Author: Catherine

The family of a Chester County man who died in June from an overdose of kratom has filed a wrongful-death suit against the company that sold its son the unregulated herbal product. Caleb Sturgis, 25, of West Chester, died on June 27 after he drank tea made with kratom, according to the lawsuit against SoCal Herbal Remedies of Big Bear City, Calif., filed Wednesday in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Sturgis was driving to work on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Chester County when his car struck a curb and flipped over. The Chester County coroner ruled his death was from “acute mitragynine intoxication,” the active ingredient in kratom. No other drugs were found in his system, save for the amount of caffeine contained in a cup of coffee. Sturgis had been...

The Food and Drug Administration ordered the mandatory recall Tuesday of kratom products distributed by one company that may be contaminated with salmonella. The FDA said it’s the first time it has used its mandatory recall power for a food product after first trying to get the company to voluntarily take the products back. The agency has been criticized for years by consumer advocates and some members of Congress who say it moves too slowly to recall potentially contaminated foods, NBC News reported. Tuesday’s mandatory recall affects Triangle Pharmanaturals, which bills itself as a consultant and packager of supplement products. Kratom is a plant supplement sold to treat pain, to help people stop using opioids or as a stimulant. The FDA has been warning against its use in genera...

Sunstone Organics of Springfield is recalling two lots of the herbal supplement kratom, which the company sells at five retail outlets in Bend, because of potential salmonella contamination. Kratom is linked to past salmonella illnesses, but Sunstone Organics has not received any reports of adverse events related to the current recall, according to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration press release issued Friday. The Oregon Health Authority investigated a case of salmonella bacteria in a Lane County resident who reported consuming Sunstone Organics kratom, spokesman Jonathan Modie said. The person’s leftover kratom tested positive. The bacteria was also found in subsequent tests of the company’s product. The recalled products are White Vein Kratom Lot 119 and Maeng Da Kratom Lot 12...

Israel has recently been in the news after the government issued ... with attendant health benefits. Jumping through hoops Even in Israel, conducting research with cannabis entails bureaucratic obstac...

The cannabis industry and public health advocates are facing off again over a proposal to allow Oregonians and visitors to light up in specified public places. A legislative committee on Thursday hear...

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gaia Pharma, which has just won approval to build a European Union GMP-compliant cannabis cultivation facility by the Portuguese Health Ministry, will be renamed ...

With clients including Rachel Weisz, Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez, Young is a fan of cannabis health and wellness brand Dosist to help her relax before red carpet events. "The Calm pen is the one I ...

Calls to U.S. poison control centers related to the herbal drug kratom have skyrocketed, increasing more than 50-fold in a matter of six years, a new study shows. Back in 2011, poison centers received about one call a month regarding someone who'd taken too much kratom, a plant that is purported to produce mild opioid-like effects. These days, nearly two calls a day are received concerning kratom exposures, researchers report in the Feb. 21 issue of the journal Clinical Toxicology. "We're now getting literally hundreds of cases a year versus 10 or 20," said researcher Henry Spiller, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. He noted that kratom reports underwent a "relatively big spike" sometime between 2015 and 2016. The research...

A study published Thursday showed calls to U.S. poison control centers regarding the herbal supplement kratom have increased more than 50-fold in recent years. The poison control center calls have increased from 13 in 2011 to 682 in 2017. According to the study published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, there were 1,807 exposures across the seven-year period with 65 percent of those intances occurring in 2016-2017. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration describes Mitragyna speciosa, more commonly known as kratom, as a plant which grows naturally in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua Guinea. The herbal supplement has gained national attention as some have reported using the the drug to treat pain and help them refrain from using opioids. Read more at UPI.com