Short answer: yes, in a shrinking part of the country 7-OH products are still sold. But the federal ground under them is about to shift, and in ten states selling them is already illegal. Whether a given sale is lawful depends on two separate things. One is a federal order that hasn’t been published. The other is the law of the state the product ends up in.
As of late October 2026, 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) remained unscheduled at the federal level, and DEA’s temporary order existed only as a proposal. The agency’s October 14 notice of intent says the order “will be published in the Federal Register on or after November 13, 2026.” So the answer you get today may not hold next month. Before relying on any of this, pull up DEA’s newest entries on federalregister.gov and see whether that order is among them.
Is selling 7-OH legal under federal law today?
7-OH itself isn’t yet listed in a schedule of the Controlled Substances Act. That doesn’t make it a lawful product. The FDA said on July 29, 2025 that there are no FDA-approved 7-OH drugs. It also said 7-OH has no lawful place in dietary supplements or conventional foods. On that same date it recommended scheduling certain 7-OH products.
The agency has acted on that position. It announced warning letters to seven companies on July 15, 2025. Marshals then went further. FDA’s December 2, 2025 announcement described US Marshals taking roughly 73,000 units of 7-OH product, worth around $1 million, from a trio of Missouri companies.
Some related compounds are already off the table entirely. Since August 26, 2026, DEA has held mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP, also called “pseudo”) in temporary Schedule I with no minimum amount. Two lab-made derivatives, MGM-15 and MGM-16, went on the list with it. MP’s any-amount status won’t end by itself, either. It continues until the new order is in print and DEA formally withdraws the earlier listing.
And don’t confuse 7-OH with mitragynine. In the kratom leaf, mitragynine is by far the larger alkaloid. By FDA’s account, 7-OH makes up less than 2% of the alkaloids found in the natural leaf. The October notice doesn’t schedule mitragynine or the kratom plant at all.
Does November 13 mean the order arrives that day?
No. It’s a floor, not a date. DEA can’t publish the order before November 13, 2026. Nothing in the notice makes it publish on that day, or in that month.
There’s a precedent for slippage. DEA’s first notice, published July 6, 2026, set August 5, 2026 as the earliest possible order date, and no order followed. The October 14 notice withdrew it and replaced the July threshold with a new one.
When the order does publish, there’s no lead time built in. Publication and legal effect happen on the same day. The listing then runs for 24 months, and DEA may extend it once, by a further 12. Temporary scheduling orders also aren’t subject to judicial review under 21 U.S.C. 811(h)(6), so a lawsuit can’t pause one. If you’re following 7-OH federal status for a business or your own household, the practical meaning is simple: the change could land on any federal business day from mid-November onward, and the only advance signal is the Federal Register’s public inspection desk.
What would the order cover once it publishes?
DEA’s October text sets out a pair of tests. A product that fails just one of them is covered. The first is concentration. 7-OH and MP, alone or combined, above 1 mg per gram in solids such as powders and capsules, or above 1 mg per mL in liquids, would be Schedule I.
The second compares the alkaloids against each other. Take the product’s mitragynine content and divide it by its 7-OH content, adding any MP to the 7-OH side. A result under 100 puts the product inside the order. This is the test people tend to miss. A product can sit under 1 mg/g and still fail it if there’s too little mitragynine relative to its 7-OH.
HHS recommended this threshold in a letter to DEA dated October 8, 2026, after a public comment period that ran to September 10. Its stated aim was to separate deliberately enhanced or concentrated products from material consistent with botanical kratom.
DEA adds two cautions of its own. It warns against reading a below-threshold result as evidence of safety, and it continues to regard kratom and both alkaloids as drugs of concern. Federal action also doesn’t preempt stricter state law, which is where the picture splits.
How do the 10 prohibition states differ from cap states?
The DEA notice counts ten prohibition states. Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas and Louisiana are on it, as are Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin. In those states, the November date barely matters. Most list the alkaloids in their own Schedule I, so the product is already unlawful whatever its lab numbers say.
Several of those bans are recent. Connecticut’s scheduling of both kratom and 7-OH dates to March 25, 2026. Kansas followed under HB 2365 from July 1, 2026. Tennessee’s Public Chapter 950 took effect the same day, making possession a Class A misdemeanor.
Cap states work differently. The notice names Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas as capping 7-OH rather than banning it. Arizona and Texas both set a 2% limit on 7-OH as a share of the alkaloid content and bar synthetic versions. South Carolina needs a footnote. Its enacted Act 35 sets an adults-only age rule and bans fully synthetic alkaloids, but the text has no percentage cap.
Three of those four (all but South Carolina) also sit in a wider group of 19 states that curb concentrated or synthetic 7-OH while still permitting some leaf kratom. Florida is the closest match to the federal design: its emergency rule, in force since August 18, 2026, mirrors DEA’s per-gram and per-milliliter lines and its ratio of 100. Ohio scheduled 7-OH on May 19, 2026 while exempting natural leaf. Kentucky goes further on January 1, 2027, when all kratom sales become prohibited there.
Cities add another layer. Illinois law sets only an age limit, yet Naperville has barred retail sales inside its borders since October 1, 2026. Because the answer can change at a county or city line, it’s worth reading a tracker of kratom and 7-OH laws in each state that cites the statute behind every entry, then opening those statutes yourself.
How can you check the Federal Register yourself?
You don’t need a lawyer to see whether the order exists. You need about five minutes.
So if a product page claims something is “federally legal,” you can test that claim against the primary record rather than a seller’s banner or a forum thread.
What can’t this answer tell you?
It can’t tell you the publication date, because DEA hasn’t given one. It also can’t predict Congress. H.R. 8000 and S. 5383 would both write 7-OH provisions into statute, but as of October 21, 2026 neither had passed a chamber. States won’t hold still either. Between August 2025 and August 2026, Florida put out five separate emergency rules on 7-OH.
This isn’t legal advice. If you run a business or you’re unsure about a product you already have, a licensed attorney in your state is the person to ask.
My view is that late 2026 is the worst possible moment to trust a blanket “legal in your state” claim. The federal answer will change on a day nobody outside DEA can name, and the state answer already depends on which side of a city limit you live on.
