Colorado teen one of 2 Ole Miss students found dead with kratom packages nearby

A drug that can be bought at gas stations across the country is making national headlines after the deaths of two college students. One of them was an 18-year-old from Colorado.

Aidan Hamilton from Englewood was found dead in his dorm at the University of Mississippi on Monday. Another Ole Miss student, Robert Strang, a 20-year-old junior from Atlanta, died the same day at an off-campus apartment.

Near both of their bodies was "packaged kratom sold from a retail store," according to Lafayette County Metro Narcotics. Law enforcement in Mississippi do not yet know if these deaths were related, or if they were caused by kratom. Mississippi officials are fast-tracking those two men's toxicology reports to see if kratom played a role. But authorities there are warning people to avoid kratom out of an abundance of caution.

While both Colorado and Mississippi recently passed laws regulating kratom, it's not a federally controlled substance.

"We're seeing it more and more," said Steve Carleton, chief clinical officer at Porch Light Health.

Carleton says kratom is increasingly driving patients to his addiction treatment practice.

"It's a natural leaf that people have been chewing on in Southeast Asia for hundreds of years," said Carleton.

The leaf contains a chemical called 7-OH, which causes opioid-like effects. Kratom products today often contain enhanced levels.

"They're putting 300% to 400% more of this 7-OH into this kratom plant. That is what is risky for people with overdose deaths and addiction," said Carleton. "There's not much 7-OH found in that natural leaf, but as these drug manufacturers, they're just increasing this part of this naturally occurring plant that does produce a high to like to very unnatural levels."

But kratom is not scheduled as a federally controlled substance, and regulations vary widely by state.

"People can kind of manufacture this however they want and sell it however they want right now," said Carleton. "It can come in a pill form. It can come in gummy form. Just about any way people consume drugs, so they produce this in a way that is very commercially appealing to people."

In 2021, a 33-year-old Denver man, Daniel Bregger, died from an overdose of kratom and diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl.

"I miss him every moment of every day," David Bregger, Daniel's father, told CBS Colorado's Olivia Young in 2025. "I'd never even heard of kratom before."

His family believes he'd purchased kratom online as a holistic anxiety treatment.

"There were no labeling instructions whatsoever on them, nor on their website. And so it was a lethal dose," Bregger said.

But some have used kratom to self-treat conditions like anxiety, chronic pain, and addiction.

"I know kratom will save somebody like me," Colorado kratom advocate Misty Brown told CBS Colorado's Olivia Young in 2025.

Misty Brown says the natural form of kratom saved her from opioid addiction, and the real danger lies in synthetically enhanced kratom products.

"Whole leaf kratom powder is an exit from addiction. These synthetic 7-OH products that are out here is an entrance into one," said Brown.

While we don't know if kratom contributed to the deaths of the two Ole Miss students, Carleton wants people to be cautious about the substance.

"It's not a safe substance," said Carleton.

Last year, Colorado passed the Daniel Bregger Act, which, among other things, bans the sale of kratom to those under 21, caps the amount of 7-OH in kratom products, and requires clear labeling.

"It's a plague in Colorado, and the legislation will save a lot of lives. And that's what I'm in it for, to save lives in Dan's memory," Bregger said in 2025.

Mississippi has similar kratom regulations. And there is some movement federally. The DEA recently proposed temporarily placing concentrated 7-OH products into Schedule I, but that hasn't happened yet.

Carleton says 7-OH is responsive to Narcan.

"If you or a loved one is using any type of opiate or any type of kratom 7-OH product, it's good to have Narcan on hand, and people should know that you don't use Narcan on yourself. So if you're the loved one of somebody that's using it, it's a good idea for you to carry," said Carleton.