Kratom, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are not listed in either of the United Nations conventions that schedule drugs. They do not appear in the International Narcotics Control Board’s current list of narcotic drugs under the 1961 Single Convention, and they do not appear in its list of psychotropic substances under the 1971 Convention.
Not being listed is the default, and it has never changed because the World Health Organization has never recommended controlling kratom. Its only formal review came in October 2021. The WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD), the body that advises the WHO on which substances should come under international control, looked at kratom and both alkaloids and concluded that the evidence was not strong enough even to start a full review. It recommended that the WHO keep them under surveillance. That is where the matter has rested since, and as of 17 October 2026 nothing on the WHO’s own record suggests it is about to move.
This piece explains what the committee actually decided, what it found on the way, and what its decision does not mean. The last part matters most, because the decision is routinely quoted as something it is not.
How a substance gets onto a UN schedule
Under the two drug conventions, the WHO assesses a substance’s risks of abuse, dependence and harm to health, on the advice of the ECDD, and makes a recommendation to the UN. The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, made up of member states, then votes on whether to schedule it.
The WHO’s assessment runs in two steps, which the committee’s own report sets out. The first is a pre-review: a preliminary look to decide whether a fully documented assessment is needed. The second is a critical review, the full assessment, prepared for a later meeting. Only a critical review leads to a recommendation that a substance be controlled.
Kratom reached the first step and stopped there.
What the committee decided
The committee met online from 11 to 15 October 2021, its 44th meeting. Kratom had been on its surveillance list since 2020. According to the report, that followed a national report on the potential for abuse, dependence and harm from mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, and a report from an international organisation documenting deaths associated with kratom use.
Its conclusion, as published in the WHO Technical Report Series:
The Committee concluded that there is insufficient evidence to recommend a critical review of kratom. With respect to mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, the Committee, except for one member, also concluded that there is insufficient evidence to recommend a critical review at this time.
Recommendation: The Committee recommended that kratom, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine be kept under surveillance by the WHO secretariat.
Two details in that wording are easy to miss. The report records no dissent on the plant, but it does on the two alkaloids: one member of the committee did not join that conclusion. The report does not say what that member’s view was. And the conclusion on the alkaloids is limited to “at this time”, which leaves the door open to a later review.
The same text went to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on 1 December 2021, in the WHO’s summary of the meeting’s findings, ahead of the Commission’s session that month. Because the committee recommended no scheduling, the Commission had nothing about kratom to vote on.
What the committee found along the way
A pre-review summarises the evidence even when it decides not to go further, and this one pointed in both directions. Everything below is the committee’s own summary as printed in the report. It is a summary of the literature, not new research.
- Pharmacology. Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are partial agonists at the µ-opioid receptor, the main target of opioid painkillers. Mitragynine also binds to adrenergic, serotonergic and dopamine receptors, and the committee called the significance of that non-opioid activity unclear.
- Abuse liability. In animal studies the evidence was mixed. Mitragynine was not self-administered by animals. 7-hydroxymitragynine was, which the committee said supports a likely abuse liability. In humans it found “limited evidence of abuse liability”.
- Dependence and withdrawal. Opioid-like withdrawal symptoms had been reported in people who stopped using kratom, and limited epidemiological evidence indicated that withdrawal is usually mild. A few cases of withdrawal symptoms in newborns of mothers who used kratom regularly had been reported.
- Harms. Reported adverse effects included agitation, confusion, seizures, coma, fast heart rate, raised blood pressure and respiratory depression, and “a number of cases” of liver toxicity had been documented. Serious toxicity was linked to high doses, with the number of cases “probably low” as a share of all users.
- Deaths. Mitragynine had been analytically confirmed in a number of deaths, but “almost all involved use of other substances, and the contribution of kratom use to the fatalities is unclear.” We look at that problem in detail in our review of kratom in mortality data.
- Medical use. People reported using kratom to self-medicate for pain, opioid withdrawal, opioid use disorder, anxiety and depression. The report states that “the analgesic effects of kratom have been demonstrated in humans”. It also notes that research into the potential therapeutic value of kratom and its alkaloids was still under way, and it made no finding that kratom is an effective treatment for any condition.
