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By Pat Anson
Online sellers of 7-OH products are offering major discounts on tablets, gummies and shots as a potential August 5 deadline nears for concentrated forms of the kratom alkaloid 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) become illegal Schedule One controlled substances.
“Once they are gone, they are gone for good,” is how Payless Kratom is promoting its 7-OH clearance sale, which includes a “Buy 2, Get 3” sale on 7-OH shots. Other 7-OH promotions include multi-buy discounts and steep price breaks on bulk purchases.
“This is really the last chance to stock up,” said another 7-OH retailer.
KURES APOTHECARY
The DEA announced on July 6 in the Federal Register that it planned an emergency scheduling of all concentrated forms of 7-OH as illegal Schedule One controlled substances, the same classification as heroin and LSD.
The scheduling order “will not be issued before August 5,” according to the DEA, and will remain in effect for at least two years, with a possible extension of an additional year.
Stockpiling 7-OH
With the August deadline fast approaching, retailers are getting rid of 7-OH products they will soon be prohibited from selling, and 7-OH consumers are stockpiling products while they can.
“There is a fire sale going on at the website I get my 7 from,” said one Reddit poster. “They even have a countdown timer that’s got the days, hours and seconds until they will no longer be taking orders if/when this goes into effect…. I just placed a massive order a few days ago and it’s already on the way. It is probably my last order ever.”
“Prohibition is about to happen and I don’t know that it’s happened with something this popular in a while. We’re gonna see how addictive it is when it becomes a street drug. Turns a lot of otherwise law-abiding citizens into felons,” wrote another Reddit poster. “They’ll be arresting normal folks and destroying their families with drug court for something that was legal to purchase in a gas station 6 months ago.”
“With 7-OH becoming Schedule I in the coming days, I think we’re approaching an inflection point. Healthcare workers should be prepared for a spike in both withdrawal presentations and ODs (overdoses),” warned a medical student. “Keep an eye out for both extremes over the next few weeks. Those that stockpiled and unintentionally OD or suddenly lose access and present in severe withdrawal that can resemble heroin or fentanyl withdrawal.”
Whether concentrated 7-OH is an “opioid” is disputed, but most 7-OH consumers acknowledge that it has opioid-like effects and is a good pain reliever.
“The effects of 7-OH on a person’s body bear no resemblance to those of heroin or fentanyl,” says Jeff Smith, National Policy Director of the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust (HART), an advocacy group funded by 7-OH manufacturers.
Smith has chronic pain from two significant back injuries. The pain was so severe he couldn’t sleep more than 20 minutes at a time, until he started using 7-OH.
“I’ve been using it for over a year, and it’s helped me immensely with chronic pain and helps me sleep through the pain,” Smith told PNN. “So it has been transformative for me, and I know for tons of other people who I’ve met when I’ve gone and testified in different state capitals.
“No other painkillers have helped. No other sleep medication has helped. I’ve tried 15 different things probably over the course of a decade or more, and this has really been the first thing that’s helped meaningfully.”
HART has produced a documentary to counter what it calls false and misleading narratives about 7-OH. It features 7-OH consumers sharing personal stories of how 7-OH helped them overcome pain, anxiety and PTSD.
Local Bans Already in Effect
In some states, cities and counties, sales of 7-OH and kratom itself are already banned.
In recent months, California has seized nearly 7,000 kratom and 7-OH products, achieving what the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) agency calls a “98% compliance rate.”
Ironically, many California retailers agreed to stop selling 7-OH and kratom products rather than run the risk of losing their licenses to sell alcohol – a substance that causes substantially more public health and safety problems.
“After five months of targeted kratom and 7-OH enforcement efforts, nearly 98 percent of ABC-licensed locations are in compliance,” ABC Director Paul Tupy said in a statement. “This is possible through the collaboration of our licensees, who are making sure these harmful products aren’t available on store shelves.”
Jeff Smith is unsure what will happen after August 5, a date when a window opens 30 days after the DEA’s scheduling order was published.
“The whole process has been so bizarre and herky-jerky that it’s difficult to predict,” Smith said. “There is no outer time bound to this process, so 30 days is a minimum, but it’s not a maximum. So they could take 60 days, or 90 days, or 180 days, or 365 days. I mean, they could take as long as they want to to address this. We just don’t know what they’ll do.”
There is still time to leave a public comment on the federal scheduling of 7-OH before the July 31 deadline. To date, over 24,000 comments have been made.
