A GRIEVING mom has warned of the dangers of kratom – nicknamed gas station heroin – after it was found at the scenes of two Ole Miss students’ deaths.
Susan Eppard lost her son Matthew Eller, 22, in 2021 after he became hooked on the substance, which is often taken for energy and focus but can produce opioid-like effects.
She said her “perfectly healthy” son became emaciated and increasingly isolated himself from friends and family before suffering a violent seizure and dying on the kitchen floor of his home.
“Justice for my son Matthew will be when kratom is banned across the entire United States,” Susan told The U.S. Sun.
Her warning comes after Ole Miss students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, were found dead in separate incidents on Monday.
Hamilton, a freshman from Colorado, was found unresponsive inside Stewart Hall on the University of Mississippi campus, while Strang, a junior from Georgia, was found dead at an off-campus home in Oxford.
Autopsies have been carried out and officials are fast-tracking toxicology reports to determine how the students died and whether kratom played a role.
Packaged kratom was found in both investigations, but the deaths are not thought to be linked to each other and there is no confirmed connection to the substance.
Lafayette County Metro Narcotics has since urged the Ole Miss community to avoid kratom “out of an abundance of caution.”
For Susan, the deaths immediately brought back memories of losing Matthew almost five years ago.
“It’s heartbreaking every time another person dies from kratom,” she said.
“Knowing what these families are going to have to go through, their brothers and sisters and their moms and dads, everybody.
“It’s heart-wrenching.”
Susan believes Matthew — from Cartersville, Georgia, — had been taking kratom for around two years before his death, although she said he hid the extent of his use from her.
She first discovered empty packets and initially struggled to find information online warning of serious risks.
Susan said Matthew believed it was a safe swap for coffee.
“He thought it was like a coffee alternative. Safe for energy,” she said.
But she said his use eventually became all-consuming.
“All I know was he was spending all of his money on it,” she said.
“He couldn’t pay his car payment, lost his car, couldn’t pay his phone.
“He had been living with me and I didn’t charge him any money, but he just still had no money, even for food or anything.”
Matthew was working full-time, but Susan said he was eventually spending “thousands of dollars” on kratom.
The worried mother also watched her once outgoing and athletic son dramatically change.
“He became quite emaciated. Very, very skinny,” she said.
“He was always, you know, like the center of attention. Everybody joined around him when he’d walk in a room, just lighting up every room.
“And he became very reclusive. He started staying away from all his friends and family.
“He loved his grandmother so much and he wouldn’t answer her phone calls.”
She recalled asking her son if he was taking drugs because she could not understand where his money was going.
“He said, ‘No mom, I’m not on drugs. You can test me,’” she recalled.
“And he didn’t act like he was on drugs other than when he would sleep.
“He would sleep like he was in a coma.
“I had to buy a sonic alarm clock to wake him up for work.
“I had no idea you could die from it [kratom]. I don’t think he thought he could have died from it.”
Susan said Matthew had apparently attempted to stop using kratom but continued hiding it from his girlfriend.
“I don’t know really if he ever could have got off of it,” she said.
“I think his death was the only thing that was going to free him from this garbage drug.”
Matthew was playing cards with his girlfriend at his home when tragedy struck.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/17058185/kratom-gas-station-heroin-killed-son-matthew-eller/
