Medicine's Ryan Marino discusses ‘gas station heroin’

‘The demon, the devil, the beast’: How ‘gas station heroin’ got Americans in a headlock

Vice News (subscription required): Ryan Marino, associate professor at the School of Medicine, said 7-OH—a kratom derivative—is an opioid that “acts on your opioid receptors the same way as morphine or heroin.” He also cautioned that bans may backfire, pushing users toward fentanyl, and noted it is not clearly causing deaths alone.