FOX 32 Chicago featured Karen Wolownik Albert, CEO of Recovery Centers of America at St. Charles, in a segment examining the wave of local kratom bans taking effect across cities and towns before state-level legislation catches up — and what that means for people already dependent on the substance.
Wolownik Albert spoke to the clinical reality of kratom withdrawal and why sudden bans create a medical gap that communities aren’t prepared to fill. When a municipality bans kratom overnight, dependent users don’t simply stop — they lose access without any transition plan or treatment infrastructure in place, driving them toward emergency rooms and crisis services that weren’t built to handle kratom withdrawal at scale. The public health consequences of a ban without a treatment strategy compound quickly.
She also addressed a conversation every parent in the Chicago market needs to be having: how to talk to children about dangerous substances being sold legally at gas stations and smoke shops. Kratom products — often marketed in ways that obscure their addictive potential — are accessible to anyone who walks through the door, making parental education a frontline prevention tool.
For Recovery Centers of America, the FOX 32 Chicago placement keeps the organization’s clinical voice at the center of one of the most urgent drug policy conversations of the moment — reinforcing its role as a trusted resource for patients, families, and policymakers navigating a rapidly shifting landscape.
