Iowa City Proposes Kratom Ban

The Iowa City Council announced that it may include a proposal to ban the sale of kratom in its upcoming meeting.

The ban is a part of a larger push by the council to place limits on tobacco and vape shops. The council announced plans to place a cap at 55 permits to operate tobacco and vape shops in city limits. It wants to adopt rules for zoning, so that the shops are not located near schools.

Recreational cannabis is still illegal in Iowa, and the medical cannabis program is tightly controlled. Tobacco and vape stores have also faced new restrictions from a recent state law, House File 2605, passed in 2024. This law introduced several new regulations for consumable hemp products, including potency limits, labeling requirements, and the prohibition of synthetic THC.

Iowa City is the fifth largest city in Iowa, with over 75,000 residents.

The tobacco/kratom issue has not been listed on Iowa City Council's agenda for their upcoming meeting on Tuesday, September 3rd at 6:00pm, but in a tweet, the American Kratom Association (AKA) said that "we're anticipating a vote on the Iowa City ban that day (Tuesday the 3rd of September.) The official agenda will be released on Thursday, but they told us it could have changes until right beforehand, which means if they wanted to hide the ban from the agenda until the last minute they could do it."

The AKA is encouraging Iowan kratom stakeholders to attend the meeting.