What the DEA's August 2026 kratom scheduling means for wholesale buyers

On 25 August 2026 the US Department of Justice announced that the Drug Enforcement Administration had placed three compounds chemically related to kratom into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The order took effect on 26 August 2026. This post sets out what was scheduled, what was not, and what a wholesale buyer of kratom leaf or extract should do about it. It is written from the perspective of a Thai grower and extractor. It is not legal advice.

What was scheduled

Three substances are now Schedule I on a temporary basis: mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (often abbreviated MGPI or MP), MGM-15, and MGM-16, together with their isomers, esters, ethers and salts. The temporary order runs for two years, until 26 August 2028, and can be extended by a further year while the DEA pursues permanent scheduling.

None of the three occurs naturally in kratom leaf in any meaningful quantity. Mitragynine pseudoindoxyl is a rearrangement product of 7-hydroxymitragynine; MGM-15 and MGM-16 are synthetic derivatives. They had begun appearing in manufactured consumer products sold under the kratom name.

The Justice Department has said it will exercise enforcement discretion where only incidental trace amounts of MGPI are found in a product that is otherwise consistent with botanical kratom. That is a policy statement, not an exemption. It does not extend to MGM-15, MGM-16, or to any product where MGPI has been manufactured, concentrated or added.

What has not been scheduled yet

The DEA has also proposed placing 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) above a specified threshold into Schedule I. That proposal was filed on 1 July 2026 and published on 6 July 2026. As of the date of this post it has not been issued as a final order. The Department of Health and Human Services reopened public comment on the threshold, closing on 10 September 2026.

The proposed threshold is 0.05 percent 7-OH by dry weight in botanical material. For extracts, concentrates, edibles and pressed products the threshold is 0.05 percent by weight or volume, or more than 1.00 milligram of 7-OH in the article, whichever applies first.

Botanical kratom leaf containing naturally occurring 7-OH below that threshold is explicitly outside the scope of the proposal. The DEA and HHS have both stated that the action targets concentrated and synthetic 7-OH products, not the plant.

The state picture

Federal action sets a floor. State law decides what can actually be sold in a given place, and the states have moved in very different directions. Several states prohibit kratom entirely. Others have passed consumer protection laws that keep natural leaf legal while banning synthetic derivatives and setting age, labelling and testing rules. North Dakota did both within a month: the governor and attorney general announced a total ban by executive action in early August, and the legislature then rejected a permanent ban in favour of a consumer protection law that prohibits chemically manipulated derivatives, including 7-OH, while regulating natural leaf.

Any buyer should confirm the position in each state they ship to, and should expect it to keep changing.

What this means if you buy kratom at volume

Three practical consequences follow.

• Know the 7-OH content of every lot you buy. For leaf, that number should sit comfortably under 0.05 percent dry weight. For extract the question is harder: concentrating leaf concentrates whatever 7-OH it contains, so a full-spectrum extract needs to be measured, not assumed. Ask for the figure on the certificate of analysis, not just the mitragynine percentage.

• Do not buy anything described as enhanced, fortified, boosted or 7-OH. Whatever the marketing term, a product with added or concentrated 7-OH is what the DEA has proposed to schedule, and MGPI, MGM-15 and MGM-16 are already scheduled.

• Insist on batch-level documentation. A representative certificate from two years ago tells you what a supplier's process could do then. A batch certificate tells you what is in the drum on your dock.

Where Siam Innotech Farm stands

We grow red vein Mitragyna speciosa in Thailand and produce dried leaf and FKT-65, a full-spectrum extract standardised to 65 percent mitragynine. Nothing is isolated, spiked or fortified; the alkaloid ratio in the finished extract is the ratio that came out of the leaf. We do not produce mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15, MGM-16 or any 7-OH concentrate, and we do not intend to. Our material is tested by HPLC and our certificates of analysis report the measured 7-OH figure alongside mitragynine, so a buyer can check it against whatever threshold applies to them.

Thailand removed kratom from its narcotics schedule on 24 August 2021. We hold Thai FDA export documentation and supply it with every shipment. Thai export regulation caps exportable extract purity at 65 percent mitragynine, which is why FKT-65 is our only extract grade.

Sources

• DEA press release, 1 July 2026: https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2026/07/01/dea-temporarily-schedule-7-oh-and-related-substances-protect-public

• Congressional Research Service, Legal Sidebar LSB11457, Temporary Control of 7-Hydroxymitragynine and Related Substances: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11457

• Federal Register, HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, extension of comment period on the 7-OH threshold, published 26 August 2026.

This post is general information from a supplier's point of view, current as of 6 September 2026. It is not legal advice. Confirm the position with a customs broker or regulatory attorney before importing.