For Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the drug-related deaths of two college students in Mississippi triggered his personal memories of a relative involved with synthetic drugs.
Mr. Mullin, speaking at a Breitbart forum this week, said his wife’s brother, Brandon, developed a drug addiction that led him to prison. Faced with drug testing when he got out, he turned to synthetics to try to beat the tests.
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“He had a drug problem, but when he got out, he started working on the ranch and got on the synthetics because he could pass drug tests,” Mr. Mullin said. “It led to him going back to prison.”
Two students at the University of Mississippi were found dead with packages of a synthetic kratom nearby. Kratom has not officially been linked to the deaths, but the incidents have spawned a spate of new warnings.
Kratom is an herbal product that can act as a stimulant or opioid, depending on the dose. But synthetic kratom can be more potent, such as by maximizing a compound known as 7-OH.
SEE ALSO: Mullin puts Homeland Security on the synthetic kratom beat
Mr. Mullin said DHS agents went around the Washington area recently, seeing what they could purchase. They found kratom at gas stations that had much higher potency than the traditional herbal product.
“Some of this stuff is 480 mg for four pills. That’s 13 times per pill [higher] than a dose of morphine and it’s technically legal as of right now, but I believe that is going to be pulled down and we are working with the states but that synthetic has become a new opioid crisis,” Mr. Mullin said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration has proposed a rule that would ban synthetic kratom.
Lawmakers have pushed the DEA for a crackdown.
And some have questioned Mr. Mullin’s role after The New York Times reported in June that the secretary has an investment in a kratom company. A spokesperson for Mr. Mullin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to Mr. Mullin’s story about his brother-in-law, he in the past has talked about his own life, which he said was headed down the wrong path.
He said it changed after he embraced Christianity and watched the movie “American History X.”
The 1998 movie is about an ex-skinhead who goes to prison for murder, suffering a brutal three years behind bars, then emerges to try to stop his younger brother from repeating his cycle of hate and violence.
“My life changed when I got saved and I was 20 years old. Until then, my dad said I was more likely to go to prison than I was to be successful,” Mr. Mullin recounted at a DHS event in May.
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