The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday to limit kratom purchases to people 21 and older and to ban synthetic kratom products, also known as kratom extracts.

It’s one of four pending bills addressing kratom in the Legislature. Two bills impose an age limit on purchasing the substance, while the other two make kratom or kratom extracts a controlled substance. 

Critics of the herbal substance, which is commonly found in gas stations and tobacco or vape shops, say it is a highly addictive and dangerous drug that produces stimulant- and opioid-like effects. But advocates argue it is an effective tool for treating opioid use disorder, chronic pain and depression. 

“It’s one of those things that needs to have a fence around it in order to protect not only those that take it but also those who are affected by those that take it,” said Business and Commerce Chair Rep. Lee Yancey, R-Brandon. “And currently there is no fence.” 

HB1077, authored by Yancey, will require people to show proof of age when purchasing kratom and require retailers to keep the product behind the counter. It institutes fines for people under 21 who buy kratom and retailers that sell the product to them. 

It also outlaws synthetic kratom extracts, or products that contain high concentrations of 7-hydroxymitragynine, one of the chemical components in kratom that binds to the same receptors in the brain as opioids, like codeine.

The bill passed in the house unanimously with a vote of 115-0. It now advances to the Senate. 

A similar bill in the House authored by Judiciary B Chair Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, would impose the same regulations and levy a 5% tax on kratom products. Rep. Yancey said he plans to bring this legislation to the floor for consideration. 

More than thirty counties and cities in Mississippi restrict or ban kratom products at the local level. 

Two other bills in the Legislature this year seek to make forms of kratom a Schedule III controlled substance, which would institute criminal penalties for possession and make it available only with a prescription from a licensed health care provider.

Penalties for small amounts of Schedule III drugs in Mississippi include a maximum of one year in jail or a $1,000 maximum fine. Other Schedule III drugs include benzodiazepines, ketamine and steroids.

A bill in the Senate authored by Drug Policy Chair Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, would schedule only synthetic kratom products, while a bill in the House by Drug Policy Chair Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, R-Picayune, would schedule all forms of the drug, including pure leaf forms. 

Turner-Ford said she does not support banning all forms of kratom, given that it is a naturally occurring plant. Hobgood-Wilkes said there are many natural substances that are dangerous.

Hobgood-Wilkes said she believes bills solely to restrict kratom to consumers 21 and older don’t go far enough. 

Yancey said he supports scheduling the substance, but has grown frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to ban the drug in years past. 

“This year I’ve decided that getting 50% of what I want is better than getting 0% of what I want,” he said. 

Dr. Jennifer Bryan, the president of the Mississippi Medical Association, urged lawmakers to schedule kratom as a controlled substance at a House Drug Policy hearing Jan. 28, given its highly addictive qualities. 

“This is what the next phase of the opioid crisis looks like,” she said. 

State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said he supports making the drug a Schedule III drug because it would remove kratom from stores but impose relatively small penalties on people who possess the drug. 

He pointed to the success of lawmakers designating tianeptine, another substance sold in gas stations and used to treat depression, a Schedule III drug in 2023. 

“I personally have not seen a case of tianeptine since the ban last year, except one case that got it from Louisiana,” he told lawmakers Jan. 28.

Christina Dent, an advocate who opposes a criminal justice approach to drugs and addiction, said banning kratom entirely would harm people who are using kratom as a tool to stop using opioids or for other health conditions, and create a dangerous underground market for the substance. 

“Banning kratom and putting people in jail who use it will lead to more crime, more health problems, and more families destabilized by incarceration,” she said.

She said she supports bills that restrict the sale of kratom to young people and ban the sale of synthetic kratom products. 

This is not the first time the Legislature has sought to regulate or ban kratom. The House passed a bill in 2022 to make kratom a Schedule I drug and a bill in 2023 to ban kratom extracts. Both died in the Senate. 

Yancey said passage of a bill to regulate kratom this year will depend on the Senate’s appetite for such legislation. 

“The Senate needs to step up and do their part,” he said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Mississippi Department of Health’s Child Care Licensure Bureau is reviewing proposed regulations that it shelved after an uproar among child care providers.

The new regulations, as presented, include requiring facilities to give representatives from the licensing agency full access to the facility and everyone in it, requiring facilities to get the licensing agency’s permission to make any changes, including to hours, renovations, etc; and directors would have to be on-site for 75% of a facility’s operating hours. According to Mississippi child care provider Debbie Ellis, that would amount to over 40 hours a week.

“Every one of the directors I’ve spoken to who object to these revisions are involved in and support and provide quality childcare,” said Ellis, who owns and operates The Learning Center in Greenwood. “But it must be viable, or it’s no good to anyone.”

Ellis is the founder of Delta Licensed Providers, a group that advocates for child care providers in the Delta. Ellis detailed her opposition to specific rules in posts on her blog. She and other providers argue that many of the proposed revisions would have been financially harmful to their businesses, to children and families, and given the licensing agency too much power. 

