Kratom Shots Being Sold

[CallMeHal]

So I was just recently made aware of the popularity of single-dose concentrated kratom shots that are being sold in gas stations and convenience stores here in the United States. Apparently they are being sold to literally anyone--no age requirement, and these shots are VERY popular. I have a real problem with this. Has anyone else seen these being sold? This is the kind of nonsense that makes kratom appear to be sleazy and "druggy." Anyone have any opinions on this?

[PistolsAtDawn]

They should definitely NOT be sold to minors. There are medicinal benefits to kratom, obviously, so that means we should all work to have it recognized as such. Concentrated shots being sold like this without age restriction just makes kratom look like another street drug to the uninformed. That's definitely not a good thing with respect to keeping it legal.

[fusedflora]

There's so many problems with this... I don't know where to start.

First, the obvious underage that you've outlined. The other issue I would have is that often these shots are made with the "bunk," batches. For instance, if the Kratom tests high for metals or e-coli, the vendor will do an extraction to remove the plant matter or burn off the contaminates to make it sellable (as not to waste the powder). This is usually very large batches, as it's not cost effective to do small runs of extractions, not enough for a box of shots at least (a typical 50-1 shot for 1 oz would take almost a kilo and a half of powder). Because of these large batches, the extract strength is largely unknown. For instance, one bunk batch of 100k could make 30 shots, but if it was only 0.2% Mitra, it would be relatively weak. If the 100k was bunk at 1.2%, that shot would be nuts. Because the company has already run one test on the powder, it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint to do another test, as they're refining the raw into something useable, most of the stuff on the label is the initial stats and not what it ended up, but again, it's done in very large batches, often mixing a few batches of bad powder (other ones torn open in shipping, accidentally cut with box cutter while opening etc... because why not).

Talk about wrecking your tolerance. One could easily have 20g of weak powder in one bottle, want to use another for not feeling anything and the next, 20g worth of good powder leading to nausea land. Not only that, but un-enhanced powder is nearly impossible to get LD50 from mitragynine/7ohm due to vomiting and body rejection, where a extract can easily put this achievable and most wouldn't know until too late. This is compounded for underage, potentially lower weight and virgin systems (not ever exposed to receptor antagonists).

Honestly, this is perhaps one of the most dangerous things with Kratom. I wish the AKA would focus on these; granted the KCPA is getting after the extracts and anything above 2% alks. However, its most the bigger companies that support the AKA that get into doing this... go figure. I think these are much more dangerous to the community as a whole than say, a vendor not testing raw powder for alk levels.

[onespeedstop]

Shots of anything are generally bad, well, cept the covid vaccine, but you know what I mean. If someone is doing shots of kratom every day, they should just go for something stronger as they are obviously looking for more-than-kratom is. It's a bummer that some people can't just be satisfied with something so cheap and great as plain old kratom.

[BallzDeep9]

No age requirement, and these shots are VERY popular. I have a real problem with this. Has anyone else seen these being sold? This is the kind of nonsense that makes kratom appear to be sleazy and "druggy."

Absolutely. For starters - How does anyone know what's IN these "shots" ?? Sure they CLAIM it's kratom but then say... "Proprietary Blend" or, secret process whatever... Bottom Line a manufactured product, created in a Drug Lab. Sold under the name "Kratom".

Here's the thing. These ARE Adulterated Products. Real, natural, kratom is just powdered leaves... As soon as water, or anything, is added, no longer pure kratom ... But the AKA, American Kratom Assn. is going around, state to state - saying that Adulterated products are a big risk and danger ?? and, reason kratom should be "regulated" - But their proposed government regulation: KCPA, still allows and supports these products. WHY - Drug Labs who make "Legal High" products are the biggest profiteers, and donate the most money... to AKA.

Of course, we all should support AKA - there is no other organization working to keep kratom legal. - But strange bedfellows. Money!! AKA goes around attacking small vendors, who sell pure natural kratom powder... did VivaZen shots help to fund AKA ? - yep it's the Kratom Millionaires, trying to pass "Regulation" KCPA laws in attempt at legal monopoly... Unfair Trade Practices. And now it's Matt Salmon a conservative Mormon Republican as President of AKA.

