Kratom, Tianeptine, and Phenibut: What Are These Things Being Sold at Gas Stations?

KRATOM

What Is It?

Kratom, botanical name Mitragyna speciosa, is a plant native to Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Its leaves contain active compounds called mitragynine and 7 hydroxymitragynine that interact with opioid receptors in the brain.

Kratom has been used traditionally in Southeast Asian cultures for centuries, primarily by manual laborers who chewed the leaves to reduce fatigue and pain during physically demanding work. The doses involved in traditional use were relatively modest and the cultural context included significant social regulation of use.

What is being sold at American gas stations bears limited resemblance to that traditional use. Gas station kratom products are highly concentrated extracts, powders, capsules, and liquid shots, that deliver far higher doses of active alkaloids than traditional leaf chewing. Some products are marketed specifically for opioid withdrawal management, pain relief, and anxiety reduction, therapeutic claims that are completely unverified and that the FDA explicitly prohibits on supplement labeling.

What Does It Do?

Kratom’s effects are dose dependent and this is clinically important.

At low doses, roughly one to five grams of dried leaf equivalent, kratom produces stimulant like effects: increased energy, reduced fatigue, increased sociability, and mild euphoria. Users describe it as coffee like, which is not surprising given that kratom is in the same botanical family as the coffee plant.

At higher doses, five grams and above, the opioid receptor effects become dominant. Users experience sedation, pain relief, and euphoria similar to opioid medications. Nausea is common. Respiratory depression, the mechanism of opioid overdose, can occur at very high doses, particularly in combination with other CNS depressants.

With repeated use kratom causes physical dependence. Withdrawal from kratom is clinically similar to opioid withdrawal and includes muscle aches, insomnia, irritability, anxiety, nausea, sweating, and in severe cases elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Withdrawal is not life threatening in most cases but is genuinely uncomfortable and has driven continued use in people trying to stop.

The FDA’s Position on Kratom

The FDA has been attempting to regulate kratom for over a decade. In 2016 the DEA announced its intent to temporarily schedule mitragynine and 7 hydroxymitragynine as Schedule I substances, the same classification as heroin, before withdrawing the scheduling action following significant public and congressional pushback from kratom users who reported genuine benefit for pain and opioid withdrawal management.

The FDA has repeatedly stated that kratom has opioid properties, that it has been associated with deaths, primarily in combination with other substances, and that it does not meet the standard for being generally recognized as safe. The FDA has seized shipments of kratom imported for supplement use and issued public health warnings on multiple occasions.

Despite this, kratom remains legal at the federal level and is sold in gas stations, smoke shops, and online retailers in most states. Several states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, have banned kratom. Mississippi has not enacted a statewide kratom ban as of this writing.

The Population Most at Risk From Kratom

People in recovery from opioid use disorder face the highest risk from kratom for a straightforward reason: kratom activates the same opioid receptors that opioid drugs activate. For someone who has achieved sobriety from opioids, kratom can trigger relapse dynamics, cross dependence, and a return to opioid seeking behavior, all while being technically legal and purchasable without any interaction with the healthcare or criminal justice systems.

Kratom does not consistently appear on standard urine drug screening panels, which means a person in a monitored recovery program can use kratom without detection.

This is a documented clinical problem that addiction medicine specialists are seeing with increasing frequency.

TIANEPTINE

What Is It?

We covered tianeptine in detail in our previous post on gas station heroin. The brief version for this post:

Tianeptine is a drug developed in France as an antidepressant, never approved by the FDA for any use, currently sold at gas stations as a supplement under names including Zaza and Neptune’s Fix. It acts on mu opioid receptors, the same receptors targeted by heroin and prescription opioids, at the doses found in gas station products.

What Does It Do?

At the doses in gas station products, tianeptine produces opioid like euphoria and sedation. It causes physical dependence with a withdrawal syndrome comparable to opioid withdrawal. It does not appear on standard drug screening panels. It has caused coma and death.

The FDA issued a formal public health warning about tianeptine in 2025 and has classified its increasing prevalence as a dangerous and growing health crisis.

The Key Difference From Kratom

While kratom comes from a plant and contains natural alkaloids, tianeptine is a synthetic pharmaceutical compound. There is no traditional use, no botanical rationale, and no clinical framing in which tianeptine belongs in a dietary supplement. Its presence in gas station products is purely the result of regulatory gap exploitation.

