More officials across Orange County are starting to crackdown on the sale and distribution of kratom — a tropical tree from Southeast Asia whose leaves are being used as both a stimulant and a sedative in different doses.

It comes as some say the plant in its natural form can help with chronic pain and it should be regulated not banned, arguing that products that have a highly enhanced psychoactive chemical derived from kratom are the real danger.

Officials at California Department of Public Health, however, say claims that kratom can treat pain are unproven and it can have side effects like insomnia, anxiety, seizures and fatal respiratory depression.

The bans are being adopted as a new bill authored by State Senator Tom Umberg originally would have added 7-hydroxymitragynine or 7-OH – a psychoactive ingredient in kratom – to the Schedule I controlled substances list, except when it naturally occurs in the kratom plant.

Umberg’s bill would also ban smoke shops from selling nitrous oxide or whippets as officials across the county have also been adopting laws prohibiting the sale of the gas for recreational use.

“Products containing higher concentrations of 7-OH than is naturally occurring in the kratom plant are being sold at gas stations and smoke shops, and they’ve earned the appellation as gas station heroin,” Umberg said at a state senate public safety committee hearing on the bill last week.

“These products are not FDA approved and have raised alarms by an increase in poison control calls.”

In October 2025, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported six fatal overdoses linked to 7-OH.

Read more here: Voice of OC