Nearly half the smoke shops in Manhattan visited by an underage Post reporter as part of a weeks long probe into the kratom crisis were willing to sell her highly-addictive opioid-like products without ever bothering to ask for ID.
In New York, individuals must be 21 or older to purchase any products containing or derived from the South Asian kratom plant, known for its euphoric or sedative-like effects.
Post scribe Sidney Blasco, 20, found the drug at 18 smoke shops along 8th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen — and only nine bothered to ask her to show a valid form of identification.
Seven stores sent her walking because she couldn’t prove she was 21. Two shops simply asked her is she was 21 without asking to see her ID. Blasco never purchased any products from any of the stores.
“There’s many little smoke shops around, they sell whatever they want because they don’t have the license or anything,” Rohi Bati, 38, the manager of Esmoke on 40th Street and 8th Avenue told Blasco after she revealed her identity.
Bati was one of the store employees who asked Blasco for identification and refused to sell to her.
Pills, tablets, powders, drinks and gummies containing 7-OH — a compound derived from kratom that experts say is 13 times stronger than morphine — have become shelf staples at smoke shops. Critics slam the dangerous substance as “gas station heroin.”
The products are often marketed in brightly colored packages resembling candies and energy drinks.
It came as no surprise to Rich Marianos, a former ATF official and executive with the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, that so many shops appeared willing to sell the products without checking Blasco’s ID.
“These guys [smoke shops] are such bad actors … So why would you expect them to say, well, ‘are you 21?’” Marianos said. “They’re giving all this stuff to kids.”
Experts and concerned anti-kratom advocates are worried about how easily young New Yorkers are getting their hands on the drug — which acts as a stimulant when taken in lower amounts, and as a sedative in higher dosages.
Wendy Chamberlain, the founder nonprofit Kratom Danger Awareness, said she’s tried helping hundreds of people in the throes of addiction since she founded the group in 2022 — two years after her son Joseph Chamberlain, 38, died in his Upstate New York home from an accidental kratom overdose.
“We get people of all ages, including 17- to 19-year-olds. I suggest they talk to their parents and doctors, and I help them find local resources or free treatment,” she explained.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office, the NYC Health Department and the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection did not return requests for comment.
