Mullin pushes to ease FDA kratom rules while invested in Botanic Tonics

Powerful figures in the Trump administration moved to ease federal scrutiny of kratom in 2025, even as one of them held a financial stake in a leading kratom company. Markwayne Mullin, then a Republican senator from Oklahoma and later Homeland Security Secretary, urged officials in the Department of Health and Human Services to remove language from the Food and Drug Administration's website warning of kratom's harms. By the end of 2025 the FDA had removed links to enforcement actions against kratom companies, including Botanic Tonics, though it left in place a warning about the risk of liver toxicity, seizures, and substance use disorder. In July 2025, Mr. Mullin appeared at an FDA news conference alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to endorse a move to effectively end legal sales of synthetic 7-OH products that compete with natural kratom. Mr. Kennedy separately telephoned Ohio Governor Mike DeWine in the fall of 2025 to urge him to crack down on synthetic 7-OH rather than ban kratom outright. When Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Mullin to lead the Homeland Security Department in 2026, a financial disclosure revealed that Mr. Mullin held an investment worth as much as $1 million in Botanic Tonics; he has not filed paperwork indicating that he has divested.