Board directs staff to draft urgency ordinance on kratom after county health experts warn of rising deaths and youth targeting

Ventura County supervisors on Tuesday directed staff to draft an urgency ordinance to regulate the sale of kratom after a panel of county health officials, clinicians and the medical examiner flagged rising local harms and consumer‑safety gaps.

County behavioral health and medical staff told the board that kratom — a plant extract sold in multiple forms and increasingly in brightly packaged candies and drinks — is unpredictable and can be lethal when used with other depressant drugs. "What you don't know can kill you," Dr. Tipu Khan, chief of addiction medicine at Ventura County Medical Center, told supervisors during the time‑certain presentation.

The county medical examiner reported that 46 deaths in Ventura County since 2018 involved mitragynine, the active kratom alkaloid, and that six of those deaths occurred in the past year; nearly all involved other substances in the person's system, the examiner said. "All but 1 had other substances that contributed to the death," the medical examiner said.

Why the Board acted

Presenters stressed two problems: (1) the product is not regulated, so potency varies dramatically across batches and manufacturers; and (2) manufacturers and retailers have marketed concentrated products and…