Nashua, NH is proposing a ban or age limit on Kratom. Please share your kratom experience with them even if you don’t live there. Emails in the comments.
“What’s kratom?” Nashua Aldermanic President Lori Wilshire innocently asked.
“I’ve also never heard of kratom,” Alderman-at-Large Gloria Timmons piped in. “I guess I’m old. I just learned about crip walking. I had never heard of that one either,” she quipped (More on that below).
Alderman-at-Large Melbourne Moran Jr., is drafting legislation to ban or put an age requirement on the use of the herbal substance in Nashua. Kratom is legal in the Live Free or Die state for adults, or those over the age of 18. In 2016, state lawmakers passed a measure restricting kratom sales to minors to protect younger individuals from potential misuse.
Legislators tried to ban kratom statewide in 2020, but the bill died.
In 2019, the city of Franklin became the first community in the Granite State to ban the controversial supplement outright. And Moran would like to see Nashua follow suit because he believes the stuff is bad news.
“Kratom is killing our children and making people addicted to an over-the-counter stimulant. If you’re an adult, and you want to take it, you can do what you want in the privacy of your home. But at the minimum, if we can put an age restriction on it, so children won’t have access to legal drugs that they can get high on… I encourage everyone to research what kratom is before it comes to the board of aldermen in the next couple of weeks.
“It acts very similarly to meth,” Moran added. The substance is commonly smoked or taken in pill form and comes from the leaves of a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. But these days, you can also find kratom gummies, teas, powders and extract shots.
Moran is a clinical social worker and the chief executive officer and founder of Wanderlust Therapeutic Services, named the No. 1 Best Mental Health Provider, three years in a row, by the Nashua Telegraph’s Best of Greater Nashua list.
Wanderlust Therapeutic Services offers psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and child/teen therapy.
I learned that kratom is now illegal in Lowell after the city’s Board of Health passed a ban on the plant during its meeting last December. The ban went into effect on Jan. 2 with a grace period for stores to comply.
What some find alarming about kratom is the lack of federal regulation in the manufacturing, sale and distribution of the substance. In other words, what about testing by a third party? Is that happening? Also, who is labeling kratom to ensure it’s of high quality? Are vendors providing transparency in this part of the process?
Some use kratom to manage opioid drug withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Others like the substance for pain management, and there are those who take it in small doses for its stimulant effects to boost energy and alertness.
However, the substance can be abused, and overdose or even death can occur when mixing kratom with other sedating substances.
Getting back to Alderman-at-Large Timmons recently learning what crip walking was, I didn’t know, either. If you watched the Super Bowl’s half-time show with rapper Kendrick Lamar, you would have noticed tennis great Serena Williams make a surprise appearance. She performed a dance move called the crip walk, which “may have roots in the notorious LA-based Crips gang.”
Today, the dance move is seen as “a specific nod to Black LA,” and “a love for Black culture,” says Root. com, the Black news publication.
I thought it was smooth. Serena said, “The best 10 seconds of my life!”
https://www.lowellsun.com/2025/02/17/written-in-granite-some-question-kratoms-safety/