Alabama has officially joined a small but growing list of states banning kratom, the plant-derived substance long sold at gas stations and convenience stores across South Alabama as an energy booster and pain reliever. State lawmakers voted to criminalize the possession, sale and manufacture of kratom in the closing hours of this year’s regular legislative session, and Mobile County law enforcement agencies have already begun pulling the products from store shelves.
Senate Bill 226, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, passed the Legislature in the final minutes of the session and was signed into law by Gov. Robert Bentley on May 10. The measure adds kratom to Alabama’s list of Schedule I controlled substances, placing it in the same legal category as cocaine and methamphetamine. Under the new law, possession of the plant or any product containing its derivatives is now a felony.
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said her office and local police have tried to give retailers a reasonable window to comply since the law took effect, but the message to businesses is now blunt: get it off the shelves. “What was being sold in our convenience stores and in local businesses yesterday is now against the law today,” Rich said. “The community needs to understand these are now controlled substances, and they need to be removed from the shelves of any business that is selling them.”
According to Rich, kratom produces a range of effects depending on the dose. At lower amounts, users report increased alertness and energy, while larger doses can bring on sedative effects comparable to morphine and other prescription painkillers. She said the drug acts directly on the brain’s opioid receptors, which she described as producing documented opioid-like effects and a significant risk of addiction.
Because kratom now falls under the same classification as other serious narcotics, the penalties tied to it are severe. Rich noted that even packaging kratom leaves for distribution could bring a manufacturing charge, which under Alabama law carries a potential sentence of 10 to 99 years in prison.
The Mobile Police Department and the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office have already started sweeping gas stations and other retailers to confiscate any remaining kratom products, with business owners bearing the cost of the seized inventory.
Virginia Guy, executive director of the Drug Education Council, said kratom itself is not new, but its popularity surged locally once companies began selling kratom-infused drinks packaged similarly to popular energy shots at gas stations throughout Mobile County. She said that packaging, combined with the drug’s legal status and wide availability, made it easy for children and teenagers to obtain.
“Our agency’s main goal is to protect children in our community,” Guy said. “So we’ve been talking for a little while about the dangers of children using these products, particularly with kratom.” Although some kratom products carried age advisories restricting sales to adults 18 and older, those limits were unenforceable because no state law governed the substance’s sale prior to this year.
Efforts by some kratom advocates to reach a compromise that would have regulated sales rather than banning the substance outright failed to gain traction with lawmakers, who declined to give the proposal additional time or debate before the session ended.
Rich said she does not believe age restrictions would have solved the underlying problem. She pointed to kratom’s addictive potential and the false sense of safety created by its years of open, legal sale in local stores. “We hear that from so many young people, but there are very dangerous addictive substances,” she said. “People were going in the store to buy a Coke or a muffin, and there it was.”
Rich added that many consumers, including teenagers, assumed kratom posed little risk simply because it had been sold openly and lawfully alongside everyday convenience store items for years. With the new law now in effect, Mobile County officials say they intend to continue enforcement sweeps and encourage residents to report any businesses still selling kratom products.