“I want you to understand that I am not asking for deregulation,” she explained, “I am asking for full disclosure of the current regulation and full disclosure of any proposed revision to those regulations. That’s not too much to ask. That is, in fact, the law.”

In addition to the proposed revisions themselves, providers are not happy with what they call a lack of transparency and consideration.

The licensing agency filed the proposed changes on Nov. 15, 2024. According to Mississippi Administrative Procedures, the licensing agency should have sent out a notice within three days about the changes to each person who signed up to receive notices of proposed rule adoptions.

Ellis, who says she signed up for those notices, says she didn’t learn about the proposed revisions until Dec. 3. That is 18 days after they filed. This was also six days before the virtual hearing for the changes took place. Ellis said she learned about the changes after a different child care provider called her to ask about rumors of a public hearing on new regulations.

Nancy Koon, who owns The Mustard Seed Preschool and Child Care Center in D’Iberville, said she learned about the revisions on Dec. 3, after her licensing agent forwarded the notice to her. 

“We’re why Americans can work, because we provide childcare, a service that they need to work,” said Koons. “We’re not just gonna sit back and let you shove things down our throat.”

According to Ellis, 141 child care providers attended the virtual hearing for public comment on Dec. 9. The licensing agency set up a place to allow providers to submit written comments about the proposed revisions until Dec. 13. Ellis said the submission form was closed when she went to submit hers at 4:21 p.m. that day.

Nicole Barnes, director of child care licensure for the Health Department, acknowledged that the proposals did not have input from the Small Business Regulatory Committee or the Child Care Advisory Council. 

Ellis argued that such regulations also should’ve included an economic impact report, which is required if adhering to the proposed changes would have a net cost of over $100,000 for child care providers. Barnes explained that they did not, so no report was needed.

Barnes explained that the revisions were done to fall in line with the health and safety standards for the Child Care and Development Fund Block Grant Act. The licensing agency withdrew the proposals on Dec. 16 to give child care providers more time to comment. They plan to present revised revisions to the Board of Health in April, based on providers’ comments.

“Although the procedures set forth in the Ms. Administrative Procedures Act were followed, the MSDH Bureau of Child Care Licensure understands that they did not allow for full transparency in January. The bureau will ensure full transparency prior to presenting the proposed changes in April,” Barnes said in an email.

Ellis also challenged the existing rules on spacing requirements for facilities. None of the proposed regulations included a change to space requirements, according to the Health Department. But Ellis argues that the rule does not include room furnishings, and that it should be for 50 square feet of usable space per child, not 35.

“To properly address the needed availability of quality, affordable child care in Mississippi, the full effect of ‘usable space’ square footage requirements should be known, published and clearly understood so that developers and architects may be confident that approved plans for construction do guarantee the number of children that a new facility may serve and that the business, at the very least, has the opportunity to be viable,” she stated in an email.

Barnes disputed this claim. “MSDH Child Care Licensure does include room furnishings with usable space in the square footage calculation of a room. In measuring facilities for square footage, usable space means space measured on the inside, wall to wall dimensions,” she said.

“If furnishings are size and age appropriate, then it is considered part of the usable space.”

Biz Harris, executive director of the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance, works directly with child care providers to advocate for better early learning education. Harris works with child care providers across the state, and described their reactions to the proposed changes.

 “I think that was concerning to folks, that if felt like these huge changes were being made to the thing that is their livelihood, and they were given basically no time to review the regulatory changes or to know whether or not their feedback or thoughts would be given,” she said.

The Child Care Advisory Council’s next meeting is Feb 21, 2025. It will include a discussion about the regulation changes. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Feb. 7, 1866

Ten months after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, a delegation of Black men, led by Frederick Douglass, met with President Andrew Johnson at the White House. 

Southern states had already begun to impose “Black Codes” on Black Americans now freed from slavery. 

In their meeting with Johnson, Douglass and others shared why it was important that the right to vote be given to Black Americans and enforced. Johnson rejected their proposal and responded with what sounded like a prepared speech, arguing that “a war of races” would take place between newly freed Black Americans and their poor, white counterparts. 

After the meeting, Douglass and the others penned a letter to the president, saying while it was true the hostility existed, the roots of such hatred were found in the system of slavery. The end of such slavery can help to bring the end to such hate, they wrote. 

They questioned how Johnson could allow these Black Codes to continue “for a people whom you have repeatedly declared your purpose to maintain in freedom.” 

They told the president that “peace between races can not be secured by degrading one race and exalting another, by giving power to one race and withholding it from another, but by maintaining a state of equal justice between all classes.” 

In the years that followed, Douglass continued to rise as a leader, championing the rights of both African Americans and women. 

Johnson became the first president impeached, dodging removal from office by one vote in the Senate. He eventually returned to Tennessee and the U.S. Senate, dying just a few months later.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.