MIDLOTHIAN, Va.—When Cameron Francis was a 22-year-old student at a Christian college, he thought he had found a near-miraculous, innocuous alternative to alcoholic drinks.
An athlete featured on posters promoting Liberty University’s cross-country runners, Francis took his sport seriously. But he would occasionally drink with his buddies. His girlfriend, a teetotaler, disapproved.
So, Francis searched online for something else that would help him feel more social at weekend parties.
“And that’s where I came across kratom,” Francis told The Epoch Times.
He regrets that discovery now, eight years after he first got his hands on the imported, opioid-like substance derived from a tropical evergreen….