States Ban Kratom Amid Federal Inaction

Local and state governments are increasingly stepping in to prohibit or tightly regulate novel psychoactive substances like kratom when the federal government fails to act. When a drug is widely available in retail outlets and linked to thousands of deaths (the article cites 5,200 deaths 2020–2024 and a compound 13× morphine potency), states can and do move quickly to ban it, creating a patchwork of regulation. — This signals a larger shift where states become the default regulators of emergent drug‑safety risks, with consequences for interstate markets, enforcement, and harm‑reduction policy.