industry PAC, donated $1,000.
- LAMPAC, the Louisiana Medical Political Action Committee, gave $1,500.
- Reliant Medical, LLC, a Monroe-based healthcare business, contributed $2,000.
- The Louisiana Nursing Home PAC added another $1,000.
In total, over $10,000 flowed into Morris’s campaign account from healthcare and pharmaceutical-linked sources since early 2023—during the same window that SB 154 was introduced and advanced.
Several individual donors also raise red flags. Among them:
- Dr. Gregory Sampognaro, a physician and presumed lobbyist, contributed $2,500.
- Southern Strategy Group of Louisiana, a Baton Rouge lobbying firm known for representing medical and pharma interests, gave $500.
- Cornerstone Government Affairs, another national lobbying firm with healthcare clients, contributed $1,000.
None of these contributions are illegal. All were reported according to campaign finance law. But they paint a clear picture: the push to ban kratom is not just about public health—it’s also backed by moneyed interests who may view kratom as a threat to their business models.
Pharmaceutical companies make billions annually from painkillers, anti-anxiety medications, and opioid addiction treatments like methadone and Suboxone. Rehabilitation centers often rely on government reimbursements tied to FDA-approved medications. Kratom—a cheap, natural botanical that doesn’t require a prescription or medical gatekeeping—cuts into that market. And unlike patented drugs, kratom can’t be easily monopolized.
It’s no coincidence that the groups fighting hardest to ban kratom are the same ones whose financial future depends on keeping patients within the traditional medical pipeline.
Senator Morris has not addressed these contributions directly in public. But for kratom users across Louisiana, the optics are hard to ignore. When a lawmaker backs a bill that criminalizes a widely used herbal supplement—and does so with the backing of pharmaceutical PACs—the question must be asked: who is this legislation really serving?
A Pattern of Influence – Why Pharma and Rehab Centers Want Kratom Gone
To understand why some of the most powerful institutions in healthcare and addiction treatment are lining up behind the kratom ban, it helps to look at the economics, not just of addiction, but of recovery.
Unlike methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone), kratom is not a patented, FDA-approved pharmaceutical. It’s a plant—legal, natural, unregulated, and widely used as an alternative by people managing chronic pain, anxiety, or opioid withdrawal. That presents a direct challenge to a system that profits from bottling recovery and billing it to insurance.
FDA-approved medications used in medication-assisted treatment (MAT) programs can cost thousands of dollars per year per patient. Clinics and providers receive Medicaid reimbursements and federal grants for distributing these drugs, but not for recommending or administering kratom. If more people manage withdrawal symptoms using kratom, fewer enter high-cost rehab programs—and fewer dollars flow into that pipeline.
Even the federal government spends heavily on traditional drug control efforts. According to the National Drug Control Strategy, the U.S. allocated over $35 billion for drug control in fiscal year 2020—covering treatment, prevention, and law enforcement combined (Drug Abuse Statistics). While this figure encompasses broader strategies, a significant portion funds MAT clinics and treatment providers who rely on FDA-sanctioned options. Kratom, by contrast, operates outside of that reimbursable structure.
Meanwhile, local kava and kratom bars—like Euphorbia Kava Bar in New Orleans—offer legal, community-based spaces where patrons can explore harm reduction in a setting far removed from the sterile walls of rehab clinics or prescription pads. For some, kratom means independence. For others, it means relief. For the institutions seeking to ban it, it may simply mean lost revenue.
This explains why organizations that stand to benefit from a kratom ban are some of the same groups contributing to the campaign accounts of legislators like Senator Jay Morris. When you follow the money—from Big Pharma to rehab centers to lobbying firms—it becomes clear that banning kratom isn’t just about safety. It’s about control, consolidation, and protecting a treatment model where recovery is costly, institutional, and billable.
What the Science Actually Says About Kratom
If you listen to some lawmakers and health officials, you might think kratom is the next fentanyl. But that narrative doesn’t hold up under scientific scrutiny. The real picture is far more complex—and far less sensational.
Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is a tropical plant native to Southeast Asia. Its leaves contain alkaloids—primarily mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine—that interact with opioid receptors in the brain, but in a much weaker and fundamentally different way than prescription or illicit opioids. Most users describe its effects as mildly stimulating at low doses and sedating or pain-relieving at higher doses. It does not cause the dangerous respiratory depression associated with traditional opioids, which is a primary cause of overdose deaths.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken a strong stance against kratom, warning of its “opioid-like” properties and potential for abuse. Yet despite years of scrutiny, kratom has not been scheduled as a controlled substance at the federal level. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempted to do so in 2016, citing concerns about rising use and unverified deaths—but reversed course after a massive public outcry, which included letters of opposition from scientists, members of Congress, veterans’ groups, and thousands of private citizens.
What the data actually shows is that kratom-related fatalities are exceedingly rare—and rarely, if ever, isolated. A 2019 CDC analysis of overdose deaths in 27 states found kratom present in 152 cases. In just seven of those was kratom the only substance detected, and even then, the CDC noted that “the presence of additional substances could not be ruled out.”
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) echoes this nuance, stating that “a very small number of deaths have been linked to kratom products, and nearly all cases involved other drugs or contaminants.”
Scientific research presents a nuanced view of kratom’s effects. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology found that mitragynine, the primary active alkaloid in kratom, exhibits a “ceiling effect” on respiratory depression. This means that beyond a certain dosage, increases do not lead to greater respiratory suppression, suggesting a potentially safer profile compared to traditional opioids. The study states:
“The limiting rate of conversion of mitragynine into its active metabolite results in a built-in ceiling effect of the mitragynine-induced respiratory depression. These data suggest that such ‘metabolic saturation’ at high doses may underlie the improved safety profile of mitragynine as an opioid analgesic.”
Yes, kratom carries risks. It can be habit-forming with frequent, high-dose use. Poorly manufactured products have been found adulterated with other substances. But unlike fentanyl, heroin, or even alcohol, kratom’s risk profile is relatively low—especially in raw, unadulterated leaf form.
Public health experts have long argued for regulation over prohibition. Age restrictions, product testing, and labeling standards could protect consumers from bad actors in the marketplace. Banning kratom outright, on the other hand, would push it underground—where purity, dosage, and sourcing become far more dangerous.
Science doesn’t support a ban. It supports responsible regulation—something SB 154 does not even attempt.
The Risk of Prohibition – From Herbal Tea to Synthetic Nightmares
The history of drug policy in America is filled with cautionary tales, and the proposed kratom ban in Louisiana risks repeating many of them.
When a natural or relatively safe substance is made illegal, it rarely disappears. It mutates and it gets replaced. Criminalization creates a vacuum, and what fills that vacuum is almost always worse.
If SB 154 becomes law, Louisiana won’t just ban kratom—it will ban access to a plant that thousands of residents currently rely on. But the demand won’t vanish. Instead, it will push kratom into the black market, where unregulated products are more likely to be contaminated, mislabeled, or adulterated with synthetic compounds.
This has happened before. In the early 2000s, bans on cannabis and its derivatives led to the rise of synthetic cannabinoids like K2 and “spice”—laboratory-made chemicals sprayed onto plant matter to mimic THC. These synthetics were legal for a time, sold in head shops and gas stations. But unlike cannabis, they caused seizures, psychosis, and death. Criminalizing the safer alternative didn’t stop use—it created a dangerous underground market for chemical imposters.
Kratom is particularly vulnerable to this pattern. In states where it has been banned—like Arkansas and Alabama—users have reported turning to dangerous “kratom extracts” or bootleg supplements laced with far more potent, untested analogs. These products are often manufactured overseas or in makeshift labs, where safety is not a concern. Some mimic kratom’s effects using entirely different chemical structures, skirting the letter of the law while introducing far greater risk.
And while lawmakers may believe they are protecting vulnerable populations, experts in addiction medicine warn the opposite may occur. Kratom is used by many as a harm reduction tool—especially by people in recovery from opioids. Removing it without offering safe, accessible alternatives increases the risk of relapse. A 2020 study in Substance Use & Misuse found that individuals using kratom to reduce or quit opioids reported “significant improvements” in withdrawal symptoms and pain relief.
When lawmakers criminalize recovery tools without nuance, they don’t eliminate risk. They shift it. They drive it underground, out of reach of regulation, and into the hands of synthetic manufacturers who are already designing the next legal workaround.
The danger isn’t kratom—it’s what comes next when the state takes it away.
