Mitragyna speciosa Kratom use is legal in most parts of the world, and is not specifically tested for in drug-screens or drug tests. Yet Kratom users facing potential drug-tests, such as urine drug-screens, which are very common in the U.S.A. for instance- should be very careful with Kratom use, and preferably restrain for using Kratom in the days before a test, as one would with opiates.

Indeed, Kratom has been very occasionally reported to have caused false-positive results for opiates, morphine and other opiate break-down products- and while Kratom is still a legal substance, such results might place the user in a delicate or problematic situation.

Such false-positive results in immuno-assays are not systematic, and most regular Mitragyna speciosa Kratom users tested have actually never tripped such results. Yet it is important to mention that some false-positives have been reported, and apparently only due to Kratom use.

In theory, Mitragyna speciosa Kratom alkaloids are active on various opiate receptors yet do not have a molecular conformation similar to morphine, heroin, codeine, or synthetic opioids and opiates. Mitragyna speciosa Kratom alkaloids are believed to have no structural by-products that might be able to trigger a false positive, yet this has apparently occasionally happened. The mechanism is not well known and depends on the type of test method used in the opiate drug screen, the Kratom doses used and type / strength of the Kratom products.

What is likely at play is the type of opiate screening used. Some tests are very sensitive and might actually react to strong Kratom. It is also possible to detect the presence of Kratom in certain high technology situations, such as immuno-analysis machines which use antibodies selected against drug receptors in the brain, implying that any chemical, irregardless of its structure, that activates a given receptor, will be detected as a positive. Such technology is still uncommon but becoming more accessible, currently using semi-quantitative values, yet with a technology that is moving towards greater accuracy, with fully quantitative values. This might mean further problems even for users of legal substances like Mitragyna speciosa Kratom, as quantitative value for an unknown analyte are systematically screened.

In such cases, if a quantitative confirmation test were to be done, it would turn out negative, since confirmation tests are chemically specific, and no confirmation testing is done for Mitragyna speciosa Kratom. Yet it is relatively well known within the drug testing industry that such high-tech immuno-analysis screens are very precise, and almost never wrong. If Kratom triggers a positive,
just because the exact chemical can't be pinpointed it doesn't really say much. An eventual gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) or H.P.L.C. or a related technique used in confirmation testing might come back negative, however, if the drug testing was done for some non-criminal reason, such as applying for work or a job, then the false-positive screen might be enough to lead to problematic issues.

In conclusion, while the chances of Mitragyna speciosa Kratom tripping a false positive result for opiates in a drug-screen are still relatively slim, this remains a possibility.

Kratom users potentially facing important drug-testing are encouraged to proceed with caution and to adapt their Kratom use accordingly.