California is a diverse state that covers most of America’s west coast, containing a range of cultures that vary widely in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland & San Diego. The state has long maintained a “live and let live” view about herbal medicines. However, recent scares over dangerous synthetic drugs likely created pressure for lawmakers to react in San Diego, as they have recently enacted Ordinance O-20657. As of this writing in May 2018, kratom is legal without restrictions everywhere in California except the city limits of San Diego. We have reached out to the city council of San Diego inquiring about the logic (or lack thereof) of adding kratom to this city ordinance and are still awaiting a response. Currently kratom is legal everywhere in the state of California, with the exception of the city of San Diego. Fortunately there don’t appear to be any implications that the legal actions taken to ban kratom in San Diego will spread to the rest of the state. Below we will cover the best place to buy kratom in each of the major metro CA cities.
3215 17th St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 275-0240
Hands down the best place to purchase kratom in San Francisco is at Bumble Bee Botanicals. Located in the Mission District, they have the widest range of kratom strains and the prices are the best in town. The product is lab tested for biological contaminants and purity. They have great customer reviews, the store is clean, the staff is professional and knowledgeable and they carry all kinds of kratom products, powder, capsules and kratom extracts.
1757 Hillhurst Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
CBD Kratom is a newer but fast growing and reputable retail brand specializing in kratom and CBD products. You can rest assured knowing that their kratom products are lab tested and sourced from well known suppliers in the industry. CBD Kratom’s staff are friendly and knowledgeable and they carry a wide selection of kratom powders, capsules and extracts. Their prices are fairly high but the quality is good and it is not a traditional smoke shop.
8047 La Mesa Blvd #C
La Mesa, CA 91942
(619) 724-4892
The best place to buy kratom in San Diego is at Bumble Bee Botanicals. The store is centrally located in La Mesa, CA (which is the center of the San Diego metro area). Remember, you cannot legally purchase kratom in the city limits of San Diego due to the city ordinance mentioned above but Bumble Bee Botanicals store is located just a couple minutes east of the city and is hands down the most awesome kratom store we have seen in the US. Just like their store in San Francisco, the staff is knowledgeable, the products are top quality, pricing is great for retail, the products are lab tested, etc, but this store gets bonus points for being beautifully designed and immaculate. It looks and smells like a candy shop but with kratom!
Kratom is commonly found in random smoke shops across the state of California. Outside of smoke ships, there really are not many places to purchase the product locally (with the exception of the high quality stores mentioned above). Fortunately, there are many great places to buy kratom online and have it shipped to your home in California. We encourage kratom consumers to purchase the product online versus your local smoke shop for several reasons. One, we believe the overall image of kratom in the public sphere is damaged when the product is purchased at a smoke shop because other, less savory products are often purchased from smoke shops and kratom is often found guilty by association. It was not that long ago that spice and bath salts were sold at smoke shops around the country and kratom is often, very unfairly, lumped into this category of product. Two, in our experience, smoke shop kratom is typically of lesser quality than kratom that can be purchased online from a reputable vendor. And three, kratom is often priced at incredibly high margins at smoke shops. For these reasons, we believe the kratom community is better served when purchasing the product from reputable online vendors or the reputable specialty kratom stores mentioned above. Avoid the smoke shops!