Legality and availability of kratom in Europe

Europe is a promising market for kratom. Unlike the United States, where kratom has already become relatively popular in the last fifteen years, the old continent is still going slow with the plant, either because it has not suffered an epidemic of legal opioids as serious as the one on the other side of the ocean, because no legal associations have been formed in its defense such as the American Kratom Association, because the strategies to publicize its benefits have not yet reached the public that could benefit from its properties, because of the fact that many of its countries have made it illegal without serious studies, or even because in Europe there is not a popular social network that works like Reddit, which is a real meeting and discussion point among American kratom consumers, with almost 120.000 members in its page dedicated to the plant.

Native to Southeast Asia, where it has been used as a traditional medicine for many centuries, kratom was catalogued by a Westerner in the mid-19th century, went virtually unnoticed during the 20th century despite the discovery of its use as a harm reduction tool among opiate users, and finally, at the beginning of the 21st century, Americans also began to benefit from its analgesic, antidepressant and tranquilizing properties, making it popular precisely because it is a natural substitute for various drugs with harmful side effects for the human body.

“It is a consensus among kratom users that online stores offer better quality and better priced products, and this is because many of them are dedicated exclusively to the sale of kratom.”

In Germany, the government held the discussion whether kratom should be included in the Narcotic Drugs Act (BtMG) or undergo special controls under the Medicines Act (AMG) in the mid 2010s, and the decision was in favor of kratom, since it was labeled as for non-human use. In other countries, such as Denmark and Norway, kratom can be prescribed by a licensed doctor under certain circumstances. In summary, kratom is 100% legal in these European countries (as of July 2021): Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, and Ukraine.

The rest of the European countries mention kratom and/or some of its alkaloids in the lists of controlled substances and should be analyzed individually so that one takes into account what is mentioned in the current legislation of each country.

As for the availability of kratom on the European continent, most suppliers have online stores. Although there are some physical stores that sell kratom in countries such as Germany, Spain, Netherlands and Czech Republic, it is a consensus among kratom users that online stores offer better quality and better priced products, and this is because many of them are dedicated exclusively to the sale of kratom, and therefore, control the quality and origin of the product, as they usually have regular buyers who develop a bond of trust. Nectar Leaf, for example, sells only lab-tested products to ensure that our kratom does not contain toxins or heavy metals, as well as guaranteeing that all products offered have the expected amounts of Mitragyna speciosa‘s natural alkaloids.