FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Drug Enforcement Administration is once again considering a ban on kratom, a popular herbal supplement served in South Florida kava bars and touted as an alternative to opiates.

Step to the bar top at Nakava Bar in Boca Raton and you won’t find a sip of alcohol on the menu. Instead, you’ll find colorful combinations of cold and hot teas blended with herbs including kratom — a plant native to Southeast Asia used for its stimulant and pain-relieving effects.

For $7, you can order a single “shot” of kratom tea served in pink lemonade, mango pineapple, or tiramisu — a combo of cacao and dairy-free creamer.

Kratom is typically dried, ground and ingested in capsules, smoked or served as tea. The coffee family plant grows naturally in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, where people have used it for centuries as a traditional medicine.

It’s widely available throughout South Florida at head shops, vape shops and more than a dozen kava bars between Miami and West Palm Beach.

But it may not be available forever. Kratom was nearly added to the DEA’s list of illegal narcotics last year, but the process stalled after an outcry of public support for the drug, said Katherine Pfaff, a DEA spokesperson.

Now the DEA is again reviewing kratom following the Food and Drug Administration’s public health advisory about the “deadly risks associated with kratom,” announced in November.

Alongside the announcement, the FDA sent a medical and scientific evaluation to the DEA, which it will analyze before proposing to rule kratom a schedule 1 narcotic with no medical use and a high potential for abuse — on par with heroin and marijuana, Pfaff said.

It’s not clear how long that will take, Pfaff said.

“We will conduct a thorough analysis so we are not going to put a time-frame on that,” she said.

Kava bars are not your neighborhood pub. Instead of beer and alcohol, they sell herbal drinks like kratom and kava, a South Pacific herb with relaxing, sedative properties.

Purple Lotus Kava Bar Owner James Scianno said banning kratom would cut into his bottom line.

Scianno has sold over a million kratom drinks at his bars in West Palm Beach, South Beach and Delray Beach, he said. Kratom accounts for 30 to 40 percent of his sales, Scianno said.

Other drinks on his menu include yerba mate and kava.

At low doses, kratom produces stimulant effects, making people more talkative, alert and energetic, according to a DEA fact sheet. At high doses, kratom users can experience the drug’s sedative effects, the report shows.

Proponents say kratom can be used to successfully wean users off opioids by relieving withdrawal symptoms.

“Kratom is an alternative to opioids, not a gateway to opioid abuse,” said Dave Herman, chairman of the American Kratom Association, an advocacy group. “The American Kratom Association supports appropriate FDA regulations to ensure product quality and safety for consumers.”

The FDA announcement, however, called it “very troubling” that patients are using kratom to help treat opioid addiction. The agency said it’s aware of 36 deaths associated with the use of products that contain kratom.

“I understand that there’s a lot of interest in the possibility for kratom to be used as a potential therapy for a range of disorders,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb in the advisory. “But the FDA has a science-based obligation that supersedes popular trends and relies on evidence.”

Users of kratom defend herbal supplement ahead of federal ban

At least seven states have banned the drug, including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana and Rhode Island, according to the American Kratom Association.

For the past several years, lawmakers have tried to ban the drug in Florida. State Rep. Kristin Jacobs, D-Coconut Creek, failed to pass legislation in May adding kratom to Florida’s list of banned substances, leaving it legal in every county except Sarasota, which has its own ban.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted its own review on the kratom’s impact on the state in 2015 and found that it “does not currently constitute a significant risk to the safety and welfare of Florida residents.”

At least one person in Palm Beach County has overdosed and died on the drug this year, according to medical examiner records. By way of comparison 948 people died of alcohol poisoning in Florida last year, records show.

Dalen Brinkman, 25, came to Florida for rehab, but was kicked out of his halfway house in March, three days before his death, records show.

Brinkman died at a hotel in Boynton Beach. Investigators found used syringes on the scene. Brinkman’s friend reported they both snorted heroin samples, although medical examiners didn’t find any trace of heroin, or any other opiate in Brinkman’s system.

Instead, they found an extremely high concentration of mitragynine — the active ingredient in kratom, said Jim Hall, an epidemiologist for Nova Southeastern University.

The concentration found in Brinkman’s blood was well above anything served up in South Florida’s kava bars, but Hall said there is still a risk in taking kratom because it is unregulated.

“It’s more of a folk medicine then it is any legitimate medication and, unfortunately, it’s not regulated or controlled so many products sold as kratom might be an unknown potency or include other products,” Hall said.

Scianno, who has served kratom in South Florida since 2006, said his customers have not had any problems imbibing his beverages.

“I can tell you what I see is an absolutely harmless product,” he said.

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