The committee also held an information session on 11 October 2021, covering all seven substances on its agenda. Its report lists the speakers and their affiliations, which range from universities and a Thai temple to drug policy groups and US kratom organisations.
What the decision does not mean
It is not a finding that kratom is safe. The committee recorded dependence, withdrawal, liver toxicity and deaths in which kratom’s role could not be ruled in or out. Its conclusion was about the strength of the evidence on a fixed date, not about the absence of harm.
It is not a finding that kratom is legal anywhere. The WHO does not decide what is lawful inside a country. A decision not to propose international control leaves each government free to control kratom under its own law, and many have, as our legal tracker records.
It is not a clearance. Surveillance is a distinct status with a defined meaning. The WHO’s current surveillance list describes it in these terms:
A substance is placed on WHO ECDDs Surveillance List if the Committee considers the evidence of the impact of a new psychoactive substance (NPS) in causing substantial harm to health too scarce to recommend placement under international control.
It adds that the secretariat then “actively monitors if additional data on the harm of the substance comes available to justify a subsequent critical review.” Surveillance, in other words, is the WHO watching for evidence that would justify the next step.
What has happened since
Very little, on the record.
The WHO’s surveillance list, in the edition updated on 24 March 2025, still carries “Kratom / mitragynine / 7-OH-mitragynine”, with the note “Last review: Pre-review 44th ECDD (2021)”. It describes the substances as having opioid activity and records reports of dependence and of fatal and non-fatal overdoses in which they “played a significant role”.
The committee’s 49th meeting is scheduled for 19 to 22 October 2026. Its provisional agenda and its published review documents cover five substances for critical review and two for preliminary review: etomidate and medetomidine. Kratom, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are not among them. The outcome of that meeting will be published afterwards, and we will check it.
In the United States, when the WHO notifies the government under the 1971 Convention that it has information which may justify scheduling a substance, the Controlled Substances Act requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish the notice in the Federal Register and invite comment. The Food and Drug Administration did so for kratom, on the Secretary’s behalf, in July 2021 (86 FR 39038), and reported the outcome on 15 February 2022 (87 FR 8586). We found no international scheduling notice mentioning kratom or either alkaloid since. The 2026 US actions on 7-hydroxymitragynine, including a revised notice of intent published on 14 October 2026 (91 FR 65370), are domestic measures under US law, and they do not change the international position. We cover them in our timeline of US scheduling attempts.
Why this leaves every country deciding alone
International scheduling is what gives countries a shared baseline. Without a UN listing, nothing at the international level gives them a common answer on kratom, and they have not reached one. France has listed kratom and both alkaloids as psychotropic substances since 2020, and its medicines agency says possession and purchase are prohibited. Germany has not listed kratom under its narcotics law or its new psychoactive substances law, although EU food law still bars selling it for human consumption there, as our Germany page explains. Each of those drug-law positions rests on national law alone.
That is why our legal tracker has a page per country rather than one answer for Europe, and why the travelling guide warns that crossing a border can change your legal position completely.
How we checked this
We read the committee’s conclusions in the published WHO Technical Report Series No. 1038 (2022), and in the WHO’s summary submitted to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs on 1 December 2021. The two texts agree.
To confirm that kratom is not under international control, we searched the International Narcotics Control Board’s Yellow List, 65th edition (July 2026), which lists narcotic drugs under the 1961 Convention, and its Green List, 36th edition (2025), which lists psychotropic substances under the 1971 Convention, together with the Board’s notice of substances added in 2026. To prove each list had rendered and was current, we searched for substances known to be on them. The Yellow List contains heroin, cocaine and N-pyrrolidino isotonitazene, a nitazene opioid controlled in recent years. The Green List contains diazepam, MDMA, clonazolam and eutylone. Neither contains kratom, mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine or Mitragyna.
We read the 49th meeting’s provisional agenda and its document page on 17 October 2026, and searched the Federal Register for international drug scheduling notices mentioning kratom, mitragynine or 7-hydroxymitragynine.