Some of the largest businesses that sell unregulated cannabis-derived products in Ohio are putting other highly synthetic products, including kratom, on the shelves at the same time.

Largely found at gas stations and smoke stores, the items might be sold under dozens of different brand labels. But the delta-8 THC cartridges and edibles and kratom tablets and shots mostly link back to the same few businesses, said Stephanie Pike Moore, a researcher at Case Western Reserve University.

“There’s so many of them that just create a new brand when they get in trouble for one brand, so you see those leave the shelves and then a new brand emerges,” Pike Moore said in an interview.

Kratom, a botanical herb from Asia, has naturally-occurring trace amounts of mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine—wh

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