We oppose this
Food: other; regulation of distribution, sale, and manufacturing of kratom products; provide for. Creates new act.
Yours will be better than ours because it is yours. Change a word, say where you live, and stop — ninety seconds is a long call.
I am a constituent and I support most of House Bill 4969. The licensing, the lab testing before a licence issues, the alkaloid content on the label, the 21-and-over limit — those are good and I want them. I am asking for three changes. Strike section 9(c), the two percent cap, because section 7 already puts the number on the label and that is what protects people. Strike section 9(d), the synthetic alkaloid ban, because a synthesised 7-OH molecule is the same molecule the plant makes, and how a product was made is not a safety finding. And strike section 11(2), which makes it an offense for a person to buy — this is a consumer protection act and it should not have consumers in its prohibitions. Fix those three and I will support the bill.
Read from the introduced text, House Bill 4969, 17 September 2025, referred to Regulatory Reform.
Every version, newest first, linked to the legislature's own copy rather than a third-party mirror. The newest one is the text that matters; the older ones show what changed and when, which is often where the real story is.
The licensing half of this bill is genuinely well built, and we would back it. We are listing it in detail so that nobody can claim our objection is to regulation. Three provisions are the problem, and the rest is close to what we would write.
We are not asking anyone to do nothing. Every objection below comes with the clause we would put in its place — the full text is here.
Section 7 already requires the 7-OH amount on the label. Section 9(c) then bans the product anyway above 2%. The bill has both mechanisms in it and does not need the second: once the number is on the package and verified under Section 13's testing, the cap adds nothing except removing the product. Our Section 13 keeps the disclosure and drops the ceiling.
Section 9(d) is the separate and deeper problem, and it was easy to miss behind the cap. It bans synthetic mitragynine and synthetic 7-OH as such — a line drawn on how a molecule was produced rather than what it is. Section 3(d) of our model act defines these alkaloids in any form, because a laboratory can identify a compound and cannot identify its history.
Section 11(2) reaches the buyer: a person shall not purchase a non-compliant product online. That is the only provision in the bill pointed at a consumer rather than a business, and it does not belong in a consumer protection act. Note also that Section 15 attaches no penalty to it — the fines cover licensees violating sections 7, 9 and 11, and unlicensed sellers under section 5(1), but not an ordinary purchaser. So the act creates a prohibition on buying with no stated consequence, which is either an oversight or an invitation to fill the gap later. Section 20 of our model act puts penalties on registered businesses and leaves the customer out of it.
Worth flagging for anyone amending this: Section 3(e) defines a kratom product as a food containing part of the leaf. Products that are not foods, or that are made from an extract rather than leaf material, may sit outside the whole act — including its testing and labeling. Section 5 of our model act applies to all kratom alkaloid products, so the protections cannot be stepped around by changing the product's form.
Sponsors are not the enemy and treating them as one wastes the call. They put their name to this because somebody convinced them it would help; the job is to be the person who tells them what it will actually do. If one of them represents you, your call on this bill carries more weight than anyone else's — check whether they do.
