Oregon Moves To Partially Pass The Kratom Consumer Protection Act, Aims To Submit Plan For Full KCPA Adoption Before The End Of This Year

The Oregon House of Representatives has unanimously passed HB 4013, which will ban the sale of Kratom to anyone under the age of 21, while simultaneously requiring Kratom products to be properly labeled and for Kratom products to be registered with the State Department of Agriculture. Further, this bill will require a complete Kratom regulatory plan to be submitted by the end of 2020.

Representative Bill Post states “I want to be very clear, I’m not looking to ban the substance”. Rather, this bill is being passed to ensure that Kratom sold in Oregon is pure and safe, so that people who need Kratom can continue having access to it.

Essentially, this bill represents a partial passage of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA), specifically the KCPA tenants of properly labeling Kratom, not selling Kratom to minors, and registration with the state will be in place once this bill passes in the Oregon Senate.

The parts of the KCPA which will not yet be passed by this bill are properly lab testing Kratom to ensure that it is free of contaminants and adulterants, and also lab testing to ensure that extracts do not have an excessive amount of alkaloids.

The 2nd part of this bill lays the framework for eventually passing these critical tenants of the KCPA however. The Oregon Health Authority, Oregon Liquor Control Commission, State Department of Agriculture, and Governor’s Office will be directed to develop a plan which will establish a state Kratom testing laboratory while determining how it will be paid for, and which regulatory authority will have jurisdiction over the Kratom industry.

This plan will be submitted by the end of 2020, and therefore the KCPA may be fully passed sometime this year or next year if all goes well.

Overall, this is a victory for the Kratom industry, a victory which was made possible by the efforts of the American Kratom Association. The American Kratom Association has been aggressively trying to get the KCPA passed in numerous states, including Oregon, since if proper Kratom regulation is in place in each state then it is unlikely that Kratom will be banned.

Indeed, the problem for the Kratom industry up to now is that contaminated and adulterated products have given Kratom a bad name, but fortunately the KCPA will prevent that by guaranteeing that only pure and unadulterated Kratom is sold to Kratom consumers.

Notably, this Oregon Kratom bill still must be voted on in the Senate before it becomes law, but it seems likely that it will pass considering the unanimous passage of the bill in the Oregon House of Representatives.