Gov. Mike DeWine renewed his executive request Thursday to categorize kratom as an illegal drug.
DeWine said he wants the Ohio Board of Pharmacy to use an emergency rule to ban synthetically modified kratom immediately, like 7-OH, and to look at banning natural kratom down the line.
The herbal extract from Asia has naturally occurring trace amounts of the alkaloids mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, which in high doses have sedative effects.
“Kratom is just dangerous, and so we need to regulate it or we need to ban it,” he said in an interview with the Statehouse News Bureau.
DeWine’s first order to do so came in late August, but he then walked that back after a call with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has voiced his own concerns with synthetic kratom. DeWine said then an effort may need to come from lawmakers.
Senate Bill 299 would block Ohioans under 18 from buying natural kratom and establish other restrictions on it, like testing and labeling requirements, and outlaw synthetic kratom. It was introduced in October but has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in July it would move to schedule 7-OH, which is being sold at corner stores and gas stations in various forms, from tablets to edibles to drinks. Federal efforts to schedule kratom have failed before, though the FDA has not greenlit consuming it or using it medically.
The request comes one day after DeWine received Senate Bill 56, extensive legislation changing recreational cannabis laws and banning so-called intoxicating hemp, including hemp-derived beverages. DeWine said he will sign SB 56.
Preliminary data from the Ohio Department of Health documented more than 200 unintentional overdose deaths between 2019 and 2024 from synthetic kratom.
