Massachusetts Bans All Kratom, Going Further Than the Feds Just Did

Massachusetts just banned a plant that, in most forms, the federal government explicitly decided not to.

On August 13, Governor Maura Healey issued an emergency order placing every kratom product — leaf powder, capsules, tablets, gummies, all of it — into Schedule I under state law. Schedule I is the category reserved for drugs the state says have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; heroin lives there too. The order takes effect after a 14-day notice period and can stay in force for up to a year, and it hands local boards of health the power to go after retailers directly.

Massachusetts just drew a much wider line than the federal government drew for itself weeks earlier — and the gap between the two falls squarely on people who have nowhere else to turn.

State Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein issued the order, and Healey framed it around the products showing up in ordinary retail: “Dangerous kratom products are being sold in stores across Massachusetts with little oversight, and people — including children — often have no way of knowing what they’re buying or how potent it is.” That’s a real problem. Kratom tablets and gummies sold at gas stations and smoke shops are largely unregulated, unlabeled for dose, and occasionally spiked with far more concentrated compounds than a buyer would expect.

But that specific danger already has a federal answer, and it’s narrower. In July 2026, HHS, the FDA, and the DEA moved to temporarily Schedule I — but only 7-hydroxymitragynine, or “7-OH,” above a set concentration, plus three lab-made derivatives. 7-OH is a compound the body naturally produces in small amounts when it processes kratom’s main active ingredient; the products federal regulators are worried about are ones that concentrate or synthesize it into something far more potent than a leaf ever is. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called those specific compounds “dangerous opioids that fuel addiction.” Crucially, the DEA action left the raw kratom leaf itself untouched — it remains federally unregulated on purpose.

Massachusetts didn’t preserve that distinction. Its order treats a cup of traditional kratom tea the same as a synthetic 7-OH extract.

That matters because kratom users aren’t a hypothetical category. SAMHSA estimates 1.7 million Americans 12 and older used kratom in 2021, and a meaningful share of that use is self-directed harm reduction — people managing chronic pain or tapering off opioids without a legal, affordable alternative. For someone in that position, a blanket state ban doesn’t distinguish between the product that helped them and the one the FDA actually flagged as dangerous. It just takes the option away, effective in two weeks.

The American Kratom Association, pushing back, called kratom “a precious natural resource” and said it backs “appropriate FDA consumer regulation” — contamination testing, potency labeling, age limits — over prohibition.

Massachusetts had a narrower path available. It reached past it.