Several states have specifically banned tianeptine. The federal scheduling process has been slow. In states where it remains legal, including Mississippi, it is sold openly.

PHENIBUT

What Is It?

Phenibut, chemical name beta phenyl gamma aminobutyric acid, is a synthetic compound developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s as an anti anxiety medication. It was used by Soviet cosmonauts and military personnel as a performance maintaining anxiolytic.

It is approved as a pharmaceutical medication in Russia and some Eastern European countries. It has never been approved by the FDA for any use in the United States.

In the United States phenibut is sold as a dietary supplement, as a nootropic, cognitive enhancer, and anti anxiety supplement, in capsule and powder form at supplement retailers, online stores, and increasingly at gas stations.

What Does It Do?

Phenibut acts primarily on GABA B receptors, the same receptor class targeted by baclofen, a muscle relaxant and treatment for alcohol use disorder, and also has activity at GABA A receptors at higher doses, similar to benzodiazepines.

At therapeutic doses phenibut produces anxiolytic effects, reduced anxiety, improved sleep, mild sedation, and a sense of calm. This is the effect that drives initial use.

With repeated daily use, which many users adopt because the product is available and legal, phenibut causes physical dependence that develops rapidly. Tolerance also develops quickly, requiring escalating doses to achieve the same effect.

Phenibut withdrawal is clinically serious. It resembles benzodiazepine withdrawal more than opioid withdrawal, anxiety, insomnia, tremors, confusion, perceptual disturbances, and in severe cases seizures. Benzodiazepine and phenibut withdrawal are among the few substance withdrawal syndromes that can be directly life threatening. Phenibut withdrawal should be managed with medical supervision.

The Drug Interaction Risk

Phenibut is a significant CNS depressant. Combined with alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines, sleep medications, or any other CNS depressant, the combined effect can produce respiratory depression that is life threatening.

A person who takes phenibut from a gas station supplement display, then takes their prescribed Xanax, then has two drinks at dinner, has combined three CNS depressants without any clinical oversight, and without knowing that the supplement they bought was a pharmaceutical grade CNS depressant at all.

This is not a hypothetical. It is a documented mechanism of phenibut related adverse events and deaths.

The Nootropic Marketing Problem

Phenibut is heavily marketed in nootropic and biohacking communities as a cognitive enhancer and social anxiety treatment. The marketing frames it as a safe, natural alternative to prescription anxiety medications.

It is not natural, it is a synthetic pharmaceutical. It is not safe for daily use, it causes rapid physical dependence. And it is not a proven cognitive enhancer, its primary effect is anxiolytic sedation, not cognitive enhancement.

The nootropic marketing community has a significant influence on young professional men in particular, a demographic that has both the disposable income to purchase premium supplement products and the cultural inclination toward self optimization that makes nootropic framing persuasive.

The Common Thread

Kratom, tianeptine, and phenibut are three structurally and pharmacologically different substances that share one critical feature: each one produces dependence, carries meaningful drug interaction risks, and is being sold in a regulatory framework that provides essentially no consumer protection.

None of the three carries adequate warning labeling about dependence potential. None of the three is subject to pre market safety review. None of the three consistently appears on standard drug screening panels. And all three are available for purchase without any interaction with a physician or pharmacist.

The people most likely to be harmed are not people who set out to abuse substances. They are people who read a convincing supplement label, wanted help with anxiety or pain or energy, and made a purchase decision in the absence of information they deserved to have.

What You Can Do Right Now

If you or someone you know is using any of these substances regularly and wants to stop, seek medical guidance before stopping. Withdrawal from tianeptine and phenibut in particular can be serious enough to require clinical management.

Mississippi Department of Mental Health helpline: 1 877 210 8513 Poison Control: 1 800 222 1222, available 24 hours Emergency: 911

If you are looking for legitimate help with anxiety, pain, or sleep, the conditions these products are typically used for, there are safe, evidence based, physician supervised options available. A pharmacist is a good first conversation about what those options look like.

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for personalized medical advice. Before starting or changing any medication, including over the counter products and supplements, talk with your pharmacist or physician about your specific situation.