OPINION — In my decades in law enforcement, I learned that some of the worst policies are the ones designed to look serious without solving a serious problem. They eat up time, money and attention, then leave officers and communities worse off.
That is exactly what worries me about House Bill 2415, now under consideration in Arizona.
The bill targets kratom, a plant-derived product some adults use for pain relief and to reduce withdrawal symptoms from opioid addiction. Most dramatically, it would criminalize 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, one of kratom’s naturally occurring compounds by turning distributors and consumers into criminals. To enforce this mandate, officers would have to conduct time-consuming product inspections, rely on costly lab testing to determine chemical content and make difficult judgment calls about whether people in pain should be treated as criminals.
