House Bill 1101 in North Dakota Seeks to Ban Kratom

North Dakota House Bill 1101 will ban kratom should it pass.

The bill will add mitragynine to the list of controlled substances, making it illegal to manufacture, sell, buy, and possess kratom in North Dakota.

Oddly, HB 1101 specifically classifies kratom as an "opiate". An opiate by definition is derived from the opium poppy. There are many substances listed as opiates that are not, by definition, opiates in Subsection 3 of section 19-03.1-05 of the North Dakota Century Code. North Dakota legislators seem to have mistaken the terms opioid and opiate. An "opioid" is anything that acts on opioid receptors.

North Dakota Rep. Jeremy Olson (R) sponsored the bill on behalf of a for profit rehabilitation business called Providence House, in Arnegard, ND. The bill is co-sponsored by seven other Republican representatives.

A public hearing was held on Monday, January 13. Kratom advocates gave testimony opposing the bill, and public officials, including the Executive Director of the ND State Board of Pharmacy, testified in favor of criminalizing kratom consumers.

The bill would run counter to recommendations by Nora Volkow, Director of National Institute on Drug Abuse, who wrote in 2021:

We have known for decades that addiction is a medical condition—a treatable brain disorder—not a character flaw or a form of social deviance. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence supporting that position, drug addiction continues to be criminalized. The U.S. must take a public health approach to drug addiction now, in the interest of both population well-being and health equity.

Before HB 1101, there have not been attempts to ban kratom in North Dakota.