Is The Trump Administration High On Kratom?

These are two different products that each demonstrate Botanic Tonics' innovation in the functional botanical space, maintaining our commitment to botanical wisdom, scientific rigor, and consumer education. Noble kava root is at the heart of all our pairings and is the primary ingredient in feel free® and the newest addition to our product portfolio, Kava Maté. You can read more about the FDA's announcement regarding their recommendations to the DEA that concentrated synthetic 7-OH be classified as a Schedule I substance here on our website and here at Stat News. The crackdown hasn't happened yet, and if or when it happens, wouldn't impact products like Feel Free. Department of Health and Human Services with questions about kratom and the lack of regulations months ago.

Kratom Strains: From Leaves to Final Product

The FDA's scheduling recommendation and most state restrictions target concentrated and synthetic 7-OH, not natural kratom. Current law regulates the sale of natural kratom while maintaining the ban on synthetic alkaloids. A growing number specifically restrict high-concentration 7-OH products, but still consider natural kratom to be legal. Some manufacturers have begun isolating and concentrating 7-OH, creating products with alkaloid levels far beyond what occurs in natural kratom. While this week’s kratom news focuses on concentrated 7-OH, our whole-leaf powder and capsules remain unaffected.

Is 7-OH the same as kratom?

“Consumers who use 7-OH products are exposing themselves to products that have not been proven safe or effective for any use,” the FDA warned. There are no approved drugs containing it, and no legal basis for companies to claim it helps with pain or anxiety, according to the agency. Experts warn that means they will have stronger effects — and a greater risk for addiction and harm.

• The FDA has issued import alerts and warning letters but has not banned the plant.
• A 2024 literature review concluded that there are no clinical trials evaluating the effects of kratom on chronic pain management.
• Although the main purpose of the placebo-controlled trial is to test the safety and tolerability of mitragynine – not whether it can treat OUD – the fact that NIH is even conducting such a study is being hailed as a “major milestone” by kratom advocates.

Those who are also affected by the rise in the kratom epidemic are young adults who are targeted through marketing tactics in stores. In early October 2025, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health announced additional fatal overdoses that were tied to kratom, of which also alcohol was present in all cases. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis found that kratom was implicated — at least in part — in 846 fatal overdose cases in 30 states and D.C. These products have not been tested for safety, consistency, effectiveness, or accurate labeling and have not been approved for sale by the FDA. We’ve shown with illegal hemp products that when the state sets clear expectations and partners with businesses, compliance follows.

Once active, it prohibits kratom in the state, including powdered leaf, capsules, teas, and concentrated extracts containing 7-OH. Millions of Americans who have used natural 7-OH to combat opioid dependence will have little choice but either to return to illicit opioid addiction or access dangerous synthetic analogs like MGM-15 and MGM-16. But if regulators fail to draw careful distinctions, that process could become a backdoor ban on responsible businesses and consumers who are not selling synthetic products at all. Indigenous communities have consumed both coffee and kratom for centuries to regulate energy, reduce pain, and manage anxiety. Not all kratom products are alike, yet too many state and federal regulators are mistakenly treating them as if every product is one and the same.

The products sold on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Operated by our in-house editorial team — a small group of writers, engineers, and kratom-industry veterans. Amazing Botanicals — a U.S.-based kratom e-commerce company in business since 2014. We do not make specific medical claims about kratom.

Trump’s remark about “natural 7-OH” soon became a Rorschach test for rival advocacy groups in the kratom industry. That is a reference to 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), an alkaloid in kratom that has pain relieving and mood enhancing qualities. The Trump administration has given another sign that it plans to keep some “natural” forms of kratom legal under federal law. Scafe, a recovering drug addict, described Q Kratom the severe withdrawals from kratom, citing a case where a man found kratom withdrawals worse than those from fentanyl and heroin. Ryan Scafe, Director of Client Relations at Renew Ministries, noted the rising number of people struggling with kratom dependency.