Ohio Agreed In Court That Its Emergency Kratom Rule Does Not Reach Natural Leaf

While federal regulators spend this week reading comments on where to draw the line between kratom leaf and concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine, Ohio has already drawn that line once — in a court order the state itself signed.

The Consent Judgment

On February 4, 2026, Judge Stephen L. McIntosh of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas entered a Final Consent Judgment Entry in Channel Zero Marketing, LLC, et al. v. Ohio Board of Pharmacy, Case No. 26CV000497. A consent judgment is an order entered by agreement of both sides — here, two Ohio distributors of natural kratom leaf products on one side and the Ohio Board of Pharmacy on the other.

The entry declares that the Board's Emergency Mitragynine-Related Compounds Rule "was not intended to, and does not, schedule or otherwise apply to natural kratom and natural kratom leaf products that contain trace amounts of mitragynine-related compounds."

The court also permanently enjoined the Board from "taking any steps to enforce or otherwise attempting to enforce, or from directing, acting in concert with, or advising any other entity (including, without limitation, law enforcement) to enforce or attempt to enforce" the emergency rule against those products.

Both sides waived their right to appeal, each paid its own attorneys' fees, and the case was terminated as a final judgment, with the court retaining jurisdiction to enforce the entry. The docket disposition reads "Settled/dismissed prior to Trial."

How The Case Got There

The emergency rule traces to December 12, 2025, when Governor Mike DeWine issued an executive order finding that an emergency existed permitting the Board of Pharmacy to adopt an emergency scheduling rule for mitragynine-related compounds. The Board issued its emergency rule the same week.

On January 20, 2026, Channel Zero Marketing, LLC and JFL Energy, LLC — which describe themselves in the filing as Ohio distributors of "natural kratom leaf products made with natural, pure-leaf vegetative kratom in its dried and powdered form" — sued the Board, moving the same day for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction. Neither motion was ever decided; the docket marks both as moot, because fifteen days later the parties resolved the case by consent.

What The Judgment Left Open

The February order was deliberately narrow. Its own text states that it "applies only to the Emergency Mitragynine-Related Compounds Rule, and does not restrict the Defendant from proposing or adopting any other rule relating to kratom products, mitragynine, or mitragynine-related compounds."

The Board used that room. A permanent version of the rule cleared Ohio's legislative rule-review process and took effect in mid-May, as the Statehouse News Bureau reported, and the Board has said publicly it is still weighing whether to pursue a separate rule reaching natural kratom itself.

That produced a second round of litigation. On May 21, 2026, Krazy Daze Inc. v. Ohio Board of Pharmacy, Case No. 26 CV 004790, was filed in the same court, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the permanent rule, before Judge Mark Serrott. A related case, Miracle Kratom, LLC, et al. v. Ohio Department of Agriculture, et al., Case No. 26 CV 004720, sits before the same judge.

The Line Holds, For Now

On May 28 the court issued a temporary restraining order in the Krazy Daze case, and after a preliminary injunction hearing the following day, it extended that order indefinitely. A June 4, 2026 entry modified the order to state that the Board and anyone acting in concert with it "are enjoined from treating and shall not treat as a Schedule I (or other) controlled substance any product that contains, as an ingredient, vegetative kratom in either leaf or ground up/pulverized leaf form, whether the product is sold in liquid, capsule, or other form."

The order expressly leaves the Ohio Department of Agriculture's separate food-law authority untouched.

A Records Fight On Top

The litigation has now reached the Ohio Supreme Court, though not on the scheduling question. On June 25, 2026, Botanic Tonics, LLC — an Oklahoma manufacturer whose products the June 4 order expressly covers — filed an original mandamus action, Case No. 2026-0805, alleging the Board of Pharmacy failed to timely produce public records about how the kratom rules were developed. According to the complaint, a December 2025 records request was answered three months later with a statement that the Board had no responsive documents for most items, and a February 2026 request produced nothing until May.

The Board has not yet answered the mandamus complaint, and no court has ruled on its merits.

The Federal Echo

The distinction Ohio's courts have now entered twice — natural leaf on one side, concentrated or synthesized 7-OH products on the other — is the same line the Drug Enforcement Administration's July 6 notice of intent attempts to draw with a concentration threshold. The federal comment window on that threshold closes July 31. Whatever number the federal agencies settle on, Ohio's consent judgment will remain what it was on February 4: a state agency's signed agreement, entered as a final judgment, that its emergency rule never reached the natural leaf.