The Gas-Station Opioid Hiding in Plain Sight: Washington Should Finish the 7-OH Crackdown Now
Two days after Sens. Grassley, Lee and Collins urged an emergency ban on 7-OH, a potent kratom-linked opioid sold in corner stores, the DEA restarted the process with new HHS thresholds designed to spare natural kratom. In our view, that is the right line, and the ban should be finalized quickly.
By Clara Hughes
ALTAS WORLD NEWS OPINION | By Clara Hughes, Chief Opinion Editor | October 10, 2026 | 6-min read Walk into many gas stations or corner stores in America, and you may find a product the federal government calls an opioid that "can be more potent than morphine" [4]. It is called 7-OH, a concentrated substance linked to the kratom plant, and it is often sold with a friendly, natural-sounding label. On Wednesday, three Republican senators, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, urged the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration to finish the job of banning it [1][2]. Two days later, on Friday, the administration responded with a new plan: the DEA is reissuing its notice of intent to temporarily ban 7-OH, using new science-based thresholds from the Department of Health and Human Services designed to target concentrated products while leaving natural kratom leaf alone [6][7]. In our view, the senators are right about the urgency, HHS has drawn the right line, and the administration should now finalize the order quickly. Key Takeaways The senators asked the DEA to immediately issue its emergency scheduling order for 7-OH and to permanently place 7-OH, MGM-15, MGM-16 and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl in Schedule I [1]. Poison control centers received 14,449 kratom exposure reports between 2015 and 2025, a 1,200% increase over the last decade, according to the senators [1]. The FDA