Opium, which causes the consumer to fall asleep before danger to health is felt, was prohibited. This prohibition gave way to the popularization of morphine, which was commonly administered through a syringe, and had greater addiction potential than opium as well as being lethal at certain doses.

Morphine was replaced with the "safer" alternative, heroin. Heroin was then made illegal, which opened up the market for a dearth of semi-synthetic opioids with varying potencies. All of which could also kill you.

These substances were then restricted or prohibited, propelling the market to adopt the most potent synthetic opioids available so as to serve the market demand most efficiently and make smuggling easier and more successful. Today, we are seeing the issues with fentanyl and other highly potent opioid being the most popular black market drugs.
All of this could have been avoided by leaving the highly desirable and miraculously safe opium legal.

Don't repeat this history with kratom. It will cause many more thousands to suffer, and will in not long term way change the drug market demand, and will instead shift the profits to criminal organizations.

Kratom is remarkably safe. Just 30 minutes browsing a handful of articles about "kratom" on google scholar will show you that. What is needed is regulation, which Virginia already has. If you believe their is a real issue with kratom on the market, the answer is to increase regulations so that consumption and harms/benefits can be monitored. Making it illegal will take it out from your control, harm legitimate business, force consumers to a dangerous black market, pack the overflowing prisons with yet more non-violent offenders, and enrich those who choose to break the law.