Update, 17 October 2026. Two things on this page are out of date. First, the three related substances described below as proposed (mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16) have been in Schedule I since 26 August 2026, under a temporary order (91 FR 54948) that runs to 26 August 2028 unless replaced sooner. Second, the 7-OH notice described below is being replaced. On 14 October 2026 the DEA published a new notice of intent under the same docket (91 FR 65370). It says the agency is withdrawing the July notice “in a separate document” in the same issue of the Federal Register; as of 17 October we could not find that document in the Federal Register’s listing for that day, so we have not read it. The new notice says it follows a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services dated 8 October 2026 (a companion notice the same day refers to an HHS letter of 6 October), and it sets a different test. Schedule I would apply to 7-hydroxymitragynine and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, alone or combined, where the amount is greater than 1 mg per gram in a solid or greater than 1 mg per millilitre in a liquid, or where the mass of mitragynine divided by the mass of those substances is less than 100. The DEA says the temporary order will be published on or after 13 November 2026. Like the July notice, it is a statement of intent, not an order, and nothing in it is in force yet. For mitragynine pseudoindoxyl it would narrow control: today the August order covers it in any amount, and the DEA says that order stays in effect until it expires or the new order is published and the old one withdrawn. The notice also says that “neither HHS nor DEA has made a finding that these substances are safe to use at below-threshold levels.” The rest of this page describes the July notices as they stood, including any statement below that nothing has changed in law, which is no longer true for those three substances. The 0.050% figure below is no longer the proposed threshold.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration has begun the process of placing 7-hydroxymitragynine, a minor kratom alkaloid sold in concentrated form as “7-OH”, into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The move is set out in three documents published in the Federal Register on 6 July 2026.
The action is not yet in force, and it is not a ban on kratom. Both points are being widely garbled in the coverage, including by retailers with an interest in how readers understand it. Here is what the documents actually say.
What was filed
Three separate documents, all dated 6 July 2026:
- A notice of intent to temporarily place 7-hydroxymitragynine above a specified threshold into Schedule I (Docket No. DEA-1570).
- A notice of intent to temporarily place three related substances (mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16) into Schedule I.
- A request for information, establishing a public docket.
A notice of intent is a statement that the agency plans to act. It is not the order itself. The DEA has said the temporary scheduling order may be issued on or after 5 August 2026.
The threshold is the whole story
The proposed control does not apply to 7-OH as such. It applies to material that exceeds a concentration threshold. Under the notice, Schedule I control would attach to:
- botanical material of Mitragyna speciosa containing more than 0.050 percent 7-hydroxymitragynine on a dry weight basis; and
- any material, compound or preparation containing 7-OH in amounts greater than 0.050 percent, or containing more than 1.00 milligram of 7-OH in the article.
That threshold is doing all the work. It is what separates a kratom leaf from a concentrated 7-OH tablet, and it is why the DEA describes the target as enhanced and semi-synthetic products rather than the plant.
What the notice does not say
Much of the reporting so far states that botanical kratom leaf is “exempt” or “excluded.” The notice contains no such carve-out. There is no clause exempting kratom leaf, and reading one into the document is a mistake.
The distinction is subtler, and it matters. The threshold is a line, not a categorical exclusion. Botanical material sits outside the proposed control if and only if it falls below 0.050% 7-OH by dry weight. That is a fact about a specific product, not a fact about kratom in general. Ordinary leaf material is generally well below that line; concentrated extracts and “enhanced” preparations are precisely the things engineered to exceed it.
So the practical effect is close to what the vendors are claiming. But the reasoning matters, because it means the status of any particular product is an empirical question about that product’s 7-OH content, not something a seller can settle by asserting that “leaf is exempt.” Products marketed as botanical but concentrated in 7-OH would fall squarely within the proposed control.
How temporary scheduling works
The DEA is acting under 21 U.S.C. § 811(h), which allows it to schedule a substance temporarily where it finds an imminent hazard to public safety. That authority is deliberately fast: it does not require the notice-and-comment rulemaking that a permanent scheduling decision does. The notice of intent itself serves as the statutory 30-day warning.
If the order is issued, the control would last two years, extendable by one further year while the DEA pursues permanent scheduling. Schedule I placement carries the full weight of administrative, civil and criminal penalties applicable to that schedule.
The separate request for information does open a public docket, which is the route by which researchers, industry and the public can put evidence in front of the agency. It is not the same thing as a comment period on the rule.
What happens next
The earliest date for the temporary order is 5 August 2026. Until then, nothing has changed in law: 7-OH is not federally scheduled.
We will update this page as the docket moves.
For readers in Europe
This is a United States federal action and has no direct legal effect in Europe. It matters here because the pharmacological concerns that prompted the DEA do not stop at a border, and because a US federal position on where concentration becomes control is the kind of thing European authorities read.
Corrected 31 August 2026. This section previously said that US scheduling decisions have historically shaped how European regulators frame the substances that follow them. We could not source that, and it appears to run backwards. No US federal scheduling of kratom, mitragynine or 7-OH has ever taken effect, while Denmark controlled kratom in 2009, Finland removed it from the consumer market in 2016 and Sweden made the plant a narcotic in 2025, each under its own national instrument.
Kratom’s status in Europe is governed by national law and varies enormously. The EU Drugs Agency records it as controlled in at least twelve European countries, among them France, Poland, Sweden, Romania, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Portugal. We track that separately, country by country.