8 Aug 29th-Sept 4th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | addiction potential similar to cannabis or alcohol. About a quarter of kratom users experience addiction, he added. The drug is not to be taken lightly. “If you’ve never taken the product before … you may be one of those people who is going to get hooked,” White said. “And for you, it’ll have a very detrimental effect on the rest of your life.” University of Florida College of Pharmacy professor and kratom expert Christopher McCurdy disagrees slightly. He’s studied kratom for 20 years and said it doesn’t cause addiction as much as it leads to dependence, such as a coffee drinker getting a headache when they forgo a morning cup. “If they don’t have their dose, they do have some irritability and withdrawal effects, which are, for the most part — in the people who are using it responsibly — pretty mild,” McCurdy said, though he has also heard from high-level users that they struggle to decrease their daily usage in any way. What’s rare — extremely so, according to NIDA — are deaths such as Pinney’s. When they do happen, kratom often isn’t the sole culprit. A 2019 NIDA report found that 11 deaths between 2011 and 2017 in the U.S. were associated with kratom expo- sure, and only two were associated with kratom alone. “In a lot of those cases, the people had taken several different substances at the same time,” White said. “Was kratom an innocent bystander? Was it a contributor? Or was it the main cause?” Pinney’s autopsy suggests it was the main cause, but McCurdy warns against relying too heavily on those reports. He’s served as an expert witness on other kratom-death-related lawsuits, many of which he said resulted in settlements. Medical examiners are not trained toxicol- ogists, he said. If they can’t find anything wrong in the autopsy but find an unfamiliar substance such as mitragynine, they will label that as the cause of death. “There have been a couple of autopsy reports that said mitragynine was the cause of death,” McCurdy said, “and, by the way, they had a gunshot wound to the head.” ‘Absolute hell’ Kratom-related deaths may be few, but they do occur. Their rarity hardly mitigates the grief they cause. Since Pinney’s passing nearly two years ago, Logan has been unable to work, according to his lawsuit. He has attended grief therapy and counseling sessions, but larger events would lead to “whole emotional breakdowns and crying” afterward. He is not the only one affected. Logan also brought the suit on behalf of Pinney’s parents, Elizabeth Pinney and Thomas Gabaldon. Logan also has two sons from a previous relationship who were close with Pinney. “They really loved her and cared about her,” Logan said, and both boys have struggled in school since her death. For Logan, the last two years have felt like “a time warp” and an “absolute hell” without Pinney. Around the home they shared, her presence persists. Pinney painted, and some of her childhood work still hangs around their house. She’ll never be totally gone, but Logan also will never be totally over losing her. “You’re constantly asking for answers and questions,” Logan said, “that you’ll never get proper answers to.” His lawsuit could provide some expla- nation, though it could take years to resolve. But if it results in even a small amount of justice for Pinney’s death — and there’s no guarantee that it will — it will give Logan a measure of closure he’s craved for a long time. Jennifer Pinney died in 2022 from what an autopsy said were toxic levels of mitragynine, the active ingredient in the legal drug kratom. (Photo courtesy of Cullen Logan) Toxic Tea? from p 6
