What Congress Wasn’t Told About Kratom — and Why the Science Briefing Backfired

PDF of the full congressional transcript: Download the full briefing transcript (PDF)

On September 24, 2024, the American Kratom Association hosted a “Congressional Science Briefing” to promote kratom as safe, natural, and misunderstood. But once the experts started talking, the event did something very different: it exposed how unstable, unpredictable, and dangerously unregulated kratom products really are in the United States.

What was meant to be a pro-kratom showcase instead produced some of the strongest evidence yet that Mitragyna speciosa, mitragynine, and 7-hydroxymitragynine pose serious public-health risks—and meet the criteria for Schedule I control.

Below is what the scientists actually said.

1. U.S. “Kratom” Products Contain Synthetic Opioid-Like Chemicals

Multiple experts confirmed that the kratom sold in the United States is not the plant people think they’re buying.

Dr. Chris McCurdy presented mass-spectrometry results of a tablet sold as kratom. What he found wasn’t natural leaf material—it was a synthetic chemical cocktail:

• The product showed a large, dominant spike of synthetic 7-hydroxymitragynine, a potent opioid-like compound.
• There were several other mystery chemicals that scientists couldn’t even identify.
• McCurdy explained that these products were “synthetically created” from industrial isolates and that the U.S. market has been infiltrated by synthetic 7-OH additives.

In plain terms: people think they are taking a plant, but the U.S. market is saturated with lab-made opioid analogues disguised as “natural” supplements.

2. Forensic Labs Can’t Detect the Dangerous Compound in Kratom

This may be the single most alarming fact revealed:

“No forensic lab in the United States has the capability to search for 7-hydroxymitragynine.” — Dr. McCurdy

Labs only test for mitragynine. So if someone overdoses from synthetic 7-OH, the death will:

• show up as “mitragynine,”
• or not be counted at all.

This built-in invisibility leads to systematic undercounting of deaths and hides the true risk profile from physicians, medical examiners, lawmakers, and families.

No other drug with an opioid-strength metabolite gets this kind of free pass.

3. Kratom Products Are Chemically Unstable and Impossible to Regulate

McCurdy described massive inconsistencies in the alkaloid content of kratom products because manufacturers are now harvesting immature leaves simply to keep up with U.S. demand. That means:

• every harvest changes the chemical composition,
• every batch is different,
• potency cannot be predicted,
• and no standardization is possible.

Dr. Kirsten Smith reinforced this, warning that “some of these products are not kratom at all.” She openly acknowledged that the kratom market is a jumble of mismatched, mislabeled products with no reliable taxonomy or definition.

This alone disqualifies kratom from being considered safe or medically manageable.

4. Dependence and Withdrawal Are Widespread — Even With “Regular” Use

Dr. Smith confirmed what thousands of users report:

• Most people use kratom daily, often multiple times per day.
• Daily use leads to tolerance, dependence, and withdrawal.
• These effects are caused by mitragynine itself, not synthetic adulterants.

That profile—the compulsive daily use, the withdrawal, the escalating tolerance—is exactly what defines a high-abuse-potential opioid-like substance.

5. Scientists Omitted the Most Important Pharmacological Fact

Despite deep discussion of receptor binding and molecular shape, no scientist mentioned one critical point:

Mitragynine is metabolized in the human body into 7-hydroxymitragynine, a far more potent opioid-receptor agonist, like morphine.

This metabolic conversion is the reason people experience:

• analgesia,
• euphoria,
• dependence,
• and opioid-like withdrawal.

Yet the experts—some of whom repeatedly stated “kratom is not an opioid”—left this fact out entirely. That omission significantly misled congressional staff.

6. No Scientist Corrected Congressman Bergman’s False Medical Claims

Rep. Jack Bergman enthusiastically told congressional staff that kratom:

• “helps overcome addiction,”
• “treats withdrawal,”
• “gets people back on the road to a successful life,”
• and belongs in federal therapeutic programs.

None of this is true. Kratom is not FDA-approved, not clinically validated, and not recognized as a treatment for opioid-use disorder.

Yet not one scientist corrected him, for reasons unknown to this author.

The Bottom Line

What was framed as a “science briefing” ultimately revealed the opposite:

• a market contaminated with synthetic opioid-like chemicals,
• a drug whose most dangerous metabolite can’t be detected in U.S. labs,
• products too unstable to regulate,
• widespread dependence and withdrawal,
• and a panel of experts who allowed misleading medical claims to go unchallenged.

For the average American who assumes “kratom” is a natural herbal tea, this testimony exposes a very different reality: the U.S. kratom market is an unregulated opioid-like product with unknown chemicals, unpredictable potency, and no safety controls.

And that is exactly the kind of landscape Congress created Schedule I to address.