Kratom is a controlled narcotic substance in Lithuania, and the country did something with it that most of Europe did not. It split the plant from the alkaloid across two different schedules.
The plant and its parts, and the extract of them, sit on List I, the schedule of narcotic and psychotropic substances prohibited for medical use. Mitragynine, the isolated alkaloid, sits on List II, the schedule of substances permitted for medical use. Both lists are lists of controlled substances, so nothing here makes kratom available to a consumer. But the two entries answer different questions, and coverage that reports only one of them gets Lithuania wrong.
Where the entries are
The lists are approved by an order of the Minister of Health, order number 5 of 6 January 2000, published in Valstybės žinios on 14 January 2000. They are amended often; the version this page rests on is the consolidated redaction in force from 18 June 2025.
List I is headed, in translation, narcotic and psychotropic substances prohibited for use for medical purposes, except where a substance entered on List I forms part of a registered medicinal product. Within it, in the part corresponding to Schedule I of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, two entries concern kratom:
Item 9, Puošnioji vožtė ir jos dalys, glossed in the original as Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) plant. Puošnioji vožtė is the Lithuanian botanical name, and ir jos dalys means “and its parts”, so the entry reaches the whole plant and any part of it rather than leaf alone.
Item 10, Puošniosios vožtės ir jos dalių ekstraktas, the extract of the plant and its parts.
List II is headed narcotic and psychotropic substances permitted for use for medical purposes. Item 60 of that list is Mitragininas, glossed as Mitragynine.
All three entries carry an asterisk. The order’s own note explains what it marks: a substance entered on the list at the proposal of the Drug, Tobacco and Alcohol Control Department, on the basis of a decision of the interinstitutional commission for the risk assessment of new psychoactive substances. The note describes the domestic procedure that put the substance there, and nothing more.
The order carries four such notes and they mean different things. One asterisk is the domestic route above. Three asterisks mark substances entered by decision of the Council of the European Union. All three kratom entries carry a single asterisk, so this was a Lithuanian decision rather than an EU one.
The entries date from 17 October 2008, when order number V-957 of 6 October 2008 added them. The plant, its extract and the alkaloid arrived together, so the split across two lists was deliberate from the start rather than the result of a later amendment.
Why the split is worth understanding
Listing the plant and its extract separately from the alkaloid means there is no gap. A seller cannot argue that dried leaf is not mitragynine, because the leaf is named. A seller cannot argue that a concentrated extract is a different product from leaf, because the extract is named too.
The List I versus List II difference is about medical availability, not about whether you may buy the substance. List I substances are prohibited for medical use unless they appear inside a registered medicinal product. List II substances may be used medically, under the controls that apply to narcotics: List II is where morphine, fentanyl and methadone sit, and a pharmacy dispenses from it on prescription. What neither list contains is anything an ordinary shop can sell you, and no registered medicine in Lithuania contains mitragynine.
What this means in practice
The lists classify; they do not prohibit. The prohibition is in article 8(1) of the law on the control of narcotic and psychotropic substances, which forbids lawful turnover of List I substances except where the substance forms part of a registered medicinal product, is used in scientific research, is used by law-enforcement or control bodies, or is used as a laboratory reference standard. None of those reaches a shop or a buyer.
So there is no lawful retail market for kratom in Lithuania, and no Lithuanian shop can sell it. Ordering it from abroad means bringing a List I substance into Lithuania outside every exception the law provides.
Because the entries reach the plant and its parts, the extract of them, and the alkaloid separately, leaf, powder, capsules and concentrates are all covered.
The EU Drugs Agency also names Lithuania among the countries reported to control kratom. That is corroboration rather than authority; the instrument above is the answer.
How current this is, and what we did not check
The consolidated redaction we read is the one in force from 18 June 2025, and the order is amended several times a year, so check the redaction date if you are relying on this after a gap.
Two honest limits. First, the official e-seimas page renders the substance lists only when JavaScript runs, so a plain fetch of that URL returns a document with no lists in it at all. If you check our work and find nothing, check what you are searching before concluding anything.
Second, this page does not state the penalties. Lithuanian drug offences sit in the Criminal Code and in the Code of Administrative Offences, with the line between them turning on quantity and on whether the substance was for the holder alone. We did not read those provisions for this page, and we would rather say so than summarise a criminal penalty we have not opened.
If you can point us to a later redaction that changes any of this, write to editorial@wikikratom.com and we will update the page and credit the correction.