OXFORD, Miss. (WMC/Gray News) — Mississippi leaders and lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on kratom and kratom-like products after two Ole Miss students died last week.

Toxicology tests are incomplete, and the autopsies on both young men are still pending.

But court documents filed Monday reveal what 18-year-old Aidan Hamilton and 20-year-old Robert Strang were doing in the hours and days before their suspected overdose deaths.

Investigators with Lafayette County Metro Narcotics previously said store-bought kratom was found in both students’ rooms.

On Sept. 30, Metro Narcotics clarified the information in an earlier statement to WMC:

“During the investigations, packaging associated with kratom-related products was discovered at both locations. This information prompted law enforcement to issue a public safety warning out of an abundance of caution.

That warning was not a declaration that kratom or any specific substance caused either death. It was a proactive effort to inform the public of a potential danger while investigators worked to determine the facts.”

Authorities were able to determine where the young men bought the drugs. The investigation now stretches from Lafayette County into neighboring Yalobusha County at a convenience store about 20 miles from the Ole Miss campus.

What investigators found in Hamilton’s dorm room

Hamilton died in his on-campus dorm room on Sept. 21.

Court documents show the coroner and medical personnel on the scene said the young man “could have died due to a pulmonary edema, consistent with a drug overdose.”

Hamilton’s roommate told investigators that Hamilton “smoked a lot of marijuana from pens and pipes,” “would keep his marijuana in a safe,” and “used it a lot, so much so, he had a terrible cough.”

But investigators are focusing on SMAX Pseudo-DHM pills, a chemically manipulated product, found on Hamilton’s dresser in his room at Stewart Hall.

Statements filed by Caleb East, an agent with the Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit, noted that “agents are aware that these are often sold as a kratom-like substance at gas stations or tobacco shops.”

Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said, “We’re wanting to test those and make sure that anything that’s in there… it’s not being laced with any other chemicals, or there’s no other harmful chemicals in that product.”

What investigators found at Strang’s home

At the scene of Strang’s death, inside his off-campus home on Van Buren Avenue, investigators said they found 20 to 30 nitrous oxide cans.

His roommates said Strang “would use whippets daily,” the street term given to the popular party drug. Strang’s housemates also said he would use “sometimes two to three cans a week.”

Investigators also found a packet of SMAX on his nightstand in packaging similar to what was found in Hamilton’s dorm.

Roommates said Strang took a Xanax bar around 4 p.m. Sunday. He was last seen in the kitchen around midnight. His body was discovered the next day in his bedroom at 3:30 p.m.

Doctors warn about kratom and synthetic kratom-like products

Following the student deaths, Mississippi doctors are again warning about the dangers of products marketed as kratom, a natural leaf that can be tainted with other chemicals or offered in versions that are made synthetically with illegal substances, referred to as “gas station heroin.”

Dr. Lucas Trautman, medical director at the Oxford Treatment Center, told WMC, “It’s being sold in gas stations as sort of ‘natural’... that’s the buzz you hear with it... in order to help you with pain or sleep. Well, it’s just an opioid, so people get addicted to it, too, and have severe withdrawals.”

Family physician Dr. Jennifer Bryan said, “I would urge the public that if you see ‘natural,’ natural does not mean safe. It’s not synonymous. We still don’t know what’s inside that package. No matter what the label says, you don’t know what’s inside that package. The regulation is very loose.”

SMAX Pseudo-DHM is a synthetic drug marketed as a kratom-like substance. But investigators say it has a “significantly higher potency compared to natural leaf products.”

In the affidavit filed in the Third District Circuit Court of Mississippi on Sept. 28, following undercover operations at two retail stores, drug agents said the ingredients can be “produced fully synthetically in clandestine laboratories.”

The affidavit lists the ingredients of SMAX Pseudo-DHM as pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and 7-hydroxymitragynine.

The DEA temporarily placed mitragynine, pseudoindoxyl and MGM-15 on the Schedule I list on Aug. 26, 2026.

Schedule I drugs, including heroin, LSD and ecstasy, are illegal in the U.S. under federal law.

“Synthetic mitragynine compounds can be significantly stronger than morphine,” East wrote in the affidavit, “and carry a high risk of severe addiction, overdose and death.”

Where the drugs were purchased

Investigators with Metro Narcotics say Strang bought his SMAX product at Express Mart #7 in Water Valley in Yalobusha County. Bank records show he visited the store twice — once on Sept. 9 and again on Sept. 11.

The store is about a 20- to 30-minute drive from the Ole Miss campus.

Undercover officers bought more of the product a day after his death.

Court documents say the clerk said the store was out of the 200-mg version but sold “another form of the SMAX Pseudo-DHM pills consistent with the packages found at the Strang scene.”

The pills were sent to a forensic lab in Columbus, Mississippi, for analysis.

Agents returned to Express Mart #7 on Sept. 23 and bought more of the pills, this time sending them to a crime lab in Florida for analysis.

Investigators say records show Aidan Hamilton made multiple purchases at Puffs Vape Tobacco and Beer in Oxford. Bank records provided by his parents showed he visited the store and made purchases on Sept. 9, Sept. 14 and Sept. 20, one day before his death.

On Sept. 24, Metro Narcotics agents sent a confidential informant into the store, equipped with audio and video equipment. The informant tried to buy nitrous oxide, but the clerk told him that the store didn’t have any.

The affidavit says the clerk then offered to sell the informant marijuana from a jar and pre-rolled joints. The informant declined, but later asked if the store sold “7 O Kratom based pills.” The clerk said yes.

Records show an employee told an undercover informant to “be careful taking the pills because people are dying from them.”

Two employees of that store were arrested, and 500 units of kratom and kratom-like products were seized. The Metro Narcotics team also found an assortment of “THC cartridges, gummies, pre-rolls and other suspected THC substances.”

Recreational marijuana is still classified as an illegal Schedule I drug in the U.S.

Possible legislative action

The scope and impact of the Ole Miss deaths investigation could lead to legislative change.

Commissioner Tindell said, “Once kratom is banned locally, it’s still only a misdemeanor. And so I think one of the things the legislature is going to look at and consider next year… is, are we at the point where we need a statewide ban on kratom?”

Kratom is currently banned in the City of Oxford and Lafayette County. And again, the ingredients in the SMAX products found in the students’ rooms — products sold by two retail establishments — are illegal under federal law.

The students’ toxicology reports are being expedited and could come back as soon as this week. Until that happens, their causes of death are pending.

The American Kratom Association held a news conference in Oxford on Wednesday to defend natural kratom and differentiate it from the manufactured products that authorities said were found in the students’ rooms.

Copyright 2026 WMC via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.