The Kratom Civil War is heating up, and MAHA has chosen sides

A decade ago, Kratom The defenders fought a surprisingly successful campaign against A Suggested DEA ban Which claimed that the mysterious factory in Southeast Asia poses an “imminent risk to public safety.”

They have won allies from both parties Bernie Sanders For Rand Paul, he helped create a billion dollars industry of kratom, which has pain-relieving effects that they said could help combat kratom The opioid epidemic A safer, natural alternative to pills.

Now, many of these pro-kratom activists are calling for a ban on products containing concentrates of one of kratom’s active ingredients: 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, an extremely potent extract that has opioid-like effects. It causes significant friction among consumers, sellers, and advocates of both substances.

“This is a completely chemically manipulated opioid that is now on the market,” says Mac Haddow, senior public policy fellow at the American Kratom Association, a lobby group for the kratom industry. “They are masquerading as kratom products.”

The spread of 7-OH in brand-name gummies, capsules and potions such as Magic 7OH, 7 O’Heaven and Pure OHMS across thousands of gas stations and convenience stores over the past few years has heightened panic. 7-OH consumers have talked about painful withdrawal symptoms, and there have been Reports From multi-drug overdoses that include 7-OH and other substances. Some are now entering rehab to overcome their addictions, while others are self-detoxing on the advice of Redditors.

The kratom community fears that 7-OH’s bad reputation could drag the entire kratom industry into a regulatory quagmire. But the 7-OH industry has organized against the potential ban, claiming that 7-OH is kratom, even though it appears in only trace amounts within the leaves of the kratom plant, and that its benefits as an analgesic outweigh its potential harms.

Anti-7-OH directives issued by the federal government exacerbated tensions between the two sides.

Last July, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the 7-OH industry “evil” at a press conference where FDA Commissioner Marty McCurry called on the DEA to classify the drug as Schedule I — the most restrictive category of banned substances. President Donald Trump spoke from the Oval Office on May 11 publicly endorsed “7-OH is natural” in confusing statements that seem to refer to kratom. On top of all that, both RFK Jr. and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullen — who is also pushing for the 7-OH crackdown — appear to have strong ties to the kratom lobbyist (and convicted felon) behind the notorious kratom beverage company.

Supporters of 7-OH View the substance and the plant from which it is derived as closely related. In April 2025, he testified before Colorado legislators discussion How to Regulate Kratom and 7-OH, Michelle Ross, chief scientific advisor for the 7-OH advocacy group 7-HOPE Alliance, books“Saying that 7-OH is not kratom means that caffeine is not coffee or that THC is not cannabis. It simply does not make sense.”

But unlike coffee, cannabis, and kratom — which have been consumed for centuries if not millennia — 7-OH doesn’t have a long history of human use. It has only been on the market for a few years.

Many products labeled 7-OH contain poorly understood compounds with unknown biological effects in animals or humans, says Chris McCurdy, a leading kratom researcher and director of the Center for Translational Drug Development at the University of Florida. “So, these products, even though they are presented as ‘clean,’ they are not.”

Meanwhile, dozens of states, from California to Vermont, According to For reports, it has Already moved Before federal scheduling with their 7-OH ban. Seven of those states have also banned kratom, though Rhode Island does Recently flipped Block it.