A drug that can be bought at gas stations across the country is making national headlines after the deaths of two college students. One of them was an 18-year-old from Colorado.
Aidan Hamilton from Englewood was found dead in his dorm at the University of Mississippi on Monday. Another Ole Miss student, Robert Strang, a 20-year-old junior from Atlanta, died the same day at an off-campus apartment.
Near both of their bodies was “packaged kratom sold from a retail store,” according to Lafayette County Metro Narcotics. Law enforcement in Mississippi do not yet know if these deaths were related, or if they were caused by kratom. Mississippi officials are fast-tracking those two men’s toxicology reports to see if kratom played a role. But authorities there are warning people to avoid kratom out of an abundance of caution.
While both Colorado and Mississippi recently passed laws regulating kratom, it’s not a federally controlled substance…