As Kankakee County coroner Bob Gesser sees it, he has a duty to protect residents.

It was the reason he and Pledge for Life Partnership’s Jim Schreiner spoke Monday during the Bourbonnais Village Board meeting.

One of his biggest battles is the addiction to opioids and their connection with overdose deaths in the county.

“Kratom is part of an opioid plant, and we’ve been researching, myself and Jim Schreiner, for a long time,” Gessner said.

“We’ve gone through different communities to talk about it. It’s a drug that’s very addictive. We’ve had between four and six overdoses on this,” he said.

“I’ve seen it more on toxicology now than I’ve ever seen, along with the other products with Delta-8 and Delta-9. It’s my job to protect the citizens of Kankakee County, and I’m telling you, we have a problem with this particular drug (kratom),” Gessner said.

Trustees heard the first reading of an ordinance that, if passed, would prohibit the sale of cannabinoids and kratom in the village.

“We just want to try and protect the residents of the village of Bourbonnais from synthetic marijuana and kratom-type products,” Mayor Jeff Keast said. “Kankakee and Bradley have already passed ordinances that are very similar to ours. So we’re trying to get to the point where it’s relatively county-wide. Because, unfortunately, with the state and federal government, it takes a long time to get things done.”

There are no federal or state laws at this time dealing with kratom and cannabinoids.

The Food and Drug Administration recommends that people not use them.

According to the FDA, an estimated 1.7 million Americans aged 12 and older used kratom in 2021, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Kratom products are purchased online or at brick-and-mortar stores, the FDA said.

Kratom is often used to self-treat conditions such as pain, coughing, diarrhea, anxiety and depression, opioid use disorder and opioid withdrawal, the FDA said.

According to Michigan’s Cannabis Registry Agency, with a delta-9 concentrate product, the cannabinoids in that product were likely extracted directly from the cannabis plant (marijuana) and concentrated. With a delta-8 concentrate product, the cannabinoids in that product were likely synthesized and concentrated through a chemical process.

Before Gessner and Schreiner addressed the board, a letter from Dr. Heidi Sikora, a retired nurse practitioner and former healthcare executive who lives with multiple rare congenital neurological disorders that cause severe chronic pain, was read into the record by Clerk Chad Meents.

She urged the trustees to weigh the benefits if used as prescribed.

“For more than six years, I have safely and effectively used natural kratom with excellent results and no adverse side effects. It has truly given me my life back,” Sikora said in her letter. “Today, I volunteer as a kratom educator and advocate, working to promote safe access to this natural botanical.”

Sikora wrote that she works with two organizations to assist communities and states in crafting responsible kratom regulations that protect public health while preserving access to unadulterated natural products.

Schreiner emphasized use of cannabinoids and kratom is a concern, especially in younger people.

“So you have all of these things coming down the pipeline that are going to be absolutely terrible in regards to substance misuse and the addictive qualities. So I was really happy to see that you guys had the foresight to include that,” Schreiner said.