Months before 37-year-old Jordan McKibban was found unresponsive in his bathroom, the Washington state resident was preparing smoked salmon and home-canned peppers for a family gathering. Weeks earlier, he had told his mother, Pam Mauldin, that things were getting serious with his girlfriend, and his long-held dream of becoming a father finally felt within reach.
“He loved life. He loved doing things outdoors,” Mauldin stated, per The New York Post. Just days before his death, McKibban had helped a friend plant flowers for a baby shower. Then, on a typical Tuesday, after returning home from work at an organic food distributor, he stirred a tablespoon of powdered kratom into his lemonade, a habit he believed to be safe.
But that night, McKibban collapsed. When Mauldin, alerted by her grandson, broke into the bathroom, she found her son lifeless. Despite her attempts at CPR, he could not be revived. An autopsy later confirmed that the cause of death was mitragynine toxicity, the active compound in kratom.
“I’ve lost my son. I’ve lost my grandchildren that I could have had... I’ve lost watching him walk down the aisle,” Mauldin said. “I have to go to the cemetery, and I hate going to the cemetery. He shouldn’t be there.”
Kratom, a plant-derived substance native to Southeast Asia, is sold in powders, capsules, gummies, and energy-style shots. While promoted as a natural remedy for pain, anxiety, fatigue, and even opioid withdrawal, kratom’s safety has drawn increasing concern from health experts and grieving families, per the DEA.
Dr. Michael Greco, an emergency physician in Florida, said kratom can trigger a wide range of symptoms, from dizziness, sweating, and high blood pressure to full nonresponsiveness or psychosis. “Patients can have a lot of agitation... On the other end of the spectrum, people might be totally unresponsive,” he said, via The Post.
While most kratom-related deaths involve other substances, experts warn that consumers often believe the drug is harmless, a myth that may be costing lives. McKibban himself, Mauldin said, was told kratom was non-lethal and that the worst side effect would be vomiting. The packaging he left behind had no warnings or dosage instructions.
“I find it so frustrating when I get a recall from Costco over lettuce... but they don’t pull this off the market,” Mauldin said. Her lawsuit argues kratom is 63 times more deadly than comparable natural products. “There have been hundreds of people killed from this, and they don’t pull it. The government doesn’t step in.”
Recent attention has focused on 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), a powerful compound in some kratom products. According to Dr. Robert Levy of the University of Minnesota: “7-OH is much more addicting and much more problematic.” Just last week, the FDA recommended classifying it as an illicit substance.
“7-OH is an opioid that can be more potent than morphine,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary stated. “We need regulation and public education to prevent another wave of the opioid epidemic.”
Dr. Levy emphasized that “all-natural” does not mean risk-free. “Arsenic is also from a plant,” he noted. “If the part of [someone’s] brain that controls the use of psychoactive drugs is fundamentally broken, I worry they’ll continue to take more and more of it until they develop a kratom use disorder.”