A Kratom Consumer Protection Act is a state statute, and DEA's notice of intent counts nineteen states that now have one. No two are identical, but they rewrite the same four things: what must appear on a label, who you may sell to, what a manufacturer has to be able to prove about a batch, and what happens if you cannot. For a retailer that is not a public health headline. It is a set of duties that arrives at your receiving door attached to somebody else's paperwork.
What follows is fourteen operational points on those duties, and on the place they are heading for a collision with the proposed federal threshold. Every dated statement lives in the box above, so the rest reads the same on either side of that day.
Why the burden lands on the buyer
Start with the number that should end every argument about how well this category labels itself. DEA, summarising a published survey of commercial 7-OH products in its notice of intent, records that the amount per single dose or serving ranged from 1 mg to 700 mg. That is a seven hundred fold spread inside one product category sold from the same shelf. The same passage notes that chewable and sublingual tablets were the most common formulation, which is worth knowing if you have been told the problem is confined to shots.
FDA describes the labelling directly. In its 29 July 2025 announcement the agency said these products "may not be clearly or accurately labeled as to their 7-OH content and are sometimes disguised or marketed as kratom." DEA puts the same point in procurement language, describing a market of "ambiguous dosages and misleading marketing" whose products are "frequently being labeled as 'natural M. speciosa extracts'."
Texas supplied the top of that range. Its Department of State Health Services warned on 2 September 2025 that semisynthetic and synthetic products reach concentrations up to 98 percent 7-OH, and that concentrated 7-OH is often added to kratom products. Independent chemistry comes at it from the other side. Brown, Chan, Zhang and Brendler, in the Journal of AOAC International in 2026, assayed products sold as kratom extract and reported 7-OH running 5 to 28 percent above the label claim while mitragynine sat far below what authentic leaf carries. Their conclusion was that the material was not a kratom extract as labelled but a synthetic derivative. Two of the four authors disclose that they consult on botanical dietary ingredient regulation, kratom included.
Here is the part that matters to you. A distributor cannot tell any of this from a purchase order. Not from a line sheet, not from a phone call, not from a decade of good invoices. The only object that carries the answer is a laboratory report tied to the lot in front of you, and the whole of the rest of this piece is about how to get one and how to read it.
Five duties that arrive with the paperwork
One boundary before the five. This is not the general supplier vetting checklist, which covers licences, terms, payment and the red flags that end a conversation. That is a separate piece and it still applies first: how to vet a wholesale supplier. What follows is narrower and it is statutory, the five points where an act or the proposed federal threshold turns a commercial preference into a document you have to be able to produce.
1. A certificate for the lot, not for the product
Most COAs that reach a buyer are marketing assets. Plenty are a year or two old, carry a product name rather than a lot code, and get emailed to anyone who asks. That document tells you what one batch of something looked like once. It does not tell you what is in the boxes on your dock.
Ask for the report for the lot number printed on the case you are buying, and make it a condition of the purchase order, not a request. A supplier who tests per lot has the report already and sends it in an afternoon. A supplier who tests per product has to decide what to tell you, and you will feel the pause.
2. Proof the panel actually looked for 7-OH
A report can be genuine, current, from a real laboratory, and still be silent on the only compound anyone is arguing about. Alkaloid panels here are often built to quantify mitragynine, because that is what customers ask about. If 7-OH was not on the target list, it does not appear in the results, and an absence in a table reads exactly like a zero to a buyer skimming a PDF.
So do not ask whether the product was tested. Ask which analytes the method targeted, and have the answer in writing. Then check that 7-OH is one of them.
3. The units, before the number
This category expresses the same quantity four different ways and the differences are not cosmetic. Percentage by weight, parts per million, milligrams per serving, and percentage of total alkaloids are four separate questions with four separate answers, and a report that gives you one of them cannot be silently converted into another.
Two conversions worth committing to memory. Five hundred parts per million is the same quantity as 0.050 percent by weight. And percentage of total alkaloids is not a concentration at all: it is a ratio between compounds, so a product can sit at a low percentage of total alkaloids while carrying a high absolute load, or the reverse. Several states write their caps in that ratio. The federal threshold does not. More on that collision below.
4. The loss on drying figure
Skip this one and the number can be off by whatever the moisture content happens to be, with nobody lying to you. The first limb of the federal threshold in the notice applies to botanical material containing more than 0.050 percent 7-OH "on a dry weight basis." A laboratory that reports on the sample as received, moisture included, is answering a different question from the one the notice asks. On damp material the as received number reads lower than the dry weight number, and the gap is exactly the moisture content.
Loss on drying is a routine line on a competent report. If it is missing, ask for it, and ask whether the alkaloid result was calculated on a dry basis or as received.
5. The label claim and the report, side by side
Put the carton next to the PDF and read them against each other line by line. Serving size, servings per container, net weight, every alkaloid figure the packaging claims. The AOAC work above found label claims exceeded in the direction that matters, so treat the carton as a claim to check rather than a summary of the report.
A mismatch is not automatically fraud. It is sometimes a batch that drifted or a label printed for an older formulation. But it is always a conversation to have before the stock is on a shelf with your name above the door, because after that the explanation is yours to give.
Where a state act meets the proposed federal threshold
6. Two numbers, joined by the word "or"
The notice of intent sets a threshold with two limbs, and the word between them is the whole point. For material resulting from synthetic methods, and for material derived from the plant and further processed, the notice reaches anything containing 7-OH "in amounts greater than 0.050 percentage by weight/weight, weight/volume, or volume/volume or greater than 1.00 milligram of 7-hydroxymitragynine in the article."
