For centuries, people in Southeast Asia have used the leaves of cratum trees as a home remedy to soothe nerves and ease pain.

Recently, its popularity has exploded in this country as a way to alleviate anxiety and the effects of opioid withdrawal.

These products are widely available at smoke shops and gas stations, but Kratum is poorly regulated, and synthetic

versions contain high concentrations of a powerful compound that U.S. officials say should be restricted.

Ali Rogan takes a look at this controversial herbal drug with Kirby Wilson, senior politics reporter

at the Tampa Bay Times.

Thank you so much for being here.

Let's first talk about what Kratum is, how it's traditionally been used in other cultures,

and how it's showing up here in the United States.

Yeah, so Kratom is a very interesting substance with a long history.

It's a tree that's grown in Southeast Asia, primarily in Indonesia, and it's been

used there for centuries as a medicinal sort of home remedy for a variety of elements from

an analgesic pain treatment to curing indigestion. And so it's brewed into teas there. A lot of the

indigenous people in Indonesia see it as sort of a cure for what ailsia kind of thing. It is not legal to import into the United States, but it gets here anyway, and people use it here for a little different reason.

Yeah, so tell me about that. You've reported extensively on this, specifically about how it's showing up around the Tampa area in Florida. But what have you

found in the course of your reporting on it? It's been an interesting sort of dovetail with the

opioid crisis in America because there have been a lot of people that have been seeking

treatment for that particular affliction. They get addicted to painkillers and they want to weigh out,

but they don't have an easy resource. So people have used it to wean off of opioid addiction,

which is honestly probably a societal good that they find somewhere to turn that isn't another

street drug or back to opioids. But the problem with it is that this is in a lot of places

is entirely unregulated. And so people are using the substance that had been used for centuries

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