The drink with opioid-like effects being sold over the counter
The Food and Drug Administration has cautioned against kratom's use for self-treatment and its potential for abuse, with addiction medicine specialists reporting numerous cases of dependency.
Personal accounts, including viral TikTok videos, highlight severe addiction to Feel Free tonics, with one user detailing hospitalisation due to withdrawal symptoms.
Botanic Tonics, Feel Free's maker, denies widespread addiction claims. In 2023, it settled an $8.75 million lawsuit for failing to warn consumers about kratom's risks but did not admit wrongdoing by settling the lawsuit.
While the FDA recommends controlling a concentrated kratom byproduct, natural kratom leaf products are unaffected; however, rare deaths have been associated with kratom, including a case where a family attributes their son's death to it.
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