Alabama controls kratom’s two main alkaloids as Schedule I substances, the strictest class in the state’s system. Possessing a product that contains them, selling one or offering one for sale is an offence, and in March 2026 the Attorney General ordered businesses across the state to stop.
The control is on the substances rather than on the plant or on any particular kind of product. Alabama’s list does not distinguish leaf from extract, capsule from drink. If a product contains the listed alkaloids it is caught, whatever the label calls it.
What the state did, and when
Act 2016-279, carried as Senate Bill 226, was signed by Governor Robert Bentley on 10 May 2016. The Legislature’s own summary of that session records it as adding mitragynine and hydroxymitragynine, commonly known as kratom, to Schedule I of the controlled substances list.
The entries themselves live in the Controlled Substances List attached to chapter 420-7-2 of the Alabama Administrative Code. The State Board of Health amended that list by adding two new Schedule I paragraphs, (f)(324) Mitragynine and (f)(325) Hydroxymitragynine. Against each one the list records State Control May 12, 2016, and names Act 2016-279 as the authority. The certifying officer recorded the amendment as promulgated and approved on 18 May 2016 and effective 15 June 2016, and filed it on 19 May 2016.
Two dates therefore sit on this document and they answer different questions. Control of the substances themselves runs from 12 May 2016. The administrative rule that records the listing took effect on 15 June 2016.
A note on the name in the list
Alabama’s entry reads “Hydroxymitragynine”. The scientific literature, and the US federal notices of 2026, use 7-hydroxymitragynine, naming the position of the hydroxyl group on the molecule.
We have not found an Alabama instrument, opinion or guidance document that explains the difference, and we are not going to guess at what it means. A reader who needs to know whether a specific compound falls inside that entry needs an Alabama lawyer, not this page.
Looking it up is harder than it should be
The Legislature’s summary of the 2016 acts describes Act 2016-279 as amending “Section 20-2-3” of the Code of Alabama 1975. The Attorney General’s 2026 enforcement letter cites Ala. Code § 20-2-23 (1975), which is the section that carries the Schedule I listing.
We cite the section the enforcement action uses, and the administrative entries we read directly. A reader searching the code for 20-2-3 will not find kratom there.
The enforcement action of March 2026
On 25 March 2026 the Office of the Attorney General announced a statewide cease and desist order aimed at businesses possessing or selling products containing mitragynine or hydroxymitragynine. It followed laboratory testing that the office describes as carried out by an internationally accredited laboratory, which found the substances in products then on sale in shops around the state. The release names three retail products by brand.
The order states that such products are illegal to possess, sell or offer for sale in Alabama regardless of how they are marketed or labelled. It sets out three consequences for a business that continues: seizure and forfeiture of contraband, property, proceeds and assets under Ala. Code § 20-2-93; felony prosecution under applicable Alabama law; and civil liability under the Alabama Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Ala. Code § 8-19-1.
The release also warns that labels on these products may not disclose everything in them, so a purchaser can end up in possession of a controlled substance without knowing it.
What this means in practice
Kratom is not a grey area in Alabama. It is a scheduled controlled substance, the state’s chief legal officer has said so in writing, and enforcement is active rather than theoretical.
We do not state a penalty range on this page. The Attorney General’s letter refers to felony prosecution under applicable Alabama law without naming the offence or its class, and we have not read the sentencing provisions ourselves, so putting a number here would be repeating an assumption rather than a source.
How we checked this
We read the administrative rule as filed. It is a scan with no text layer, so searching it electronically returns nothing whether or not a substance is listed there. We rendered the pages and read them with optical character recognition, which is what surfaced the two Schedule I paragraphs and their control date.
We read the Attorney General’s news release as issued, not coverage of it, and the Legislature’s own summary of the 2016 session.
If a later act or rule changes any of this, write to editorial@wikikratom.com and we will update the page and credit the correction.