The Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday took steps to temporarily ban supplements containing a synthetic version of kratom, a plan that had been sought by makers of a rival product with strong ties to the Trump administration.
The agency said it plans to classify an addictive psychoactive compound called 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, in the same category as heroin and LSD — drugs that are illegal to buy or sell.
The action is a victory for public health, since government scientists had warned that the substance “has a significant potential for abuse and associated harms.” But it is also a big win for makers of supplements containing the natural form of kratom, who had been losing market share to 7-OH rivals over the past few years.
Federal health officials have cautioned that natural kratom, which is derived from trees, carries similar risks, including addiction, overdose and liver damage. But the D.E.A.’s action leaves it untouched.
Since President Trump’s return to office, makers of natural kratom supplements have waged an aggressive influence campaign to persuade the federal government to effectively ban 7-OH, which they have cast as a public health menace and have sought to brand as “gas station heroin.”
The campaign, which was the focus of a recent New York Times investigation, has been spearheaded partly by Jerry W. Ross, the founder of Botanic Tonics, a company that manufactures a popular kratom drink called Feel Free. Mr. Ross has found allies in Mr. Trump’s cabinet including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who is an investor in Botanic Tonics, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose political operation has received donations from Mr. Ross and his company.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a statement on Wednesday emphasizing that the D.E.A.’s changes “are not intended to regulate natural leaf kratom,” but are meant to target “bad actors.”
“I commend the D.E.A. for taking decisive action to address these addictive and harmful substances,” Mr. Kennedy said in the statement, adding, “H.H.S. reviewed the science and recommended this action.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security, which Mr. Mullin leads, called 7-OH “a synthetic drug marketed to kids at convenience stores via deceptive packaging.”
Mr. Mullin had urged the Trump administration to downplay concerns about botanical kratom, first when he was a member of Congress and continuing after he became homeland security secretary, The Times found. In recent months, he pushed for changes to a Food and Drug Administration website such as eliminating language about kratom’s risk of seizures and death.
As a senator from Oklahoma, where Botanic Tonics has operations, Mr. Mullin had publicly called for restrictions on 7-OH. Mr. Mullin joined Mr. Kennedy at a news conference last year to announce a proposal to restrict access to 7-OH.
The D.E.A.’s move on Wednesday is a significant step toward that goal.
In an announcement published in the Federal Register, the agency indicated that it plans to categorize 7-OH as a Schedule 1 substance for two years. The temporary order could be extended an additional year or made permanent, the notice said. The agency took a similar measure temporarily scheduling additional emerging compounds, including one called MGM-15, that are similar to 7-OH and are marketed by some of the same vendors.
Kevin Sabet, who worked in the White House on drug policy under Republican and Democratic presidents, warned that D.E.A. action could backfire if the administration does not also restrict other forms of kratom in a similar manner.
Mr. Sabet said that both 7-OH and mitragynine, another compound found in kratom, have negative health effects.
“While 7-OH may be more potent and harmful than mitragynine, both compounds are lethal,” he said in a statement.
“Singling out 7-OH and stopping there is doing the bidding of the well-funded kratom lobbying groups who, for profit, mislead the public into thinking kratom is benign and 7-OH is its only harmful constituent,” Mr. Sabet said.
After Mr. Trump’s victory, companies selling kratom supplements and their executives ramped up their spending on lobbyists with ties to his administration and donations to groups supporting him and his team.
In the weeks around Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Ross donated nearly $162,000 to Mr. Kennedy’s defunct presidential campaign, records show. Earlier this year, his company donated $1 million to the MAHA PAC, which is associated with Mr. Kennedy.
A group that Mr. Ross backed to target 7-OH hired the lobbyist Ches McDowell, who is close to the president’s elder sons and employs a nephew of Mr. Kennedy. After donating a total of $443,000 to the Republican National Committee, Mr. Ross, accompanied by Mr. McDowell, secured a private meeting with Vice President JD Vance in New York in February at which the kratom entrepreneur urged the Trump administration, and particularly the D.E.A., to clamp down on 7-OH.
The next month, when Mr. Mullin was nominated to lead the Homeland Security Department, it became clear that he had a financial tie to Mr. Ross’s company.
In a disclosure statement, Mr. Mullin listed an investment worth as much as $1 million in Botanic Tonics, which could benefit from the new restrictions by facing less competition in the kratom market.
Botanic Tonics did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. McDowell declined to comment.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Mr. Mullin “follows all ethics and conflict of interest standards and has not lobbied for any individual or company.”
A spokeswoman for the health department did not immediately respond to a question about donations by Mr. Ross and his company to committees affiliated with Mr. Kennedy.
Vince Sanders, the founder and president of CBD American Shaman, which helped popularize 7-OH, in an interview accused kratom companies of using their political clout to target his side of the industry for competitive gain.
“The whole thing was started by big kratom,” he said, vowing to fight the scheduling by urging users of 7-OH to file public comments with the D.E.A. attesting to its benefits.
Enforcing the new bans at the street level could prove challenging.
The D.E.A. is planing to regulate only products with half a percent of 7-OH by dry weight, a difficult standard to routinely identify. Law enforcement officers are not broadly equipped with tests they can use in the field to determine if a nondescript pill or powder contains 7-OH. Such a test would also have to distinguish the product from botanic kratom pills and powders, which contain trace amounts of 7-OH.
The relative hazards of kratom and 7-OH have been intensely debated in recent years in statehouses, where Mr. Ross and allies who sell botanical kratom products have pushed for bans of 7-OH. Mac Haddow, a senior fellow on public policy for the American Kratom Association, is among them. He said Wednesday’s action was needed.
“These products have been falsely marketed as kratom, sold in reckless dosage forms, and used to mislead consumers and policymakers,” he said in a statement. “D.E.A.’s announcement should now end the confusion: Protect natural kratom leaf, regulate it responsibly and remove dangerous 7-OH opioid products from the marketplace.”
Parents of children who died after taking kratom, some with other substances in their system, have lobbied for bans of both substances. Among them is Daniel Gibbs, whose son, Austin, died at 25 from lethal levels of kratom’s active compound in 2023. He said the ban should apply to botanical kratom and every quantity of 7-OH.
“It’s a joke,” he said. “No one is going to be able to test for this. No one is going to be able to enforce this.”
