Our sons died taking an ‘all-natural' supplement you can buy at gas stations — people don't realize it's so addictive and dangerous
Weeks before, he told his mom, Pam Mauldin, things were getting serious with the woman he was dating — his 'one big desire' to have kids was finally in reach, Mauldin recalled.
Days before, he helped a friend plant a flower garden for a baby shower. 'He loved life. He loved doing things outdoors,' Mauldin told The Post.
Then, on the day of his death, McKibban went to his longtime job at an organic food distributor. When he got home, he mixed a tablespoon of a powdered kratom supplement into his lemonade.
Marketed as an 'all-natural' way to ease pain, anxiety, depression and more, kratom can appeal to health-conscious people like McKibban, who Mauldin says wouldn't even take ibuprofen for the arthritis in his hands.
But on that Tuesday in April 2022, a compound in the substance called mitragynine took McKibban's life, an autopsy report later showed.
When Mauldin broke into his bathroom after a call from her grandson that day, she found McKibban lifeless. She performed CPR on her own son and shielded her eyes when medics carried his gray body away.
'I've lost my son. I've lost my grandchildren that I could have had, I've lost watching him walk down that aisle, watching him have a life that I get to watch with my other kids. I've lost enjoying these years with him,' Mauldin said.
'I have to go to the cemetery, and I hate going to the cemetery. He shouldn't be there,' she added.
From dizziness to nonresponsiveness
Kratom products — sold in powders, gummies and energy-looking drinks — come from a plant native to Southeast Asia and can act like a stimulant at lower doses and a sedative at higher ones.
While they're readily found online, in brick-and-mortar stores and even gas stations as catch-all solutions to everything from fatigue to opioid withdrawal, the Food and Drug Administration says kratom and its key components are 'not lawfully marketed' in the US as a drug product, dietary supplement or food additive.
The products, though, are gaining attention on social media, as TikTokers reveal disturbing interactions with teens going great lengths to get their hands on drinks like Feel Free.
The shot-like capsules of kratom and other 'botanic' ingredients look innocent enough and line some gas station checkouts.
National poison control centers documented 1,807 calls about kratom exposures between 2011 and 2017, and 'it's only been increasing since then,' Dr. Michael Greco, an emergency medicine physician in Florida, said.
Patients on kratom 'can have a lot of agitation, sometimes even psychosis,' he added. 'You get sweating, you get dizziness, you get very high blood pressure or elevated heart rate.' On the other end of the spectrum, he noted, 'people might be totally unresponsive or just extremely drowsy and out of it.'
While documented deaths from kratom are rare and typically involve other substances like fentanyl, critics say consumers are unaware of kratom's potential dangers. Manufacturers aren't required to verify if what is listed on the label accurately reflects what's inside the product.
McKibban, for one, was told it was impossible to overdose on kratom; that he'd just throw up if he took too much, Mauldin said. The green cellophane bags he left behind had no instructions or warnings.
'I find it so frustrating when I get a recall from Costco over lettuce or they have a recall over some potato chip … and they pull it all off the market,' Mauldin, whose lawsuit alleges kratom is 63 times more deadly than other 'natural' products sold to consumers, noted.
'There have been hundreds of people killed from this, and they don't pull it. The government doesn't step in,' she added.
An even more potent danger
Experts are especially concerned with a highly potent, highly addictive kratom offshoot called 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, which seems to have infiltrated the market in the past few years, said Dr. Robert Levy, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota who's board-certified in both addiction and family medicine.
Many people don't know the difference.
'There's always been concern around kratom because if you take enough of it, kratom does act like an opioid, and people can become addicted to it and have withdrawal from it and overdose on it and ruin their lives on it, like anybody else that has a substance use disorder,' Levy said.
7-hydroxymitragynine, though, 'is much more addicting and much more problematic.'
In fact, just last week, the FDA recommended classifying 7-OH as an illicit substance.
'7-OH is an opioid that can be more potent than morphine,' FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, said in a press release. 'We need regulation and public education to prevent another wave of the opioid epidemic.'
In the meantime, according to Levy, parents should be having open conversations with their kids about the appeals, dangers and addictive potential of kratom — and the fact that 'all-natural' or 'plant-based' doesn't necessarily mean safe. 'Arsenic is also from a plant,' he says.
As for people who say kratom helps them wean off other substances 'and they can control their use and they're getting their life back together, then who am I to judge?' Levy said.
'I just worry that because they can't control the use of something, the part of their brain that controls the use of psychoactive drugs is fundamentally broken, and I worry they'll continue to take more and more of it until they develop a kratom use disorder.'
'[If] the part of their brain that controls the use of psychoactive drugs is fundamentally broken, I worry they'll continue to take more and more of it until they develop a kratom use disorder,' he said.
'If your child or you or whoever is suffering from a substance disorder, you're not alone,' Levy added. 'Lots of people suffer from substance disorder. There is help, treatment works.'
'No money on my child's life'
For Jennifer Young, that message came too late.
The mom in Columbus, Ohio, first googled kratom a few years ago after her son, Johnny Loring, mentioned he was using it for anxiety. What she found didn't alarm her.
'I saw it's this 'all-natural, safe alternative,' and then people are like, 'It's wonderful, it saved my life, helps with my anxiety, helps with my pain, it's a cure-all,'' Young remembered. 'So I didn't really think it was that bad.'
Plus, Loring, a delivery driver for a flooring company who loved fishing and playing guitar, found kratom helped him stay alert and communicate with his customers. He valued those relationships.
'Everybody loved Johnny,' Young said. 'He was the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back, the last dollar in his pocket. He didn't care if you needed a ride, he'd give it to you. Anything you needed, he would be there for you in a heartbeat.'
Even when Loring started having seizures, neither Young nor clinicians traced them back to kratom. At the hospital, 'they told me that everything was fine and they referred me to a seizure clinic,' Young added.
Loring never got the chance to go. Weeks later, at age 27, he collapsed during an annual mushroom hunting trip with the men in his family and his new girlfriend. By the time the ambulance got to him, he was dead.
A toxicology report revealed deadly levels of mitragynine and gabapentin, a prescription painkiller, in his system.
'The level of kratom shocked me. It overwhelmed me. It made my gut sick,' said Young, who later found about 20 packs of kratom, which he drank with orange juice, around Loring's room. 'I didn't realize it was so addicting.'
Like Mauldin, Young is pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit. But, she added, 'there's no amount of money I could put on my child's life.'
After Loring's death last spring, she spent a year in bed and got on antidepressants for the first time. One of her other children has been hospitalized for panic attacks. Christmas was 'miserable,' she said.
'Our house is silent now. The void of Johnny is just loud,' Young added. 'I just hope that someday I can get back to enjoying things, because I know he would want me to. But right now, I don't enjoy anything.'
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