Science1 publisher2 min readPublished
DEA's 7-OH proposal would leave natural kratom largely unregulated
DEA proposed in July to temporarily place 7-OH above a potency threshold in Schedule I, and nearly 36,000 public comments came in by Sept. 10. Experts agree kratom needs guardrails but split on where the line belongs.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- DEA has already moved three less common kratom-related synthetics into Schedule I with no potency threshold attached.
- Two University of Mississippi students died this month with kratom products found at both scenes, though authorities have not said kratom contributed to either death.
- States and local governments have begun issuing their own emergency bans on 7-OH, and in some places on kratom overall.
- Around two dozen states have enacted a version of the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, a model pushed by the American Kratom Association that typically sets age limits.
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Why it matters
- exposure People already dependent on 7-OH products would face withdrawal if supply disappears and criminal prosecution if they keep buying, addiction experts told STAT.
- precedent A cutoff keyed to potency invites a run of new synthetic variants, a game of whack-a-mole that addiction experts say regulators would struggle to win.
- contradiction The 7-OH industry's own lobby says it backs better regulation yet rejects laws limiting the amount of 7-OH, so its support stops short of the kind of line DEA has proposed.
A potency cutoff implies that more concentrated 7-OH carries more risk. Clinicians and recovery advocates warn that highly concentrated 7-OH could be even more addictive than leaf kratom, but research on the question is scarce, STAT reported [2]. The leaf has a known risk of physical dependence of its own, and it has been sold in the U.S. for decades with few restrictions [3]. Neither mitragynine, kratom's main psychoactive compound, nor 7-OH appears anywhere in the federal scheduling system today [4].
Scheduling would make the question harder to answer. I think that is the weakest part of the plan. Schedule I is the category for drugs that carry the most risk with no medical benefit [6], and addiction experts told STAT that the listing makes needed scientific research much more difficult to conduct [5]. A temporary order could stay in force for three years at most, counting a one-year extension if DEA pursues permanent scheduling [21] [1].
Federal officials have pressed for speed. "We have a history of being asleep at the wheel," Marty Makary, then commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said at a July 2025 press conference on 7-OH, referring to tobacco and OxyContin [16]. "For the sake of our nation's children, let's not get caught flat-footed again."
The main alternative to scheduling is a more rigorously regulated marketplace, and STAT reports that it may be difficult to build [8]. The addiction recovery nonprofit Shatterproof has spent the past few years helping about half a dozen states write kratom policies [9]. It started from marijuana legalization provisions meant to protect young people, covering product contents, dosage, packaging, labeling, marketing and manufacturing [9].
The kratom industry says it wants rules too. "Can kratom products be regulated better? Yes," Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy at the American Kratom Association, said at a recent Georgia committee meeting [12]. The association also maintains that kratom is already regulated under the looser dietary supplement law [13].
Regina LaBelle, an addiction policy professor at Georgetown who served in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under Presidents Obama and Biden, questions whether scheduling reaches the cause. "Even if we schedule 7-OH and kratom, are we really addressing the underlying conditions causing people to obtain these substances? I don't think we have great solutions on that," she said [11]. "Often, the only tool we have in our tool belt is scheduling."
What to watch
- Whether DEA's final temporary order keeps a potency threshold for 7-OH, and when it takes effect.
- Whether investigators find that kratom contributed to either University of Mississippi death.
- Whether more states move from age-limit laws toward Shatterproof-style product standards or to outright kratom bans.