KPEP operates on the front lines of Michigan’s addiction crisis.
A Debate Playing Out in Lansing — and on Our Caseload
Michigan lawmakers are debating what’s increasingly being called “gas station heroin”: kratom, an unregulated substance tied to a growing number of overdose deaths. House Bill 5537, which would ban kratom outright, passed the State House this spring and remains stalled in the Senate. For now, kratom is still legal in Michigan.
At KPEP, we’re watching this debate from the front lines. Every day, we work with men and women in recovery from substance use disorder. And while we’re seeing very little kratom use among our residents and clients, we can say with certainty that highly addictive and dangerous substances like kratom do not belong within easy reach at Michigan gas stations.
What We’re Seeing
What we are seeing more of among our residents and clients is K2, a synthetic cannabinoid that presents a different kind of challenge—it is neither consistent nor easily detectable. Manufacturers change its chemical formula constantly to stay ahead of drug screens. This makes it one of the hardest substances for us to detect because it keeps changing shape.
Kratom is showing the same pattern. Natural kratom leaf contains trace amounts of a compound called 7-OH, but manufacturers have started concentrating or synthesizing it into far more potent products still sold under the same “kratom” label. It’s a different substance chasing the same strategy as K2: stay one step ahead of regulation by continually changing the chemistry.
Routine testing for K2 or kratom specifically remains rare industry-wide, and, since neither substance is currently illegal, K9 units are not trained to detect them.
These challenges haven’t gone unnoticed at the federal level. This July, the DEA moved to reclassify 7-OH as a Schedule I controlled substance, which will pull concentrated 7-OH products from store shelves nationwide. That gives law enforcement a meaningful new tool, but it only reaches the synthetic derivative — it doesn’t touch kratom leaf itself. Michigan’s own bill, still pending in the Senate, would close that gap by banning kratom in all its forms. K2 is a different story: no pending legislation, state or federal, addresses it, which leaves facilities like KPEP to manage the risk through day-to-day supervision rather than a targeted detection tool.
Building the Right Partnerships
KPEP has responded by strengthening the fundamentals we do control. We’ve deepened our partnership with the Kalamazoo Township Police Department’s K9 drug detection unit for standard drug-detection sweeps, and we’ve increased general searches and rounds throughout our facilities to help stay ahead of contraband.
This matters because KPEP is an open facility: unlike a prison, most of our residents are in the community daily, which creates real opportunities for outside substances to come back with them. The combination of closer supervision, more frequent searches, and an active law enforcement partnership has helped keep our average monthly positive rate to 7 percent for the substances we do routinely test—relatively very low in the corrections industry.
A System Under Strain
KPEP operates on the front lines of Michigan’s addiction crisis. Our substance use disorder programming remains a vital component of the work we do to empower lives and build stronger communities, and how SUD treatment is funded shapes that work.
In 2020, Michigan shifted community-based substance use disorder funding for justice-involved clients from a single state contract to a multi-payer Medicaid system, requiring KPEP to build separate contracts with regional health plans across the state. This transition brought real complexity.
We saw that complexity firsthand when KPEP closed its residential facility in Berrien County. At the time, KPEP was the only local provider offering SUD treatment to the county’s parolee population of roughly 600 to 700—yet only 15 were enrolled. That gap does not reflect a lack of need or a lack of capacity on our end. It reflects how difficult it can be to connect people with treatment under a multi-agency referral and funding structure.
We share this not to assign blame, but because Michigan’s kratom and K2 debate is happening at the same moment its community corrections treatment system is under real strain, and we believe KPEP’s experience has something to add to that conversation.
What KPEP Is Doing About It
Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment
KPEP offers outpatient SUD treatment to residents in our transitional housing and community residential services programs in Kalamazoo, Muskegon, and Calhoun counties, using a cognitive behavioral curriculum that addresses both criminality and substance use. Additionally, through Medicaid-funded partnerships, KPEP delivers individualized, cost-effective treatment across multiple Michigan counties.
KPEP currently holds SUD treatment contracts with:
- Network180, serving Kent County
- Ottawa Community Mental Health, serving Ottawa County
- Southwest Michigan Behavioral Health, serving Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Berrien, Barry, Branch, St. Joseph, Van Buren, and Cass counties
- Mid-State Health Network, serving Osceola, Clare, Gladwin, Arenac, Newaygo, Mecosta, Isabella, Midland, Bay, Huron, Montcalm, Gratiot, Saginaw, Tuscola, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Eaton, Ingham, Jackson, and Hillsdale counties
- CMH Partnership of Southeast Michigan, serving Lenawee, Livingston, Monroe, and Washtenaw counties