During Mike Pence's tenure as the governor of Indiana, needle exchanges were banned. Consequently, there was a huge outbreak of HIV. He was forced to declare a public health emergency, during which the exchanges were once again permitted in the affected county. This slowed the outbreak. Following the order, the Indiana legislature passed HEA 1435, which allowed the needle exchanges to continue statewide. We should learn from the mistakes of other states in our rush to judge and punish addicts. Allowing addicts access to clean needles isn't about supporting their addiction. It is a public health issue. If you want to prioritize the lives of non-addicts over those who are addicted (not a very Christian thing to do), remember, disease outbreaks don't make those priorities, and others will be at risk.  

I highly disagree with this bill because making syringe exchange programs illegal can be HIGHLY damaging to our homeless community. Syringe exchange programs were created to keep drug using homeless people safer by giving them clean, sterile needles for exchange for the used ones. This keeps our streets clean from used needles, protecting curious kids and people who walk. It also prevents the spread of disease (AIDS, HIV, etc.) from people reusing the same needles or using needles they find lying around. Taking this away can reverse the positive, increasing disease, harming children, and making our streets unclean.

I urge you to vote no on HB 4413 and ANY similar bill that would make it unlawful to have needle exchange programs, bringing penalties of no more than $2,500/day to the owner/operators/individuals of these programs. This goes against all the evidence that supports needle exchange programs and other harm reduction programs that have helped Huntington and West Virginia be "ground zero" of recovery. Please turn to the evidence and support our neighbors who are facing substance issues, and do NOT criminalize the helpers.

Eliminating syringe programs would be disastrous in WV.  Safe Syringe disposal programs and historically exchange programs have reduced the spreading of infectious diseases, which have been elevated in WV with the opioid epidemic. Given the nature of IV substance use, this indicates a level of severity for physical dependence of substances and so harm reduction strategies are utilized to individuals taper off substances slowly given changes in tolerance. As a medical provider and community member concerned regarding the spread of infectious diseases, my hope is that this bill is not signed into law, particularly given cuts to Medicaid, which impacts half of West Virginians and will lead to reduced access to adequate medical care if/when diseases become contracted.

I am a board certified physician in addiction medicine. This bill is not consistent with evidence-based practices or public safety. Failure to provide safe needles hurts both persons affected by addiction and places the public at risk. I oppose this bill.

I am a licensed psychologist who knows that individuals with substance use disorders must be ready, willing, and able to enter treatment on their own accord and with a goal of long-term recovery for that treatment to be successful. Whether we agree or not, individuals should not be forced to enter treatment against their will, as every individual has the right to decline what treatment they engage in or decline - except, of course, in the case of imminent risk of suicide or homicide. What is especially concerning about this proposed bill is that it does not clarify whom would be mandated to engage in involuntary substance use disorder treatment. All this bill would do is create even greater stigma around seeking care for behavioral health and substance use disorders. Individuals will be less likely to disclose their substance use to their healthcare clinicians and lose access, which will compromise their health and trusting relationships with their physicians. Please vote no on this bill.

Prohibition doesn’t work. It fuels black markets, reduces product quality, and makes life worse for people who rely on what’s being prohibited.

West Virginia already regulates kratom, and my business spends thousands of dollars a year to comply with licensing. If there are real problems tied to kratom, address them through regulation: investigate what harms are occurring, and fix them with specific rules and enforcement—not a ban.

If this bill is simply about disapproval of something that feels unfamiliar, that’s not a serious basis for policy—especially from anyone claiming to value freedom or personal responsibility.

Hello, my name is Todd Honaker.  I live in Hinton, WV, in Summers County.  I was shocked to learn yesterday of the HB4459.  Please allow me to express my concerns.  I have taken pure leaf lab tested unadulterated kratom powder for 5 years.  It saved my life.  I have chronic pain from breaking my back twice, I had a spondylosisthesis, a lamectomy, and a two level fusion.  I work a successful job at Twin State Salon Supply where I am the shipper and do physical labor.  Leaf kratom allows me to do so without opoids.  Leaf kratom broke a twenty five year career battling opoids and alcohol that nearly destroyed my life.  Pure leaf kratom powder ONLY should be legal, as strong smoke shop bastardizations like 7oh and vape products have caused harm and put responsible natural powder consumers at risk of losing this life changing plant.  I fully support strict safety regulations on kratom and all out war on 7oh, but please hear our pleas to keep our leaf legal, regulated, and available.  Thank you so much for your time.