Liberties and Hypocrisy – What Happened to “Personal Freedom”?
In Louisiana’s Republican-dominated legislature, you’ll often hear invocations of “freedom.” Medical freedom. Parental rights. Freedom from government overreach. These are the talking points used to oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, mask requirements, and even school health policies. Yet when it comes to kratom—a botanical supplement that thousands of Louisianans use responsibly—many of those same voices are silent. Or worse, they’re leading the charge to criminalize it.
Senator Jay Morris, the sponsor of SB 154, is no exception. He has built his political brand on limited government and individual liberty. In past legislative sessions, he’s supported bills protecting gun rights, opposing federal health mandates, and blocking perceived government intrusion. Yet in sponsoring a full-scale ban on kratom, Morris is effectively asking the state to insert itself into the private decisions of 300,000 Louisiana residents.
Where is the freedom in that?
The hypocrisy is glaring. If personal freedom means trusting citizens to choose whether or not to wear a mask in a pandemic, how does it not extend to choosing a legal plant to manage pain or avoid relapse? If bodily autonomy is sacred when it comes to rejecting a vaccine, why does it vanish when someone chooses kratom over Suboxone or hydrocodone?
For a party that often champions deregulation, SB 154 represents one of the most heavy-handed proposals in recent memory. It doesn’t offer a framework for testing kratom products. It doesn’t require warning labels, age restrictions, or dosage limits. It skips all of that and jumps straight to criminalization.
This double standard hasn’t gone unnoticed by constituents. Kratom advocates across the political spectrum—from libertarians to progressives to veterans’ rights groups—have voiced frustration that lawmakers who claim to fight “Big Government” are suddenly willing to send citizens to jail for consuming a tea made from leaves.
The conservative rhetoric around personal choice doesn’t square with the reality of SB 154. And unless lawmakers like Morris are willing to admit that their definition of freedom is conditional—granted only when it aligns with pharmaceutical interests or political convenience—they’ll have to reckon with a hard truth: this isn’t about protecting the public. It’s about control.
The hypocrisy is glaring. SB 154 doesn’t protect freedom—it betrays it. And it reveals the selective nature of so-called medical liberty when corporate interests are involved.
“I’m an independent voter who leans libertarian, and I have to ask—where are the conservatives who claim to stand for personal freedom?” said Declan Ryan, a motion picture producer based in Louisiana. “They won’t touch alcohol or nicotine, but they’re ready to criminalize a harmless plant that’s helping people? It’s pure government overreach.
I run a production crew where safety is everything. If someone’s in pain, I can’t have them operating heavy machinery, moving vehicles, or making judgment calls impaired by pharmaceuticals. Kratom, on the other hand, offers mild pain relief and mental clarity. It helps people function. Why would we ban that, but keep handing out pills that cloud decision-making? We’re supposed to believe in individual liberty—not corporate-driven bans disguised as public safety.”
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Louisiana House of Representatives is set to vote on Senate Bill 154 tomorrow, May 27, 2025. If passed in its current form, the bill will make Louisiana one of the few states to fully criminalize kratom, placing the plant and its users in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system.
A narrow window for compromise may still exist. A state legislator confirmed to Big Easy Magazine that an amendment will be proposed to allow for the legal sale of pure, unadulterated kratom, excluding adulterated extracts and synthetic derivatives. This amendment aims to strike a balance: protecting consumers from unsafe products without punishing those who use kratom responsibly.
But that amendment faces an uphill battle. The legislator noted that it will be difficult to secure enough votes for the amendment to pass, in large part due to the political momentum behind Senator Jay Morris and the pressure he has exerted on fellow lawmakers. Despite mounting public opposition and appeals from constituents, the bill is likely to move forward as written, effectively banning all kratom use in the state.
That leaves Louisiana consumers, small business owners, and harm reduction advocates with a narrowing path. Unless legislators change course tomorrow, the state will trade nuanced regulation for broad criminalization.
This vote isn’t just about kratom. It’s about whether Louisiana’s lawmakers are truly listening to the people—or to the pharmaceutical industry and institutional donors driving this agenda behind closed doors.
The outcome of this vote will send a message—not just to Louisiana, but to the rest of the country—about who holds power in the debate over natural medicine, and whether personal freedom still has a place in the conversation.
Tomorrow, we’ll see where they stand.