[otiesbotanicals]

I'm glad there's other people in the community that feel this way. Everything Fused Flora said pretty much spot-on imo. Extracts are a very slippery slope. In terms of people becoming addicted, and legality of the plant. When politicians hear people are going in gas stations, buying these shots every day becoming addicted of course they're going to want to introduce legislation to ban kratom. The farthest I'll go in terms of selling extracts are liquid tinctures. I have no desire to market powdered extracts or shots. I feel like when people use those products every day they're searching for something else and I have zero interest in being apart of that. I really wish they would become illegal to sell

[kratomwriter]

No age requirement, and these shots are VERY popular. I have a real problem with this. Has anyone else seen these being sold? This is the kind of nonsense that makes kratom appear to be sleazy and "druggy."

Absolutely. For starters - How does anyone know what's IN these "shots" ?? Sure they CLAIM it's kratom but then say... "Proprietary Blend" or, secret process whatever... Bottom Line a manufactured product, created in a Drug Lab. Sold under the name "Kratom".

Here's the thing. These ARE Adulterated Products. Real, natural, kratom is just powdered leaves... As soon as water, or anything, is added, no longer pure kratom ... But the AKA, American Kratom Assn. is going around, state to state - saying that Adulterated products are a big risk and danger ?? and, reason kratom should be "regulated" - But their proposed government regulation: KCPA, still allows and supports these products. WHY - Drug Labs who make "Legal High" products are the biggest profiteers, and donate the most money... to AKA.

Of course, we all should support AKA - there is no other organization working to keep kratom legal. - But strange bedfellows. Money!! AKA goes around attacking small vendors, who sell pure natural kratom powder... did VivaZen shots help to fund AKA ? - yep it's the Kratom Millionaires, trying to pass "Regulation" KCPA laws in attempt at legal monopoly... Unfair Trade Practices. And now it's Matt Salmon a conservative Mormon Republican as President of AKA.

There were two VivaZen companies; the one in the toxicology report that was contaminated came from "Viva Zen Botanicals," a tiny gas station/headshop brand that was later sued by VivaZen™ for trademark infringement. The larger company, VivaZen™ is still operating and selling kratom shots, while I have no idea where Viva Zen Botanicals went (hopefully out of business). Which Vivazen company are you referring to as having contributed to the AKA?

I agree—kratom shots and extracts are more addictive and not great for kratom's image. However, at least if they're regulated, they have to put everything on the label. The toxicology report indicated that Viva Zen did not correctly label its product for containing PEA. This is AKA's issue. Now, on another note, the AKA also has issues with kratom that's been "adulterated" with higher levels of 7-OH. It is a bit silly that they support companies that sell kratom shots (including concentrated kratom) but at least with the shots, shouldn't consumers know what to expect? I personally would never buy a kratom shot/concentrated kratom.

However, I think there is a problem with the possibility that one day if I decided to buy from a new "small batch" kratom vendor advertising on Reddit (as the trend has been growing) and find it really "potent"—which, unbeknownst to me, it is stronger because the vendor enhanced bunk kratom with strong concentrates (which is unlikely, but not impossible, and not as uneconomical as some people think) or via post-harvest processes that enhance 7-OH—something that hasn't been often considered. I might decide to only buy from that vendor for its potency, still convinced that it's a harmless small-batch kratom brand that is merely only more potent because it's fresher. Then I could wind up addicted and blame kratom as a whole.

Without regulation, it would be hard to prevent a bad vendor from contributing to the kratom "scare." However, it would be hard to prevent this without lab-testing for alkaloids, which is expensive and could hurt small vendors. What do we do?

