Exotic Plants, Deadly Consequences: The Feel Free Story

Chances are that you have never heard of Feel Free before. It comes in a shiny blue bottle sold at convenience stores across the country as a social lubricant and substitute for alcohol.

 It proudly proclaims that it’s primarily kava—a southeast Asian tree root that has lots of traditional uses. But until recently, it was less forthright about its other, much more powerful ingredient: kratom.

A few years ago, I started seeing signs for kratom at my local head shop and figured that it was some sort of cheap marijuana substitute, but I didn’t give it another thought.

What I didn’t know is that since 2016 the FDA has been trying ineffectively to get the addictive opioids off the streets, while a powerful drug lobby has used a familiar playbook to keep it legal(ish).

The kratom industry is worth approximately $1.5 billion today.

In an amazing investigative series, the Tampa Bay Times tracked Kratom production from farms and ports in Malaysia and Thailand through shipping routes to Oakland and then overland to processing and distribution centers in Colorado, Georgia and Florida. They uncovered documents attributing kratom, at least in part, to more than 500 deaths in Florida alone. Back of the envelope math suggests the national total would be in the thousands.

And while kratom is having its heyday in the press, the various health elixirs based off of it are getting a lot less attention.