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Heated testimony on kratom: families push for bans while industry, vets and researchers urge regulation, not prohibition
Summary
The committee heard divergent testimony on multiple kratom bills: family members urged bans after alleged harms, while industry representatives, recovery advocates, veteran groups and researchers supported consumer-protection regulation or continued access for therapeutic use.
The Joint Committee on the Judiciary heard sharply contrasting testimony on proposed kratom legislation, including bills that would ban sales and others that would create a consumer-protection regulatory framework.
Family members and some court observers urged the committee to classify kratom as a controlled substance or support local bans. “Kratom is currently unregulated and readily available in various forms,” said one witness who described a family member’s medical emergency and said the judge at a civil petition called kratom “gas-station heroin.” The family witness asked the legislature to act statewide so municipal patchwork bans are not the sole response.
Opposing a full ban,…
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