Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), an anti-marijuana advocacy organization, has emerged as a leading voice against the promotion and sale of kratom, an opioid-like substance sold in gas stations and convenience stores throughout the nation.
A recent article in the New York Times quoted SAM president Kevin A. Sabet, who said that the Trump administration’s embrace of kratom “threatens public health and safety because it’s going around the scientific process in favor of donors and influencers.” He added that “it’s looking like we have a coin-operated drug policy that basically responds to whoever will give money.”
Sabet also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner in May 2026 that pointed to three prominent news stories involving kratom. Sabet, writing in Newsweek in December 2025, noted that kratom is “a new drug many have not even heard of.” He called on the Trump administration “to ban both active components in kratom,” namely 7-hydroxymitragynine (also known as 7-OH) and mitragynine.
Prior to Sabet, Luke Niforatos, the vice president of SAM, had been sounding the alarm about kratom.
In May 2024, Niforatos wrote in the Sacramento Bee that “while many Americans see drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine contributing to the drug crisis, another drug has recently emerged as a threat to public health: kratom.” He noted that “the public is beginning to wake up to the harms of kratom, and more must be done to protect public health.”
What’s more, after it was reported in March 2026 that Senators Pete Ricketts and Richard Blumenthal had called on the Food and Drug Administration to schedule the kratom leaf, SAM’s government affairs director, Jordan Davidson, posted that the “team was excited to work on this bipartisan Senate letter calling for a ban on kratom.” This helps to illustrate that the team’s advocacy efforts are beginning to move the needle on policy.
As previously highlighted in the Drug Report, kratom was involved in at least 5,208 overdose deaths in the United States between 2020 and 2024. Additionally, the number of kratom-related exposure reports received by poison centers increased 1,231% from 258 in 2015 to 3,434 in 2025.
Once focused on opposing the legalization and commercialization of marijuana, Smart Approaches and its sister organization, the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, have expanded their focus to other substances, primarily kratom, as well as psychedelics.