The city of Ottawa has become the most recent municipality to bar the sale and distribution of kratom within its limits.

The decision became final at the April 7 meeting of the city council. The ban went into effect immediately.

“It’s come to our attention that kratom can be a dangerous substance if it’s being abused,” Commissioner of Public Health and Safety Tom Ganiere said. “We thought it was a good idea to prohibit it from being sold in the city of Ottawa and make our citizens more safe.”

Ganiere pointed to the fact that kratom is not controlled by the Food and Drug Administration, and is often mixed with other ingredients that are not listed on the item’s packaging.

The Ottawa City Council was provided with a written fact sheet and description of kratom from the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration to help inform its decision.

According to the fact sheet, kratom is “a tropical tree native to Southeast Asia that can produce both stimulant and sedative effects when its leaves are consumed. The leaves are crushed and then smoked, brewed with tea, or placed in gel capsules. Kratom is mostly abused by oral ingestion in the form of a tablet, capsule or extract.”

“We’re by no means alone,” Ottawa Mayor Robert Hasty said. “It seems like every municipality in Illinois is banning it in the meantime, before the [Illinois Municipal League] lobbies for a state-wide ban.”

Ottawa Police Chief Mike Cheatham notified 25 local establishments that sold kratom two weeks ago that the ban was a possibility.

According to a statement from Cheatham to local retailers, “the ban encompasses kratom, kratom extract, 7-hydroxymitragynine, and tianeptine incuding novel substances reported to have depressant, stimulant, or hallucinogenic properties that are not approved for consumption by any federal or state regulatory agency.”

“It’s the harsh reality of unregulated substances,” Cheatham said.

The statement continues, “the sale of these substances is a danger to public health as these products may cause hallucinations, vomiting, tremors, anxiety, dizziness, confusion, erratic behavior, aggression, suicidal ideation, psychosis and loss of consciousness, as well as negatively affecting cognitive functioning and even possibly causing death.”