Lumping kratom powder ( mitragynine speciousa) and 70h together is not only outrageous & irresponsible but more like a direct attack on public health & the citizens of West Virginia. Kratom powder is proven to not cause respiratory depression and poses little to no public health risk. I work full time plus for a federal program as a caregiver and have O healthcare coverage available and can’t afford to buy coverage on my salary. I contracted Lymes disease and kratom offered just enough relief I was able to continue working with chronic pain. If you want to ban 7oh go ahead I don’t have a fight in that but leave regular kratom leaf alone . It’s outrageous you want to play God with peoples lives this way. I know it’s hard to relate from where your sitting with your salary being at least 4-5 times more than mine and the the fact you can go to a dr anytime you need to and get help but the rest of us have to make due with what we have and respectfully you have no idea what that kind of life is like. So please listen to the citizens of West Virginia when we tell you to leave it alone Regular Kratom powder is literally just the dried leaves from a tree.

Follow up to previous comment. I’d like to add that as someone who takes plain regular kratom powder, I am all for regulations and testing . I do not purchase it from gas stations or smoke shops. I order from a reputable company that has proper labeling and you can see the lab tests for the kratom powder on their website. I was on pharmaceuticals for over 10 years for fibromyalgia and depression. I have been rx free since 2016. Kratom has allowed for this to be possible with 0 side effects unlike the many pharmaceutical drugs I was prescribed. I do not currently take any medications and am able to work full time now. I don’t think lawmakers are understanding the difference between 7oh & kratom nor does it appear they care how much a complete ban will negatively impact citizens such as myself.  I can not afford to purchase health insurance even though I work full time and after receiving a $1 raise , I am no longer eligible for Medicaid . What are people like myself supposed to do ? Do whatever you want with 7oh but please educate yourselves on what plain kratom is . There’s a ton of misinformation being spoken by unqualified people about plain kratom powder. Please understand the difference between kratom powder which is a dried leaf from a tree , and 7oh which is a concoction made in a lab by pharmacist. I understand the dangers of 7 oh and support the ban of it, but I ask that you do your due diligence about kratom powder. I also support regulations such as testing and age restrictions on regular kratom powder if that is what the state needs to do to ensure public safety and health. Like any other substances including alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. Thank you for your time and please remember that your decisions greatly affect us involved voting citizens that keep the wheels rolling in this state and we will remember that when election time comes .

Dear Chair Heckert, Vice Chair Chiarelli, and members of the committee,   On behalf of Reason Foundation, thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony on HB 4459. Reason Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit think tank dedicated to advocating for policy solutions that enhance public health, foster dynamic markets that offer economic opportunity, and ensure consumer access to safe, regulated products.   We understand the committee’s concern regarding the public health risks associated with certain high-potency kratom extracts, fully synthetic alkaloids, and poorly regulated manufacturing practices. However, a blanket ban of kratom and its derivatives—including 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, and related alkaloids—would be a disproportionate response that would ultimately displace consumers into unregulated illicit markets, impede emerging therapeutic research, and risk worsening the opioid crisis. We urge the committee to instead adopt a targeted regulatory framework that addresses the specific harms identified while preserving adult access to regulated kratom-derived products.   States across the country are advancing legislation that reflects a growing preference to regulate kratom products rather than ban them. Multiple states have adopted versions of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KPCA), which imposes targeted regulatory requirements, including age restrictions, product testing, alkaloid concentration limits, and labeling standards. These frameworks are designed to address the harms associated with contaminated, spiked, and adulterated products without criminalizing consumers or eliminating the legal market, actions that would push consumers toward illicit and potentially more dangerous products.   Legislatures are choosing regulation over prohibition for several key reasons:

