Ohio committee hears dozens of pro‑ and personal‑testimonies on kratom bill, with experts urging bans on synthetic alkaloids

A House committee convened a second hearing on a measure described in testimony as House Bill 587 to regulate kratom products in Ohio, drawing medical experts, industry representatives, retailers and dozens of personal witnesses who largely urged preserving access to natural leaf kratom while restricting synthetic, high‑potency alkaloids.

Dr. Boyer, an attending physician at Ohio State University and a staff toxicologist at the Central Ohio Poison Center, told lawmakers that mitragynine (the principal kratom alkaloid) appears to act as an opioid‑receptor agent that some people use as an opioid replacement and for chronic pain, anxiety and depression. "It is an opioid replacement," he said, adding that reported adverse events — seizures, liver and cardiac abnormalities — are associations rather than proven causal links and that most severe exposures reported to poison control involved sublingual formulations of concentrated 7‑hydroxymitragynine (7‑OH).

The medical and regulatory witnesses…