It is well known that 95% of the United States’ Kratom supply comes from Indonesia. However, Kratom grows in many other countries as well, especially in Thailand and Malaysia. Unfortunately, the governments of Malaysia and Thailand consider Kratom an illegal drug, and a new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reveals that Malaysia and Thailand are seizing hundreds of thousands of kilos of Kratom per year.
Indeed, the UNODC report points out that Kratom seizures in Malaysia have increased 6-fold since 2015, and over 180 tons of Kratom were seized in Malaysia in 2019. Also, 101,000 liters of ‘Kratom liquid’ were seized as well in 2019, which is basically Kratom tea. Indeed, Kratom tea is far more popular in the regions where Kratom natively grows than it is in the United States.
Further, between 2014 and 2019 Malaysia seized a total of 518 tons of Kratom leaf and 950,000 liters of Kratom liquid.
As for Thailand, 85 tons of Kratom leaf and 28,500 liters of Kratom liquid were seized in 2019, and collectively between 2014 and 2019 a total of 460 tons of Kratom leaf and 172,000 liters of Kratom liquid were seized in Thailand.
The UNODC report also indicates that increasing quantities of Kratom are being seized in Myanmar, which is another region where Kratom naturally grows, with 2.5 tons of Kratom leaf seized in 2019 and a total of 7.7 tons of Kratom leaf seized between 2014 and 2019.
Also, apparently Brunei seized Kratom for the first time in 2019. Brunei considers Kratom illegal, which is quite unfortunate since it is on the island of Borneo, which is one of the best places to grow Kratom in the world.
To put all of this in perspective, between 2014 and 2019 Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar seized a total of 986 tons of Kratom leaf, equivalent to 986,000 kilos. An average Kratom user takes perhaps 10 grams of Kratom per day, which translates to 3.65 kilos per year. Therefore, the 986,000 kilos that these countries seized would have been enough to supply 270,000 Kratom users for an entire year.
Zooming out, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Brunei could probably supply thousands of tons of Kratom per month to the United States, so far more potential is being wasted than just the 986 tons of Kratom leaf that were seized between 2014 and 2019.
On a final note, this data truly reveals how the Kratom industry is being attacked at its source, and this could possibly be connected with Big Pharma and the FDA. In other words, since the FDA was not able to ban Kratom in the United States in 2016, they have perhaps turned their focus towards cutting off the supply of Kratom from Southeast Asia. Indeed, Indonesia is looking to ban Kratom in the next several years, which would truly leave the world with little to no Kratom supply. This situation will be discussed in-depth in an upcoming article on Kratom Cafe.