Four people who recently died in Utah took powerful semi-synthetic kratom drugs, officials announced this week — as regulators probe the manufacturers behind the deceptively packaged products being increasingly marketed as herbal supplements.
The deaths, which occurred over the last four months across the Beehive State, were linked to chemicals — MGPI and MGM-15 — often found in kratom-derived products labeled as herbal supplements, the Utah Poison Control Center said on Monday.
MGPI and MGM-15 are powerful semi-synthetic kratom compounds that “can lead to severe withdrawal, overdose, and death,” Utah Poison Control wrote.
State and law enforcement, along with the FDA, are investigating the companies behind the products, which were sold at smoke shops and gas stations as herbal, “kratom-free” alternatives.
Kratom is a medicinal plant that herbal manufacturers are now using to make far more potent, opioid-like drugs nicknamed “gas station heroin.”
The drugs are in products sold online as well as at smoke shops, gas stations and other retailers, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services said in a separate statement announcing the deaths.
The agency made a point to warn about the dangers of “Buzzers” — tablets advertised as a “proprietary blend of botanical extracts.”
One of the four deaths was resulted from use of a Buzzers product, Dr. Michael Moss, the medical director of the Utah Poison Control Center, told NBC News.
However, Exo Club, the company that makes Buzzers, insists that they “DON’T CONTAIN any Kratom or popular Kratom compounds” in their product description.
Exo Club did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Utah banned the sale of kratom extracts and products containing semi-synthetic kratom compounds in May, but the state’s health department warned they could still be available at some stores.
The revelation from Utah officials came two weeks after two University of Mississippi students died of possible overdoses on the same night — each with kratom products nearby.
One student, Aidan Hamilton, 18, visited a smoke shop near campus a week before his death to buy Smax Pseudo-DHM, a chewable form of the herbal supplement that’s illegal to sell there, WMC reported.
The other victim, Robert Strang, 20, also had a packet of Smax on his nightstand when he was found — on the same day as Hamilton — in his off-campus apartment, court documents revealed.
