A ban nobody voted on
On 5 August 2026 the sale, use and possession of all kratom became unlawful in North Dakota by executive order. No committee heard it. No chamber voted on it. On 2 September, for the first time, somebody does.
Two orders, no vote
Governor Kelly Armstrong and Attorney General Drew Wrigley announced executive action under a declared public health emergency. From 5 p.m. on 5 August 2026 it prohibits “the sale, use and possession of all kratom and kratom products in North Dakota.” Not concentrated 7-OH. Not extracts. All of it, including the leaf, and possession as well as sale.
Separately, the North Dakota Board of Pharmacy issued an emergency rule placing 7-OH in Schedule I. That rule runs for 180 days and starts an emergency rulemaking process of its own.
Neither instrument passed through a legislature. That is not a complaint about procedure for its own sake — it is the reason a shop owner in Bismarck had no hearing to attend, no bill number to look up and no representative to call before the thing took effect. There was nothing to watch.
“Right now, it’s the Wild West when it comes to kratom and 7-OH sales in North Dakota: no regulations, no age limits, no accountability.”
He is right about the problem. North Dakota had no age limit, no labeling rule and no testing requirement — we would have said the same. But that is a description of an absence of regulation, and the answer to an absence of regulation is regulation. Prohibition is what you reach for when regulation has been tried and failed. It had not been tried here at all.
What is actually on the table
A Kratom Working Group produced two complementary drafts. Legislative Management advanced both to the special session on 17 August 2026, each on a 16–0 roll-call vote. They have no bill numbers until they are introduced, but the text is written — this is no longer a blank page.
- Natural leaf, regulated like tobacco — Rep. Pat Heinert (R-Bismarck) Restricts sale to 21 and over. Requires labeling, including a warning that the product may be habit forming. Bans packaging that imitates candy or is otherwise marketed to appeal to children. Puts retailer licensing and enforcement under the Attorney General, and allocates $20,000 to the Department of Health and Human Services for youth public health outreach.
- Synthetics, scheduled — Sen. Michelle Axtman (R-Bismarck) Adds 7-OH and other chemical derivatives of kratom to the state’s Schedule I, and is drafted to reach derivatives that reach the market in future. Penalties are tiered on the model of state marijuana law: an infraction for a first offense, a Class A misdemeanor for a second, and a Class C felony after that. It reaches use and possession, not only sale.
Competing proposals that would have put kratom under the Department of Agriculture rather than the Attorney General were not brought forward for a vote. Not every legislator is satisfied: Sen. Janne Myrdal (R-Edinburg) told the committee “I would prefer a total ban because I don’t see how good this is for anyone.” Sen. Kathy Hogan (D-Fargo) called the regulation bill a good starting point.
Better than the order, and one provision we cannot accept
We are not going to pretend this package is a defeat. It would leave North Dakota better off than the executive order does, because it restores a lawful, age-restricted, labeled market for natural leaf where today there is none. A site that reports only losses teaches people that showing up does not work. Showing up produced this.
Heinert’s bill is close to what we ask for. The one thing we would add is in Section 13 of our model act: a label should carry the measured alkaloid content from a tested batch, not only a warning. A warning tells you to be careful. A number tells you what you are holding.
Our objection is to the penalty structure in the synthetics bill. Scheduling a concentrated product is a decision a legislature is entitled to make. Reaching use and possession, and escalating to a Class C felony, is a decision about people rather than products. Kentucky’s ban — which we oppose — at least stops at sale and distribution and does not criminalise possession. Louisiana’s reaches the person, and we say so there too. The graduated structure is a real mitigation and Sen. Axtman argued for it deliberately, to avoid felony charges falling on first-time offenders. It is still a felony at the end of it.
The other thing worth watching is drafting that reaches derivatives “that hit the market in the future.” Open-ended scheduling language is how a rule written for concentrates ends up covering something nobody had in mind when they voted for it.
This is the week
The session opens 2 September. Two sentences to your own legislator, before it does, is worth more than anything said afterwards.
I am a constituent in [town]. On the kratom bills at the special session: please support the regulation bill — the age limit, the labeling and the licensing are what North Dakota was actually missing. But please take use and possession out of the synthetics bill. Penalise the people selling untested concentrate, not the person who bought it. And please require the label to state the measured alkaloid content, so a buyer can tell the difference between leaf and concentrate for themselves.
Read it yourself
Everything above is from the state’s own announcement and from reporting on the 17 August Legislative Management meeting. Where we could not confirm something, we have left it out rather than guessed.
- Governor’s office: executive actions on kratom (opens in a new tab) — the order, the Board of Pharmacy rule, and the call for a special session.
- North Dakota Monitor: both drafts advance (opens in a new tab) — what each bill does, in the sponsors’ own words.
- KFGO: unanimous 16–0 votes (opens in a new tab) — the penalty tiers and the licensing detail.
- North Dakota on our map — current status and the instruments behind it.
One thing we do not know. We could not confirm from the state’s own publication how long the executive order runs. It rests on a declared public health emergency, and the Board of Pharmacy rule beside it expires after 180 days — around 1 February 2027. If the special session passes nothing, work out what lapses and when before assuming the ban simply continues.