What did Joe Rogan say about kratom on the Bill Thompson episode?

Joe Rogan said a friend who had quit opiates told him kratom acts like a mild stimulant at low doses and relaxes you at higher ones. Rogan tried a couple of pills and felt little, then took ten, the amount his friend used before workouts, and decided it was clearly a high even though it did not affect his lifting or pool game. Rogan warned that people with opiate problems may not see that kratom leads down the same road, and said he knows people who cannot get off it. Bill Thompson said he had never heard of it.

• Rogan says kratom drinks are sold in convenience stores and juice shops, and that a synthetic version was banned from gas stations.
• Thompson says he uses nicotine pouches to focus and switches to nicotine-free ones for weeks at a time.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Joe Rogan Experience (2026-10-21). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode