By criminalizing kratom, Louisiana lawmakers aren’t solving a problem. Instead, they’re planting the seeds of a new one. Assuming the governor does not veto, on August 1, Senate Bill 154 will go into effect, banning the sale and possession of kratom across the state. But this misguided crackdown doesn’t remove risk from the streets. It shifts people toward a far deadlier substance: fentanyl.
Predictably, the result will be a spike in overdose deaths, a wave of relapses, and more grieving families in a state already overwhelmed by addiction. If the goal was harm reduction, Louisiana just passed the opposite.
Kratom and the Opioid Receptors: A Safer Alternative
Kratom, derived from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, contains alkaloids—primarily mitragynine—that bind to the same mu-opioid receptors as morphine and fentanyl, but with crucial differences. Numerous studies show kratom has a ceiling effect on respiratory depression, making fatal overdose from kratom alone extremely rare compared to opioids like fentanyl or heroin.
A 2022 review in Drug and Alcohol Dependence concluded:
“There is no evidence to support the idea that kratom causes the type of respiratory depression associated with classical opioids.”
And yet, Louisiana lawmakers cited a handful of unverified deaths—often involving polysubstance use—to justify turning over 325,000 kratom consumers into criminals. This includes veterans, chronic pain sufferers, and people in recovery from opioid addiction—many of whom have relied on kratom precisely because it allowed them to avoid going back to opioids.
What Happens When You Take Kratom Away?
To be brutally honest, people don’t just quit pain relief cold turkey. They seek alternatives. And when the safer one becomes illegal, the only things left are the more dangerous ones.
Fentanyl is now the most widely available street opioid in the country. It’s cheap, potent, and deadly. According to the CDC, over 74,000 people in the U.S. died from synthetic opioid overdoses in 2023—mostly fentanyl.
Louisiana is already among the hardest-hit states. In 2022, synthetic opioids—primarily fentanyl—were involved in approximately 51% of all drug overdose deaths in Louisiana, making them the leading cause of overdose fatalities in the state. That’s not a typo. And instead of expanding access to alternatives like Suboxone, methadone, or yes—kratom—our state has chosen to criminalize the one plant people can walk into a kava or juice bar and safely consume with friends.
And yet, at the very moment the state is banning kratom, Louisiana is also slashing the very resources people need to stay alive. In early 2025, state health officials revealed that up to six federal health grants, worth millions, were abruptly pulled—funds that had supported crisis services for substance abuse and mental health treatment.
Meanwhile, a temporary 25% increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates for addiction treatment services—implemented in late 2024—is set to expire in June 2025, with no guarantee of renewal. That means providers may soon be underfunded again, just as demand for treatment surges.
And here’s the kicker: Louisiana has no structured support system in place to treat people who consume kratom. Unlike opioid addiction, where there are at least some MAT programs and detox pathways, kratom users—many of whom are not addicted in the clinical sense—will now be criminalized with no plan for support, no tapering guidance, and no alternatives. They’ll be pushed out of cafes and into courtrooms. Or worse—into street drugs like fentanyl.
This isn’t public health policy. It’s a demolition of harm reduction, happening in broad daylight.
Criminalizing Recovery
The most infuriating part of this ban is that many kratom users aren’t addicts—they’re survivors. They’ve already been through hell and found something that helped them stay off pills or heroin or alcohol. Now, Louisiana is about to yank that lifeline and tell them: figure it out.
Some will try, but many will relapse and some will die.
And for what? A moral panic fueled by pseudoscience, political posturing, and pressure from special interests who view kratom as competition—not a public health ally.
Worse, by making kratom illegal, the state just created a black market. And we know what happens when supply chains go underground: adulteration. People will start buying “kratom” from shady dealers—and sometimes what they’ll get instead is fentanyl-laced powder.
It’s not speculation. It’s history repeating itself.
A Crisis We Can Still Prevent
If lawmakers had truly cared about safety, they could have implemented regulation. Age limits. Quality testing. Licensed retail. Instead, they went with the nuclear option: criminalization.
This will backfire. As arrests begin and people are cut off, the fallout will spread to emergency rooms, rehab centers, and yes, funeral homes.
The irony is suffocating. In a state that claims to uphold personal freedom, bodily autonomy, and harm reduction, Louisiana just handed people two choices: suffer or seek fentanyl.
Governor Landry still has the chance to veto this disaster. But if he doesn’t, the blood will be on the Legislature’s hands when the overdoses begin piling up again—only this time, it won’t be from kratom.
