The Federal Comment Window On 7-OH Has Closed. The Order Can Issue Any Time After August 5.

The public comment docket on where the federal government should draw its line between kratom leaf and concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine closed on Thursday, July 31. Under the terms the Drug Enforcement Administration set out in its own notice, the temporary scheduling order that follows cannot issue before Wednesday, August 5 — and can issue any time after it.

What Closed

The docket was HHS-OASH-2026-0232, opened by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. The Federal Register record describes its purpose in one sentence: OASH was "opening a public docket to solicit input on a proposed threshold for 7-hydroxymitragynine scheduling under the Controlled Substances Act." Its instruction to the public was to "submit either electronic or written comments, data, or information by July 31, 2026."

OASH asked two specific questions. The first was "whether any additional data exist that further support this or an alternative threshold level, and specifically, what concentration or quantity of 7-OH in a product constitutes an imminent hazard to public safety." The second was "whether data exist supporting alternative measurement expressions for purposes of specifying the threshold level that is necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety."

Both questions are about a number, not about kratom as a category. That framing has been the defining feature of this proceeding from the start.

The Number Itself

The companion document is the DEA's notice of intent, Docket No. DEA-1570, published the same day, July 6. It proposes to place 7-hydroxymitragynine above a specified threshold into Schedule I, "including its isomers, esters, ethers, salts, and salts of isomers, esters, and ethers, whenever the existence of such isomers, esters, ethers, and salts is possible."

The threshold as written reaches material that "contains more than 0.050 percentage of 7-hydroxymitragynine on a dry weight basis." For articles resulting from synthetic methods, and for processed derivatives manufactured into other dosage forms — extracts, concentrates, processed edibles, pressed pills — the notice also reaches material containing "greater than 1.00 milligram of 7-hydroxymitragynine in the article."

The reasoning behind that figure appears in the notice's own description of the plant. "In its natural botanical form," it states, "7-hydroxymitragynine makes up less than two percent of the total alkaloid content or occurs in trace amount in M. speciosa." The threshold is set where it is because concentrated and synthesized articles sit above it and unprocessed leaf ordinarily sits below it.

Three related substances accompany 7-OH in the broader action the DEA announced on July 1: mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine (MGM-15), and the 9-fluoro derivative of 7-hydroxymitragynine (MGM-16).

The Clock

Temporary scheduling under the Controlled Substances Act runs on a fixed sequence, and the notice states its own deadline plainly: "The temporary scheduling order will not be issued before August 5, 2026." Once issued, the order takes effect on the date it publishes and will "remain in effect for two years, with a possible extension of an additional year" while the agency pursues permanent scheduling.

That is the whole of the schedule. There is no further comment round, no hearing, and no announced publication date — only a floor beneath which the order cannot appear. Anyone tracking this should be watching the Federal Register daily from Wednesday forward rather than waiting for an announcement.

Where The Advocacy Groups Landed

The two largest kratom trade and advocacy organizations both filed in support of the action, which is not the alignment these proceedings usually produce.

Kratom Science reported that the American Kratom Association backed the scheduling, stating that "chemically manipulated 7-OH opioids are not kratom" and that "they are dangerous products that exploited the reputation of natural kratom leaf." The Global Kratom Coalition also supported it, arguing that the multiple alkaloids present in whole leaf give it a different profile from concentrated 7-OH products, and pointing to separate scheduling recommendations from the FDA, HHS and the American Medical Association.

Those are the organizations' positions on the regulatory question, reported as such. The Kratom Council takes no position on the pharmacology and has not evaluated the underlying claims.

What The Order Would And Would Not Reach

The distinction the notice draws is narrower than much of the coverage around it. Writing for Spencer Fane on July 7, Brian Malkin, co-chair of the firm's Cannabis and FDA Pharmaceutical and Biologics Market Teams, put it directly: the DEA's proposed temporary scheduling "should not affect botanical kratom products that contain naturally occurring mitragynine and 7-OH."

The National Association of Counties described the scope the same way in its July 7 note to members, saying the action "does not target natural kratom leaf products that contain only naturally occurring trace amounts of the primary active compound 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH)," and framing the order as giving county law enforcement an additional tool against synthetic 7-OH manufacture and distribution.

What none of this settles is the state and municipal layer. As this publication reported today, Minnesota's new purchase-age law took effect August 1 and applies to natural leaf without reference to any alkaloid threshold, and city ordinances in Washington and elsewhere are being written on the same basis. A federal order keyed to 0.050 percent will not disturb a local rule keyed to a buyer's date of birth. Operators will be reading both.