Feel Free: The Liquid Opioid Branded As An Innocent “Herbal Drink”
Photo: Feel Free drink
In the era of health and wellness, seeing the words “plant-based herbal tonic” in the beverage section of your local convenience store shouldn’t make you pause. With healthy drink brands like Bella Hadid’s Kin Europhics and Olipop’s prebiotic soda muscling in on grocery store shelves, Feel Free’s herbal tonic blends in with its contenders. Even more, the promise that it is a “natural alternative to alcohol” appears entirely plausible. It is reasonable for a customer to buy the unassuming bottle and believe they are making a healthier decision than purchasing a White Claw. However, the wholesome packaging hides a dark truth. Feel Free is a liquid opioid, and people are becoming severely addicted to a drink that was originally purchased with pure intentions.
The blue bottles contain two major ingredients: kava (root) and kratom. Kava is a central nervous system depressant made from the kava (piper methysticum) shrub. It produces alcohol-like effects, including relaxation, euphoria and drowsiness. According to the ADF, when Kava is mixed with other drugs, it can have unpredictable effects and increase the risk of harm, including liver damage and memory loss. Feel Free also contains kratom, a herbal substance that produces effects similar to opioids. At low doses, it acts as a stimulant. At very high doses, it is a sedative - making users restrained and sluggish. To be clear, the drink is essentially a highly-addictive liquid opiate.
Kratom’s recovery process is also similar to other opioids. Mayo Clinic notes: “In a study testing kratom as a treatment for symptoms of opioid withdrawal, people who took kratom for more than six months reported withdrawal symptoms similar to those that occur after opioid use.” Alarmingly, since April 2018, over 130 people in the U.S became ill with salmonella after using kratom and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration linked nearly 40 deaths to salmonella-tainted kratom.
Currently, there are no FDA-approved products that contain either kratom or kava - and the bottle notes it. It also nods to the fact that any “feel good” product can be habit forming, highlighting kratom as an addictive ingredient in a tiny font on the back of the bottle. However, like tobacco products that also list danger warnings, it doesn’t necessarily serve as a preventative measure. The size of the small bottle could also be attributed to people under estimating its effects.
In a Reddit thread r/QuittingFeelFree with 1.5k growing members, one user writes: “I am currently drinking at least 5 every day, and need to drink half a bottle around 2 am every night just to get back to sleep. I am overspending and going into debt; my bank account is currently overdrawn and I make a pretty decent living. I no longer feel good (or free), I feel anxious and depressed and cannot achieve that same feeling/response as I did in the beginning.”
Users who struggle with alcohol addiction purchase Feel Free in hopes to combat their vices. In the thread, a Redditor posts: “I’ve been sober from alcohol for 5 months and everything was going great until maybe a month and a half ago, when I started trying Feel Free. It has spiraled out of control and I’m going to put a stop to this. I don’t even enjoy it. I feel so helpless though because everyone in my life is so proud of me for giving up alcohol, I don’t have the heart to tell them I’ve just stumbled from one problem to another.”
One of the most dangerous components behind Feel Free lies in how guilt-free the marketing can appear.
Joe Bartolozzi, a TikTok influencer with over 23 million followers, posted a paid sponsorship featuring six of the bottles on his countertop. He compares the drink to Fortnite’s small shield potions, a blue beverage that restores a player’s health in the battle game. He boasts his influencer coupon of $40 dollars off of 12 bottles, and even notes he drinks Feel Free “all the time.”
The brand’s own TikTok page adapts the soft-life, wellness aesthetic entirely - often using subdued meditation music over clips of mocktail DIY’s or workout routines that spotlight Feel Free as an “energy drink.” Their page features a primary content creator: a young, pretty woman in her 20’s. It is common for brands to align themselves with people who are appealing from a marketing standpoint, and the pharma industry is no stranger to this tactic.
Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin, a prescription pain opioid, is a Schedule II substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which includes other drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine. In the drug’s introduction stage, the company specifically recruited pretty men and women in hopes to convince doctors to prescribe the medicine to their patients. This strategy plays on the consistent findings that view attractive people as kinder and more trustworthy, also called the “halo effect.”
Anrs Davis Law, a premier litigation firm based in California, is currently pursuing a nationwide class action in federal court against the company, alongside a number of personal injury and wrongful death cases across the U.S from the purchase and consumption of Feel Free.
It is extremely frightening to think that the innocent purchase of a drink from your local convenience store could result in an opioid-like addiction, completely out of your control. These disturbing stories serve as a reminder that often, businesses do not have the consumer’s best interest at heart. A similar logic applies to influencers who are either motivated by compensation or perilously, did not fully vet the product they are promoting.
Also, in the age of fast-consumption, slow, intentional purchases are not encouraged. Mega companies like Amazon deliver products in record-breaking time, and social media’s ad algorithm encourages more purchases.
I deeply urge consumers to shop slowly; to research the effects of items or experiences that sound too good to be true. Feel Free has proved it is not worth taking the bet.