Kratom sits in a specific gap in Canadian law. It is not a controlled substance, so possessing it is not a criminal matter. It is also a health product that Health Canada has never authorized, which makes selling it for human consumption illegal. The result is a substance a person may lawfully hold but that no one may lawfully sell them to swallow.
This is close to the position in the United States, and for the same underlying reason. The question was never answered by drug law. It was answered by the rules on what may be sold as a product for people to consume.
Not a controlled substance
Kratom, and its main alkaloid mitragynine, are not listed in the schedules to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the statute that sets out Canada’s controlled drugs. We read the Act as current to 21 June 2026. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis and morphine are in it, so we were reading the schedules rather than an empty page, and so are carfentanil and U-47700, and the schedules carry amendment trails running to SOR/2026-71, so the text was current. Possessing kratom is therefore not an offence under that Act, and a Canadian who holds it is not in the position of someone holding a scheduled drug.
That is the part most often reported, and on its own it is misleading, because it suggests an open market that does not exist.
But it cannot be sold for consumption
The rule is in the Natural Health Products Regulations, and it is one sentence. Section 4(1): “no person shall sell a natural health product unless a product licence is issued in respect of the natural health product.”
Kratom falls inside that definition when it is sold for a health purpose. A natural health product means a substance in Schedule 1 to those Regulations sold or represented for use in treating a condition, restoring organic functions or modifying them. Item 1 of Schedule 1 is “a plant or a plant material”. Schedule 2 lists what is carved back out, and its item 4 is anything in Schedules I to V of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which kratom is not. So kratom leaf sold for what it does to a person is a natural health product, and section 4(1) bites.
Authorized products carry an eight-digit number on the label: a Drug Identification Number, a Natural Product Number, or a homeopathic equivalent. That number is how a buyer can tell a product has been through review.
Health Canada has not authorized any product containing kratom. Its position, stated in its own enforcement notices, is that “it is illegal to sell any health products in Canada without authorization from Health Canada.” That is a description of section 4(1), and it is the regulation rather than the description that does the work.
So the two facts hold together without contradiction. The law does not forbid you to possess kratom. It forbids anyone to sell it to you as something to consume.
How Health Canada treats it
Health Canada regulates kratom as an unauthorized health product rather than as a controlled drug, and it has acted on that repeatedly. It seized “Sāj” brand kratom capsules and powder from two Edmonton stores in 2018, and kratom has appeared in later rounds of unauthorized product seizures, including in 2020. In each case the basis was the same: an unauthorized health product being sold for consumption.
Health Canada also advises against using it. It describes kratom as a herbal product that may pose serious health risks when swallowed or inhaled, and lists drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, seizures, liver toxicity and an excessively rapid heartbeat among the reported effects. Those are Health Canada’s stated concerns. The wider scientific picture on kratom remains thin and contested, and this site does not overstate it in either direction.
The “not for human consumption” label
The prohibition attaches to selling kratom for people to consume. That is why it is so often sold labelled as not for human consumption, or as a botanical specimen or incense. The label is an attempt to place the sale outside the health product rules, not a description of what buyers are expected to do with it.
Whether a given sale escapes the rules turns on how the product is presented. A product sold with consumption instructions, in capsules, or with dosing information is being sold as a health product whatever the disclaimer says.
What this means in practice
Possessing or using kratom in Canada is not illegal.
There is no authorized kratom product on the Canadian market, so anything sold for consumption is being sold without the authorization the law requires. Buying it does not put the buyer in the wrong, but it is not the same as buying a reviewed product, and no oversight of quality, dose or contamination has taken place.
Bringing kratom in from a foreign seller does not change its status. It arrives as the same unauthorized health product it would be if sold here, and Health Canada can seize unauthorized health products. The verification date at the top of this page is the date we last checked these sources.