The DEA has a new 7-OH plan. It is still a ban.
On 14 October the DEA publishespublished a new notice of intent to put 7-OH and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP) in Schedule I above a threshold. It replaces the July notice and its 0.05% line. The order can be issued as early as 13 November, and itThe 30-day wait ran out on 13 November. The order can now be issued any day, and it takes effect the day it is published.
Four documents, and what each one does
The 14 October issue of the Federal Register changes the whole federal picture at once. This is where each piece stands.
- Coming: 7-OH and MP above a threshold FR Doc. 2026-20943, docket DEA-1570, a notice of intent under 21 U.S.C. § 811(h). The order cannot be issued until 30 days after the notice is published, so 13 November 2026 at the earliest. It takes effect the day it is published and lasts two years, extendable by one. When it issues, MP moves from the August order to this one and gets the same threshold as 7-OH.
- In force now: MP, MGM-15, MGM-16, at any amount The temporary order of 26 August 2026 put all three in Schedule I nationwide with no threshold. It stays in force until the new order is published and the August order is withdrawn, or until it expires on 26 August 2028, whichever comes first.
- Also coming: MGM-15 and MGM-16, unchanged FR Doc. 2026-20942, docket DEA-1644. A second notice of intent to issue a new order keeping MGM-15 and MGM-16 in Schedule I without change. The DEA says it exists only to separate them from MP, which is getting a threshold.
- To be withdrawn: the July 7-OH notice The notice of intent of 6 July 2026 (91 FR 40917) would have scheduled 7-OH above 0.05% of dry weight. It never became an order. The new notice says a separate document in the 14 October issue withdraws it, but no such document appeared that day, so the July notice has not yet been formally withdrawn.
Until the new order is published, 7-OH itself is not federally scheduled. MP already is, at any amount. If someone tells you 7-OH is already Schedule I, they are describing the August order.
Two tests, and failing either one is enough
The threshold comes from a letter the Department of Health and Human Services sent the DEA on 8 October 2026. The notice quotes it and does not explain how it was set. This is the text the order would add for 7-OH; the paragraph for MP is the same with the names swapped:
…when that substance alone, or the combined amount with mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, if both are present, is: (A) Above a specified threshold concentration, that is, greater than 1 milligram per gram (for solid powders, encapsulated material, or other solid forms) or greater than 1 milligram per milliliter (for liquid preparations), or (B) The mass of mitragynine present divided by 7-hydroxymitragynine or the combined mass of 7-hydroxymitragynine and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, if both are present, is less than 100.
- Test (A) is strength More than 1 mg of 7-OH and MP combined in a gram of powder, capsule or other solid is more than 0.1% by weight. For a liquid it is more than 1 mg per millilitre.
- Test (B) is a ratio, and ignores strength Divide the mitragynine by the 7-OH and MP combined. If the answer is under 100, the product is Schedule I at any concentration, including well under 1 mg per gram. A product with 7-OH or MP and no mitragynine at all fails this test however little it contains.
The DEA says the line is there because 7-OH and MP “have supposedly been found in trace amounts in some botanical kratom products.” The notice says twice that nothing under the line should be read as safe, and twice that the DEA still views kratom and its two major alkaloids, mitragynine and 7-OH, as drugs of concern. Nothing about this threshold protects the leaf: a product under the line is not in the clear, it is simply not covered by this order.
7-OH measured in kratom, against test (A)
- Lowest to highest reading
- Mean, where reported
- Too low to quantify, under 0.005%
The highest product reading, 0.21%, is more than twice test (A). The mean, 0.01%, and the whole fresh-leaf range sit below it. The fresh-leaf range is a share of dried leaf weight, so for dried leaf it is on the same basis as test (A). Test (B) is a ratio and cannot be drawn on this scale. The product figures are as the FDA reported them.
Products: FDA CDER assessment, 2025, citing Sharma et al., Drug Testing and Analysis. Fresh leaf: FDA CDER assessment, 2025. Line: DEA notice of intent, FR Doc. 2026-20943, 14 October 2026. The measurements, with their sources.
The numbers behind this chart
| Lowest | Highest | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| 341 products, primarily whole leaf FDA CDER assessment, 2025, citing Sharma et al., Drug Testing and Analysis | ||
| Under 0.005%, too low to quantify | 0.21% | 0.01% |
| Fresh leaf, Peninsular Malaysia, as a share of dried leaf weight FDA CDER assessment, 2025 | ||
| 0.005% | 0.015% | Not reported |
The line on the chart is test (A) in the DEA’s notice of intent of 14 October 2026, FR Doc. 2026-20943: more than 1 milligram per gram, which is 0.1% by weight.
