Ten years ago, kratom advocates have fought a surprisingly successful campaign against a proposed ban by the Drug Enforcement Administration that says the obscure Southeast Asian industry poses an “imminent danger to public safety.”
They won bipartisan allies from Bernie Sanders to Rand Paul, and helped create a multibillion-dollar industry out of kratom, whose pain-relieving effects they say could help fight the opioid epidemic as a safe, natural alternative to pills.
Now, many of those pro-kratom activists are calling for a ban on products that contain concentrated concentrations of one of kratom’s active components: 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, an ultra-potent extract with opioid-like effects. And it creates a lot of conflict between buyers, sellers, and supporters of both of these things.
“This is a synthetic, fully synthetic opioid now on the market,” said Mac Haddow, chief public policy officer at the American Kratom Association, a kratom industry advocacy group. “They’re masquerading as kratom products.”
The proliferation of 7-OH in gummies, pills, and shots with brand names like Magic 7OH, 7 O’Heaven, and Pure OHMS in thousands of gas stations and corner stores over the past few years has caused growing confusion. Consumers of 7-OH have reported severe withdrawal symptoms, and there have been reports of polydrug overdoses involving 7-OH and other substances. Some are now entering rehab to overcome their addiction, while others are detoxing based on advice from Redditors.
The kratom community fears that the bad reputation of 7-OH could drag the entire kratom industry into the regulatory realm. But the 7-OH industry has planned against a possible ban, saying that 7-OH is kratom, despite only appearing in quantities within the leaves of the kratom plant, and that its benefits as an analgesic outweigh the potential harm.
Anti-7-OH directives from the federal government have increased tensions between the two parties.
Last July, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the 7-OH industry as “horrendous” at a press conference when FDA commissioner Marty Makary requested that the DEA classify the drug as Schedule I—the most restrictive category of banned substances. Speaking in the Oval Office on May 11, President Donald Trump publicly endorsed “natural 7-OH,” in confusing terms that appear to refer to kratom. Despite all that, it seems that both RFK Jr. and Department of Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin—who is also pushing 7-OH crack—have strong ties to the kratom lobbyist (and convicted felon) behind the infamous kratom drink company.
7-OH supporters see the object and the plant in which it is found as inextricably linked. In an April 2025 testimony to Colorado lawmakers debating how to regulate kratom and 7-OH, Michele Ross, chief scientific advisor for 7-OH advocacy group 7-HOPE Alliance, wrote, “To say that 7-OH is not kratom means that caffeine is not coffee or THC is absurd.”
But unlike coffee, cannabis, and kratom—which have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years—7-OH does not have a long history of human use. It has only been on the market for a few years.
Many products labeled 7-OH contain poorly understood compounds with unknown biological effects in animals or humans, said Chris McCurdy, a lead kratom researcher and director of the University of Florida’s drug development center. Therefore, these products, although represented as ‘pure’ are empty.”
Meanwhile, a dozen states, from California to Vermont, according to reports, have already moved forward with state planning for their own 7-OH bans. Seven of those states have also banned kratom, although Rhode Island recently reversed its ban.