[Roofdog]

The shots are not a good idea, but once regulations start going in where do they stop? They dont. I would rather have the freedom to purchase what I want then have regulations restrict me from purchasing. Once the gov or any large $ assoc. Gets involved, its usually a mess. There will always be uninformed kids doing stupid things. Look at alcohol, more kids lives are taken to this than kshots from a gas station. Sites like this one that inform people on what they are doing is the way to go. I dont want gov or any big assoc doing anything with kratom other than keeping it legal. I fear for this wonderful leaf in the future because they wont leave it alone. All they have to do is throw some headlines out saying so in so died and had kratom in their system (like they have already tried a couple times) and it will be game over for legal kratom. If there is a federal ban/regulation the states will follow suit.

[kratomwriter]

I agree with you and it's not right for high-quality small-batch kratom companies to suffer because they can't afford GMP while the large companies can. However, as most can agree, some form of regulation for kratom is necessary within this system. Almost every market has legal regulations and kratom will forever stick out like a sore thumb to lawmakers if it isn't regulated.

Unfortunately, the line between a truly free market and a capitalist one is a chasm. "Once regulations start going in where do they stop?" is exactly the problem, but on a much larger scale than just the KCPA. Regulation in a capitalist system is guaranteed to hurt some businesses more than others. Money is power, and if you don't have it, you're expected to make more money to compete—pull yourself up by your bootstraps, even if corporate pigs are stepping on your laces and crushing your toes. You can say that the KCPA is anti-competitive and promotes monopolization. Well...blame wealth inequality.

States can alter the KCPA how they like, but what most states would pass would still most likely be highly unfair to small vendors—even without the existence of the AKA. The AKA is kind of naturally filling a niche that someone else would try to fill if it weren't for them, only in their place could be even worse people who instead might want to regulate kratom as a drug or require more restrictions on alkaloid content (even some kratom researchers tend towards this view) which could be even more expensive than GMP. It's not impossible to push for regulation that doesn't hurt the little guys as much, but this may involve taxpayer money, slowing down negotiations until they die in committee like the Texas KCPA.

The most important thing that the AKA does is meet with politicians, inform and persuade them why kratom should be made legal, and get them to agree. It's not a pleasant job, and frankly, I wouldn't want to fly around the country meeting with state congresses and lobbying to convince power-hungry egoist officials to keep kratom legal, especially if I weren't being paid a lot. Motivation is money, and money is power—both for the AKA and kratom vendors.

I dislike both parties immensely, but I recognize that making a change in a flawed system means playing the game to some extent. But if the AKA crumbles, you don't know what will rise up to take on kratom regulation. If kratom is regulated as a drug (which some anti-AKA kratom enthusiasts insanely WANT), you can probably say goodbye to half of the alkaloids that you enjoy, and it won't be kratom vendors that you're buying from. It'll be pharma.

[Jfish030]

We went many years without selling extracts. We only sell capsules of extract that is mixed with a small amount plain leaf. We took this route to bend the knee to extracts and prevent as much abuse as we could.

I think if extracts were the same costs as plain leaf there would be no issues. I think the price point is where you get into trouble, $20 a shot can get expensive and lead to trouble. I fully believe laws should be passed to make kratom 18+

I will say if you use extracts responsibly for a week and then go back to plain leaf powder you will actually have some tolerance reset for powder. Personally it seems mitragynine tolerance actually changes rather quickly. I think we are really lucky mitragynine is very safe and forgiving. If they figure out and start extracting 7ohm and selling that, kratom is over.

I think it depends on the company but they are actually able to get the mitra% very accurate especially with a liquid. Our powdered extract tests in between 50-51% for a 50% extract. The bigger the company the more money they are making, and normally people dont want to mess up big money knowingly. Extract industry is currently racing to have it being produced in Indonesia (which has an export ban on kratom extracts?) to get the cost down which will be the race to the bottom on price point for their products. Shipping is a huge factor in cost for all kratom products domestically. With the cost of kilo in indoensia being around $5 a kilo. You could make some very very cheap extracts. Like $5 shots instead of $20 cheap and then i just dont know if the shots are still as negative as currently.