None of these orders is one we can support
7-OH is a protected alkaloid under our model act — Section 3(d) and (e) define it as 7-OH in any form, “naturally occurring, extracted, concentrated, isolated, synthetic, semi-synthetic, converted, refined, imported, or otherwise produced.” A threshold order aimed at 7-OH is aimed straight at it, and Section 13 rules out capping a protected alkaloid on potency at all. That is not a close call for us.
MP is not a free pass either, and we should be careful about how it gets described — including by us. Mitragynine pseudoindoxyl is reported in the literature as a metabolite of mitragynine, formed by way of 7-OH; whether it is also present in the leaf itself is contested. Either way, a person who consumes ordinary kratom leaf produces it. Scheduling a compound the body makes out of the plant is a different act from scheduling something made in a laboratory, and it deserves to be argued rather than waved through. Giving it a threshold does not change that.
MGM-15 and MGM-16 are genuinely synthetic analogues, and they are not protected alkaloids under our act. That does not make Schedule I the right answer to them. Our act already has one: Section 10 puts a novel kratom alkaloid through premarket review — chemical identity, production method, toxicology, labeling, analytical methods, decided in 120 days on written findings. Review is what you do to a compound nobody has characterised yet. Prohibition is what you do when you have decided not to find out.
And Section 5(c) is the line under all of it: no protected alkaloid may be restricted solely because it is natural, concentrated, isolated, synthetic, semi-synthetic, converted or refined. Origin alone is not a public-health finding.
The new threshold also reaches further than its defenders will admit. The FDA's own assessment of 341 products people were actually using reported 7-OH up to a maximum of 0.21%, more than twice test (A), in products that were primarily whole leaf. Test (B) reaches further still, and the DEA’s own notice shows how: it says 7-OH in the natural plant is “less than two percent of the total alkaloid content.” Mitragynine is only part of that total, so any leaf in which 7-OH passes one percent of the total alkaloids has less than 100 times as much mitragynine as 7-OH, and fails test (B) at any strength. The measurements are here, with their sources.
That is not why we oppose it, and we will not argue as though a better-placed line would be acceptable. 7-OH is kratom. It is an alkaloid of the leaf and the metabolite your liver makes from mitragynine, and there is no percentage or ratio at which a kratom alkaloid becomes a Schedule I drug. A stronger product is more potent, and that is a labeling problem, not a prohibition trigger. The answer is to test every batch and print the 7-OH content on the package, which is what our Section 13 requires, with no ceiling at all.
Temporary scheduling is a fast road with no exits
All of this runs under 21 U.S.C. § 811(h), the temporary scheduling power. It is deliberately quick, and the speed comes out of the parts that normally protect you:
- No notice-and-comment rulemaking. An ordinary rule has to be proposed, argued and answered. The DEA says in this notice that those requirements do not apply here.
- No judicial review. § 811(h)(6) forecloses it. A court will not be reviewing whether this threshold is the right one.
- No public docket this time. The July threshold had one: an HHS request for information, docket HHS-OASH-2026-0232, which closed on 10 September. HHS reported 32,149 comments on its first round alone. The new threshold arrived four weeks after it closed, in a letter, with no request for comment.
On 31 August 2016 the DEA published a notice of intent to place mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine in Schedule I. On 13 October 2016 it withdrew that notice and asked for comments instead. Same agency, same statute, same two alkaloids. A notice of intent is not yet an order, and this one has now been rewritten once already.
The one lawsuit, and what it does not ask
On 27 August 2026, the day after the order on the three compounds took effect, the American Kratom Association sued the Justice Department and the DEA: American Kratom Association v. U.S. Department of Justice, No. 1:26-cv-02997 (D.D.C.). It does not ask a court to undo the scheduling — the AKA says it supports scheduling concentrated or intentionally added mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16. It asks for a declaration that the order does not reach incidental, trace mitragynine pseudoindoxyl in ordinary botanical kratom.