• The evidence does not support Schedule I placement: Schedule I is the most restrictive classification, reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, before placing a substance on Schedule I, the scheduling authority must evaluate eight statutory factors—including abuse potential, scientific evidence of pharmacological effects, the history and scope of abuse, risk to public health, and dependence liability. Many states have modeled their scheduling criteria on this federal framework or rely on federal scheduling decisions. A peer-reviewed eight-factor analysis published in Psychopharmacology advised against scheduling of kratom or any of its specific alkaloids under the CSA because it does not share the high abuse potential or safety risks of “prototypic morphine-like opioids,” and banning kratom products would put users using kratom to abstain from opioids “at risk of resuming opioid use and overdose." The World Health Organization’s 44th Expert Committee on Drug Dependence found insufficient evidence even to recommend a critical review for international control of kratom, mitragynine.
• Kratom-associated death data are misleading: A review of 156 kratom-associated deaths found that other drugs were present in 87% of cases with available toxicology data, with opioids being the most frequently co-occurring substance. State-level reports consistently show that the vast majority of kratom-positive deaths involve polydrug use, substantially limiting the ability to attribute causation to kratom extracts alone. Serious adverse events remain rare, particularly when compared to the regular use of kratom by as many as 10-15 million U.S. consumers each year
• Prohibition risks worsening the opioid crisis: Surveys of U.S. kratom consumers consistently show that the primary motivations for use are self-treatment of pain and reduction of opioid dependence. In a survey of 8,049 users, 68% reported using kratom for pain and 29% reported using it to reduce opioid dependence or withdrawal. A separate survey of 2,798 users found that 41% use kratom specifically to stop or reduce opioid use—of whom over 90% reported it was helpful. Banning kratom derivatives risks pushing some of these consumers back toward more dangerous substances, with the potential to increase overdose mortality.
• Contamination harms reflect regulatory gaps, not pharmacology: The harms most frequently cited by scheduling proponents—heavy metal contamination, salmonella outbreaks, misleading or false labeling—are classic consequences of an inadequately regulated market rather than inherent properties of kratom alkaloids. A recent comprehensive toxicology review concluded that “poorly regulated kratom products” are the key source of contamination and recommended mitigation through good manufacturing practices and product testing rather than prohibition.

  Emerging Therapeutic Potential Emerging preclinical and early clinical evidence suggests therapeutic potential of kratom alkaloids for pain management, mood disorders, and opioid cessation. Phase 1 clinical trial data indicate that mitragynine at oral doses up to 40 mg was generally well-tolerated and did not produce clinically significant respiratory depression—the primary mechanism of opioid overdose death. Pharmacokinetic studies report approximately linear kinetics and an elimination half-life compatible with predictable dosing, with no serious toxicity observed at the dose ranges studied. Preclinical and clinical literature reports analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anxiolytic, and opioid withdrawal relief effects of mitragynine and related alkaloids and generally notes fewer respiratory-depression concerns than with classical opioids at comparable analgesic levels.   Dependence and withdrawal have been reported, but these phenomena also occur with caffeine, many antidepressants, alcohol, and many other unscheduled substances. These factors are not, by themselves, sufficient to establish a “high potential for abuse” warranting the most restrictive scheduling classification.   A Regulatory Framework Provides Safety without Criminalization Rather than a blanket ban, we recommend the committee pursue a comprehensive regulatory framework for kratom derivatives and extracts that directly addresses the identified harms:

• Adult-only access with ID verification at point of sale and for online purchases, with civil penalties for noncompliance.
• Potency and formulation limits setting evidence-informed maximum per-serving concentrations of 7-OH and other derivatives in extract products, with clear labeling of alkaloid content and safe consumption amounts.
• Product testing and quality standards requiring manufacture under current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) and third-party lab testing for heavy metals, microbial contamination, and active alkaloid content.
• Marketing restrictions prohibiting clearly unsubstantiated disease-treatment claims and youth-oriented branding, with standardized warnings regarding dependence, withdrawal, and polydrug interaction risks.
• Enforcement authority empowering the board to mandate recalls, issue public safety notices, and impose civil penalties or license actions for noncompliant products.

  Conclusion The regulation of kratom derivatives is a rapidly evolving policy area, and states retain the authority to design frameworks that balance consumer access, public health, and industry accountability. A prohibition approach risks increasing opioid overdose mortality by eliminating a relatively less dangerous alternative for consumers who might otherwise turn to illicit opioids. A tightly regulated, adult-use framework—with sensible potency limits, testing requirements, labeling standards, and enforcement authority—directly targets the harms that have been identified without the collateral damage of criminalization.   Embracing targeted regulation would place HB 4459 at the forefront of evidence-informed kratom policy, avoiding the extremes of prohibition or unregulated use and instead offering a pragmatic, public-health focused pathway to consumer safety. Thank you for your time and consideration.