ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — A mother’s loss has become a crusade to ban Kratom products from store shelves in Florida, and ultimately nationwide.
St. Johns County resident Patti Wheeler had never heard of Kratom until 2022, when her son Wyatt visited her in Aspen while on break from college at Texas Christian University.
“I went in his bathroom and I found these two supplements, and it looked just like vitamins,” said Wheeler.
After looking up the products online, she learned those vitamins were actually Kratom products.
Kratom is a product derived from a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia and is often sold at gas stations and smoke shops.
Its leaves contain compounds that act on the brain’s opioid receptors, similar to traditional opioids like morphine or heroin.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
And Wheeler quickly learned, like opioids, Kratom can be extremely addictive.
When she confronted her son and asked why he was using Kratom, Wyatt gave an answer that’s frequently cited by Kratom users and the Kratom industry.
“I don’t want to drink alcohol, and this is going to help me,” said Wheeler.
Wheeler made her son promise to stop using Kratom and he agreed before returning to Texas.
“I said goodbye to him and 18 days later, he didn’t do that powder. He had bought OPMS concentrate and I got the call that changed my life,” said Wheeler.
That call informed Wheeler Wyatt had died after suffering a seizure in the apartment he shared with his twin brother.
18 bottles of Kratom concentrate were found in his car and room.
“That’s when I knew,” said Wheeler.
A toxicology report would later confirm Wheeler’s suspicions.
The main chemical found in Kratom was listed as a contributing factor to his death.
The report suggests the effects of the Kratom were amplified by the presence of a prescription antidepressant, and an over-the-counter cough medicine and antihistamine.
And Wyatt’s story isn’t unique.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
According to the Florida Medical Examiner’s Office, the active ingredient in Kratom, Mitragynine, was listed as the cause of death for 838 people between 2020 and 2024 alone.
And with new, stronger products hitting the shelves, like 7OH, Mike McCormick with Florida Poison Control explained calls for Kratom overdoses are on the rise.
“In 2026, again, a week shy of being half a year, we’re at 218 already. So, we’ve almost hit last year’s number,” said McCormick.
McCormick said, like Wheeler’s son, many Kratom users seek the substance to try and get off other drugs like traditional opioids and alcohol. They take it without understanding the risks.
“The big key to us is ‘natural’ does not equal safe,” said McCormick.
After Wyatt’s death, Wheeler set out on a mission to protect others from suffering the same fate as her son, traveling from state to state advocating for tighter regulations on Kratom products.
She’s now even produced a soon-to-be-released documentary telling Wyatt’s story and exposing the risks of Kratom called KRATOM: Side Effects May Include.
“I want our government now to step in and do the right thing,” said Wheeler.
Eight states fully ban Kratom.
Florida is not one of them, but there has been an effort to regulate Kratom in the Sunshine State for more than a decade.
In 2015, 16 and 17 bills were filed to flat-out ban Kratom, but none of them passed.
After three years with no activity, bills have been filed to either ban or regulate Kratom products every single year since 2021.
Only one passed in 2023, simply restricting sale to those 21 and up.
In lieu of legislative action, Florida’s Attorney General has stepped in, banning the highly concentrated 7OH products from store shelves on an emergency basis, but those only have a year-long shelf life.
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
State Representative Dean Black (R-Jacksonville) led the effort to regulate Kratom this past session, taking on a powerful lobby and what has become a multi-billion dollar industry.
“There are special interests at play here and the only special interest I care about is public safety,” said Black.
Black’s bill didn’t pass, but if it had, it would have set packaging, labeling and state lab testing requirements for products.
Another bill would have codified the AG’s temporary ban on 7OH products, but the language was stripped out before the bill was passed.
Black argued it’s a complicated topic to navigate, especially with the introduction of synthetic concentrates like 7OH.
“I could become an abolitionist tomorrow. It doesn’t bother me at all. But the truth is, there are a lot of people out there that do use it and presumably use it responsibly, and it’s not necessarily the proper role of the government to treat adults like children,” said Black. ”It is the proper role of government, though, to make sure that people know what they’re taking into their body, what the risks of that are and make sure that people aren’t playing games with it and deceiving people and creating a public health hazard.”
But Wheeler argued stories like her son’s prove there already is a public health hazard, and she’ll keep pushing until a full Kratom ban becomes the law of the land.
“I don’t believe that Floridians or any state should be part of a nationwide experiment involving substances that can affect our brain and our body and be sold at a gas station,” said Wheeler.
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