The gap it points at is real, and it is in the government’s own words. The Justice Department’s release of 25 August said it will “exercise enforcement discretion when only incidental trace amounts of MGPI are confirmed in a product otherwise consistent with botanical kratom” — and, in the same release, that “this policy does not create a legal exemption and does not change MGPI’s status as a schedule I controlled substance.” Discretion promised in a press release is not a line drawn in an order, and a shop owner cannot rely on it. The 14 October notice would draw a line for MP, but only once the new order issues; until then the August order, with no threshold, is the law.
We part company with the AKA on the premise: we do not support scheduling mitragynine pseudoindoxyl at all, for the reasons set out above. But the question it puts to the court is the right one. Whether § 811(h)(6) lets a court hear even a question about an order’s scope is something the case will have to answer. We have found no ruling as of 14 September 2026.
There is no comment period. There is Congress.
Nothing in this notice asks for public comment, and there is no docket to file in. The order can be issued as early as 13 Novemberany day now, and it takes effect the day it is published.
The place a decision can still be argued is permanent scheduling under § 811(a), which is an ordinary rulemaking on the record, with a hearing and judicial review at the end. The DEA says in this notice that it intends to start one. Note what that also does: opening permanent proceedings is what lets a two-year temporary order be extended to three.
What you can still do is tell Congress. An order under § 811(h) skips rulemaking and a court, which leaves the people who wrote the statute as the check that remains. Civic Duty finds your senators and representative and helps you write to them in your own words. It is an independent site run by a Haven Access volunteer, with its own privacy policy.
Congress has the same line in front of it. S. 5383 and H.R. 10272, the End Gas Station Heroin Act, would write the same three numbers into the statute itself, and go further: any 7-OH that has been extracted, concentrated or converted could never be exempt, at any amount. The DEA's notice does not mention the bill. Ask your members to oppose it.
Some senators want the whole plant. On 7 October, a week before this notice was published, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) wrote to the DEA and the FDA asking them to consider scheduling “the entire kratom plant”, including all levels of 7-OH, to begin permanent scheduling of 7-OH, MP, MGM-15 and MGM-16, and to have the FDA produce a permanent scheduling recommendation for the full plant. They asked for a written reply by 15 October. Senator Lee is also the only cosponsor of S. 5383. If one of them represents you, say you are a constituent and ask for testing, labels and a 21-and-over limit instead.
And ask the people on your ballot to sign. Our sign-on letter asks the DEA and HHS to withdraw this notice and regulate instead of prohibit. It is one page, for elected officials and candidates, from any party and any office, with a two-page action plan for taking it to them in person.
Read it yourself
- Notice of intent: 7-OH and MP above a threshold, FR Doc. 2026-20943 (opens in a new tab) — docket DEA-1570, on public inspection 9 October, publishing 14 October 2026. The threshold text quoted above is here.
- Notice of intent: 7-OH and MP above a threshold, FR Doc. 2026-20943 (opens in a new tab) — docket DEA-1570, 91 FR 65370, published 14 October 2026. The threshold text quoted above is here.
- Notice of intent: MGM-15 and MGM-16, FR Doc. 2026-20942 (opens in a new tab) — docket DEA-1644, publishing 14 October 2026.
- Notice of intent: MGM-15 and MGM-16, FR Doc. 2026-20942 (opens in a new tab) — docket DEA-1644, 91 FR 65381, published 14 October 2026.
- Justice Department release, 9 October 2026 (opens in a new tab) — the announcement of both new notices.
- Senators Grassley, Lee and Collins to the DEA and FDA, 7 October 2026 (opens in a new tab) — the request to consider scheduling the whole plant.
- The July notice of intent: 7-OH above 0.05%, 6 July 2026 (opens in a new tab) — 91 FR 40917, the notice the DEA says it is withdrawing.
- The order in force, 91 FR 54948 (opens in a new tab) — mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16, effective 26 August 2026.
- Justice Department release, 25 August 2026 (opens in a new tab) — the enforcement-discretion language, and the sentence saying it is not an exemption.
- American Kratom Association on its lawsuit (opens in a new tab) — the plaintiff’s own account of No. 1:26-cv-02997, not the court record.
- Docket HHS-OASH-2026-0232 (opens in a new tab) — the request for information on the July threshold. Comments closed 10 September 2026; what was filed stays readable there.
- What 7-OH actually is — the measurements behind the argument above, each with its citation.
Current to 14 October 2026. If the 7-OH order has been published since, the order takes precedence over anything on this page.