SALT LAKE CITY — A state lawmaker tells FOX 13 News he intends to pursue a total ban on kratom following a reported death tied to a mislabeled product.
"I look at this recent death," Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, said in a recent interview. "Literally somebody in the state of Utah had a product that was labeled something entirely different. Died in the state of Utah. I think my colleagues are really concerned with kratom and the concern only grows."
Utah's Department of Agriculture & Food and the Utah Poison Control Center issued a warning about an illegally-sold kratom product that was mislabeled as "Buzzers Cat's Claw" tablets. The agencies disclosed a recent death "and several severe health incidents" from the product which they alleged were found to contain illegal kratom alkaloids. On Thursday, state agriculture officials said they had found additional products under Utah's ban.
"I do have a bill file open again that would ban pure-leaf kratom entirely," Sen. McKell told FOX 13 News. "If this is an industry that can’t follow the rules, they shouldn’t be in our state."
Earlier this year, the Utah State Legislature banned all kratom products except "pure leaf kratom." There were competing pieces of legislation, with some proposing strict regulation and others proposing a ban (and a bizarre debate in the Utah House of Representatives where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Word of Wisdom was sarcastically introduced in the bill). People lined up to testify about how kratom has helped them battle opioid issues and other afflictions, while others warned of serious health harms from the plant.
Utah has been sued over the near-total ban passed this year. But in a recent court filing obtained by FOX 13 News, the litigation has been put on hold while lawyers for the state and Botanic Tonics (a kratom manufacturer listed as the lead plaintiff) engage in settlement discussions.
"The Parties have engaged in preliminary discussions relating to the possibility of a settlement, and desire to devote their attention and resources towards trying to achieve a negotiated resolution. The Parties have further discussed the fact that a potential settlement may require the Utah Division of Agriculture and Food to engage in rule making, which process may take nine weeks to complete," wrote Ronald Price, an attorney for Botanic Tonics, in the motion.
Attorneys for Botanic Tonics did not respond to an email seeking comment on the settlement talks. The Utah Attorney General's Office declined to comment on pending litigation.
Asked about any settlement, Sen. McKell said he believed it was tied to testing to determine if a product meets Utah's ban.
The American Kratom Association, a group that advocates for regulated kratom, has accused Sen. McKell of going on a "crusade" and ignoring any efforts to legislate it.
"We advocate for strict regulations. We had a regulation bill that Senator McKell rejected. It had teeth in terms of enforcement to get the bad products off the market. It had penalties that we recommended that would make sure we cleaned up the marketplace, and he rejected it all because what he wanted to do was ban all of it," said Mac Haddow, a senior fellow on public policy for the American Kratom Association.
Haddow, who said he personally uses kratom to treat arthritis, argued that "kratom can help people, and Sen. McKell does not care about that."
The group said it would fight any efforts to ban kratom leaf in Utah. Sen. McKell said allowing it was a negotiation with the legislature, but now: "I think we should just ban pure-leaf kratom entirely."
