San Diego's City Attorney's Office has sued the owner of 11 local smoke shops, alleging his stores sold kratom, a psychoactive substance the office says has contributed to medical emergencies and fatal overdoses across the county. Wadeea Wadeea now faces the city in court over the allegations, with officials asking a judge to bar his shops from selling the substance altogether.
The lawsuit, first reported by Times of San Diego, names Wadeea as one of the city's largest kratom sellers, according to the court injunction the city is seeking. His stores are located in Imperial Beach, Normal Heights, Ocean Beach, North Park, Mira Mesa and South San Diego. City Attorney Heather Ferbert's office is asking the court to stop kratom sales at all 11 locations and is also seeking fines against Wadeea.
Kratom is derived from the leaves of a tree native to Southeast Asia and is often marketed by smoke shops and convenience stores as an organic, holistic product. But according to health officials cited in the lawsuit, kratom extracts can produce opioid-like effects, and city attorney's office attorneys allege the sales have led to medical emergencies and, in some cases, fatal overdoses.
A Pattern of Legal Trouble for the Same Owner
This is not Wadeea's first run-in with San Diego's legal system. Ferbert's office filed a separate civil enforcement action against him in December 2025, alleging that his business, Mira Mesa Smoke And Vape, was selling unlicensed cannabis products from a concealed back room. That earlier case, detailed in Hoodline's report on the cannabis lawsuit, accused Wadeea, co-defendant Talin Toma, and two smoke shop entities of violating the Unfair Competition Law and the Uniform Controlled Substances Act. That suit sought civil penalties of up to $2,500 per Unfair Competition Law violation and $25,000 per Health and Safety Code offense.
State business filings show Wadeea listed as chief executive officer, chief financial officer, secretary, and registered agent for Mira Mesa Smoke And Vape, Inc., which was incorporated on July 27, 2023, according to Bizprofile records. State records also show Wadeea serving as registered agent for ten corporate entities in total. Together, the two lawsuits paint a picture city attorneys describe as a pattern of regulatory noncompliance.
Deaths Tied to Kratom Locally and Nationwide
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded at least 233 kratom-associated deaths in the United States between 2015 and 2025, and city attorney's office attorneys allege kratom-associated deaths accounted for more than 10 percent of overdose deaths in San Diego County over the past five years. Kratom has been linked to dozens of deaths locally, part of what officials describe as a substance tied to hundreds of deaths nationwide.
San Diego County's own medical examiner has tracked the substance's toxicity for more than a decade. According to San Diego County News Center, the county recorded four mitragynine-related deaths in 2015 and two more in 2016 — among the earliest official documentation of fatal kratom toxicity in the region. Separately, a California Department of Public Health analysis cited by the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom found that kratom was implicated in 242 deaths statewide between 2020 and 2022, with 27 fatalities attributed solely to kratom products. The same analysis pointed to a CDC finding that kratom was implicated in 846 fatal overdoses across 30 states and Washington, D.C., in 2022 alone.
Why Cities, Not the State, Are Cracking Down
California has no outright statewide ban on adult kratom sales, which is why cities like San Diego have leaned on local ordinances to police the substance. San Diego's own ban dates back to June 2016, when the City Council passed an emergency ordinance adding kratom and other novel psychoactive drugs to the municipal code's list of prohibited substances, following local public health concerns over synthetic and psychoactive drugs. Cities throughout California have since outlawed kratom or cracked down on stores selling it, according to Times of San Diego.
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors moved toward similar restrictions outside city limits in 2020, directing county officials to draft a public nuisance ordinance after receiving reports of ten local kratom-related deaths, per county records. Other Southern California jurisdictions have gone further: Oceanside and Orange County have both enacted complete bans on the sale, distribution, and possession of all kratom products regardless of concentration.
The regional crackdown extended into enforcement earlier this year. In March, a joint task force including the Oceanside Police Department, the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, NCIS, and the DEA seized more than 100 pounds of merchandise containing suspected kratom, psilocybin, and THC from four Oceanside smoke shops, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the Oceanside smoke shop raids. That raid followed Oceanside's own municipal kratom ban, similar to San Diego's.
State Warnings Preceded the Lawsuit
The lawsuit against Wadeea also arrives against a backdrop of state health warnings. In October 2025, the California Department of Public Health cautioned that despite existing hazard alerts, illegal kratom and concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, products remained widely available in convenience stores and smoke shops statewide — a warning Hoodline covered in its report on the state's kratom and 7-OH warning. State officials at the time emphasized that concentrated 7-OH products carry severe risks of respiratory depression.
Times of San Diego reported that it contacted an attorney for Wadeea seeking comment on the new lawsuit, and the outlet noted its article would be updated with any response. As of the lawsuit's filing, San Diego's City Attorney's Office is asking a judge to prohibit sales of kratom at all 11 of Wadeea's smoke shops and to order him to pay fines.
