Legal status of kratom

To our knowledge, kratom is legal to possess, use and grow throughout many European countries and in the United States. However, we stress that it is your own responsibility to check the legality of any product in your country before buying or using it.

According to internet sources, the following countries have banned kratom: Thailand*, Australia, Burma, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Malaysia, Romania, Sweden**, Myanmar and Vietnam.

* Kratom has the dubious honor to be banned in the country it originated from. In Thailand, the first prohibition law was passed on August 3, 1943. This law makes planting the tree illegal and requires existing trees to be cut down. This law was not found effective, since the tree is indigenous to the country. Today, kratom is classed in the same enforcement group as cocaine and heroin by Thai law, and has the same penalties. One ounce of extract is punishable by death. As with prohibition laws elsewhere in the world, this has succeeded only at increasing black market prices. A related species, Mitragyna javanica, is often used as a substitute to get around the law, but it is not considered as effective.

** Mitragynin (one of the main alkaloids present in kratom) was banned in Sweden after use of a branded commercial kratom product, called Krypton, allegedly lead to 9 deaths. However, this commercial product was found to contain several synthetic substances, including O-desmethyltramadol, an opioid agonist.