The United State’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently announced it would classify the plant as a Schedule I substance – “one with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

CNN reported that the classification would come into effect on Sept 30. Other drugs in Schedule I include heroin, LSD, marijuana and ecstasy.

The DEA’s designation, however, is for a proposed three years, after which it could be extended permanently, said the report.

Ketum, known in the US as kratom, is currently “loosely regulated” by the US’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“When taken at low dosages, kratom can act like a stimulant, heightening alertness. At higher doses, kratom is a sedative, producing opioid-like effects that dull pain.

“It has this effect because mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine – the active ingredients in kratom – bind to the opioid receptors in our body,” the report quoted Dr Ed Boyer, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School as saying.

“It’s several times more potent than morphine, and dulls pain very well,” he said, adding “You can have very, very good analgesia.”

In 2014, the FDA issued an import alert that allowed US Customs agents to seize ketum without a physical examination after the plant was identified to pose a risk to public health and to have the potential of being abused.

Between Feb 2014 and July 2016, the DEA seized nearly 112 tonnes of ketum, said the report.

Last month, the Rubber Industries Smallholders Development Authority (Risda) called on the government to allow smallholders to cultivate ketum for export to increase their earnings. The call was echoed by ketum farmers and traditional healers in Kedah, Perlis and Penang, who cited the high demand for the leaves abroad (for pharmaceutical use) to make their case.