Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin maintains an investment of up to $1 million in Botanic Tonics, the company behind Feel Free energy drinks.

Feel Free is widely known as "gas station heroin" because of its addictive properties, according to Punch Up. That label has helped make the drink a flashpoint in the broader debate over kratom-based products, which have drawn scrutiny from regulators and public health advocates as more convenience-store and supplement-market items have moved into mainstream retail.

The company’s founder, J.W. Ross, a convicted felon, has said he deliberately tested abusive dosages before launching the product and knew people would abuse it.

Feel Free combines kratom and kava, plant-based compounds that act on the brain’s opioid receptors and exploit neurological pathways associated with opioid addiction.

The FBI’s account of a separate 2010 hearing said: "In February 2010, Cash pleaded guilty to a federal charge of falsely certifying the company’s financial controls. That November, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot sentenced him to nine years in federal prison and ordered him to repay $5 million, rebuking him."

Mullin notably championed a federal crackdown in July that specifically spared Feel Free while targeting competitors, underscoring how any regulatory action around these products can affect some brands differently than others.

Mullin and Ross are both Oklahoma businessmen with connections to Broken Arrow, where Botanic Tonics operates.

The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on whether Mullin and Ross have ever communicated or met.

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