ANTI-KRATOM ASSOCIATION

Ohio Asked for Science. Follow the Money.

Jack Henningfield has serious credentials.

That is precisely why his January 2026 Pinney Associates kratom report deserves serious scrutiny.

The report was presented as an eight-factor Controlled Substances Act analysis for the Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

Then you reach the disclosures.

And suddenly the room gets considerably smaller.

The report says it was funded by the Center for Plant Science and Health, a nonprofit established by the American Kratom Association.

Pinney Associates consults for that organization.

Henningfield has worked "in support of the American Kratom Association."

Pinney Associates also consults to developers and marketers of kratom leaf products.

Henningfield is a paid expert witness in kratom litigation. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

Nothing says "independent regulatory analysis" quite like needing a financial-relationships paragraph before the science starts.

And You'll Never Guess What the Report Concluded

After examining the eight factors, Henningfield and his coauthors recommend that Ohio not schedule natural kratom or mitragynine and instead preserve access under a regulatory approach resembling Kratom Consumer Protection Acts. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

What an astonishing coincidence.

• An AKA-established organization funds a report.
• Its consultant helps produce the report.
• The consulting firm also works for kratom developers and marketers.
• And the report concludes that kratom should remain commercially available.

Ohio asked for eight factors. Pinney brought the soft stuff.

Then the Report Starts Arguing With Itself

Henningfield's report acknowledges that mitragynine is metabolized into 7-hydroxymitragynine in humans.

It acknowledges 7-OH's potent mu-opioid-receptor activity. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

And its policy recommendation?

• Schedule 7-OH.
• Don't schedule mitragynine.

So control the potent metabolite.

Keep selling the substance that produces it after ingestion.

Now Read Their Own Numbers

The report's own FAERS table lists:

• 1,468 reports involving mitragynine as a suspect or interacting product.
• 1,370 serious reports.
• 721 reports with death as an outcome. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

Its poison-center data list 1,645 kratom cases in 2024, including 1,027 single-substance exposures. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

And then:

Some reports bury the lede. This one appears to have buried its own data.

Kratom Use Disorder Gets the Pinney Treatment

The report also cites research finding 25.5% of one study population met criteria for current kratom use disorder.

Among another sample of near-daily users:

Yet elsewhere the report characterizes use among many consumers as "daily self-maintenance or self-therapeutic, similar to caffeine dependence." Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

And There Is No FDA-Approved Kratom Medicine

Henningfield's own report acknowledges that no kratom product has been submitted to FDA for approval as a new drug and that FDA does not recognize kratom as having commonly accepted medical use. Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

Yet continued access is presented as being "in the interest of public health." Pinney Associates 2026.pdf

• No FDA-approved kratom drug.
• No FDA-approved indication.
• No standardized therapeutic dose.

But plenty of confidence about keeping it available.

If somebody wants good fiction, go see the new Toy Story. At least Pixar tells you up front that the characters are animated.

Open Truth

The problem with this report isn't that Jack Henningfield has industry relationships.

The problem is that those relationships become extremely relevant when the report reaches conclusions favorable to the same commercial and advocacy ecosystem disclosed on page four.

The funding matters.

The consulting matters.

The paid expert-witness work matters.

And the report's own inconvenient evidence certainly matters.

• Mitragynine becomes 7-OH.
• Kratom use disorder exists.
• Serious adverse events exist.
• Single-substance poison-center deaths exist.
• FDA-approved kratom medicines do not.

Yet somehow, after 68 pages, natural kratom emerges exactly where the American Kratom Association would presumably like it:

Ohio asked for an eight-factor scientific analysis.

It should read the disclosures before believing the ending.