Read that as two independent tests. Clearing the concentration limit does not clear the mass limit. A product can sit comfortably under 0.050 percent and still carry more than a milligram of 7-OH, and on the face of the notice that is enough. Most of the trade conversation has been about the percentage, because a percentage sounds like a purity spec. The milligram is the limb that will surprise people.
7. The arithmetic that decides which limb binds
The two limbs cross at two grams. Below that weight the percentage is the stricter test; above it the milligram is, and the heavier the article the further apart they get.
| Net weight of the article | 7-OH at 0.050 percent | Concentration that reaches 1.00 mg | Which limb binds first |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 g pressed tablet | 0.50 mg | 0.100 percent | the percentage |
| 2 g | 1.00 mg | 0.050 percent | both, at the same point |
| 5 g pouch | 2.50 mg | 0.020 percent | the milligram |
| 10 g pouch | 5.00 mg | 0.010 percent | the milligram |
| 28 g jar | 14.0 mg | 0.0036 percent | the milligram |
Now the honest caveat. The notice says "in the article" and does not define whether the article is the package, the unit of sale or the serving. On a multi serving jar that changes the answer by an order of magnitude, which is the difference between a product you can keep and a product you cannot. It is not a question a buyer or a supplier gets to settle. Put it to your own counsel with your actual pack sizes in front of them, and get the answer in writing before you commit to a season of inventory.
8. It names extracts, concentrates, processed edibles and pressed pills. Including ours
The second limb of the notice is explicit about format. It reaches material derived from the plant "and further processed to manufacture alternative dosage forms such as extracts, concentrates, processed edibles, or pressed pills," including material exposed to "chemical, thermal, or other methods" that raise the 7-OH above the threshold. That is not a description of a rogue category at the edge of the market. It is a description of the extract shelf.
You will hear the counter from suppliers within a week of any order publishing: ours is naturally derived, so the rule is aimed at somebody else. DEA wrote the rebuttal into the notice before anyone made the argument, stating that the chemical structures of synthetic and naturally occurring 7-OH are identical and that the pharmacological profile, receptor affinity and mechanism of action remain unchanged regardless of source. Above the threshold, "all natural" is a marketing sentence, not a compliance position.
We are not standing outside this. One of our sibling brands publishes a certificate for a pressed extract tablet lot showing 0.102 percent 7-OH by weight, roughly double the proposed line, and that same report is marked as a failure against the brand's own internal limit. It is published anyway, because a report you only publish when it flatters you is an advertisement. In a category this contested the right posture is to hand over numbers, not adjectives.
The wider version of that argument is worth stating plainly, because a sceptical customer or a state inspector will get there on their own. Nobody in this industry can hand the harm data to somebody else. CDC's surveillance report of 26 March 2026 in MMWR says in its own limitations that the data do not record whether the exposures involved traditional leaf or semisynthetic and concentrated formulations. FDA has never said leaf is fine. What the published evidence supports, from FDA, DEA and independent chemistry alike, is narrower and more useful: the harm concentrates where the label does not match the contents.
What to refuse at the door
9. Refuse "natural M. speciosa extract" as a description
DEA named this phrase in its notice as the label the market hides behind. Treat it as a flag rather than a spec. It tells you the genus and nothing else: not the concentration, not the analyte, not the method, not the lot.
The refusal is not hostile. You are not accusing anyone. You are declining to buy a description instead of a measurement, and a supplier running a real quality programme reads that as competence.
10. Refuse a range where a number belongs
If a supplier answers a question about content with a range, a typical value or a nominal figure, that is a specification talking, not a result. Specifications describe intent. Results describe the material you are buying. The gap between them is precisely the gap DEA measured when it recorded doses running from 1 mg to 700 mg.
Apply the same rule to formats designed to move fast. FDA has said it is particularly concerned with the growing market of 7-OH products that may be especially appealing to children and teenagers, naming fruit flavoured gummies and ice cream cones. Whatever your view of that framing, a product built to look like confectionery is the one that gets photographed, and the one a legislature holds up.
11. Refuse a report you cannot trace
A usable certificate carries five things: the issuing laboratory with contact details, the analytical method, the lot or batch identifier, the date of analysis, and a named signatory. Miss any one and the document cannot be checked by anyone, which is the same as not having it.
The state rules that do not wait for the DEA order
12. Watch the states, not only the federal docket
The federal action is one line item. The rules that will actually decide what you can sell in your own county are being written in state capitols, and they are moving faster than Washington. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported on 30 June 2026 that at least 31 states and Washington, D.C., regulate kratom or its components in some manner. By NCSL's count nineteen states impose labelling requirements and twenty two set an age restriction. DEA's notice of intent puts the number of states with a Kratom Consumer Protection Act on the books at nineteen as well, and separately records nine that prohibit 7-OH outright: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin. Those two nineteens are not the same nineteen, and anyone quoting one as the other is guessing. Our state by state rundown for retailers is the version to keep open while you build a shipping matrix.
Then there is the trap in the numbers. NCSL records Oklahoma capping 7-OH at one percent of total kratom alkaloids and Colorado at two percent of total alkaloids, while the proposed federal threshold is written as a percentage of the weight of the article and as milligrams in the article. Those are different denominators. A certificate that answers the state question does not answer the federal one, and a supplier who quotes you the ratio when you asked for the concentration may not have noticed the difference.
If you want to follow the federal side properly rather than through headlines, the Federal Register record for the notice points to docket DEA-2026-1190, where DEA's three factor analysis and the letter from the Department of Health and Human Services are filed. DEA has also published its own account of what the temporary scheduling would and would not cover, including its statement that the action "does not apply to botanical kratom products that contain naturally occurring 7-OH below the specified threshold." Note the last four words. The carve out is a number, not a category.
13. There is no federal age floor
People assume one exists. It does not. Age limits in this category are entirely a state matter, which means the answer changes at a state line and your policy has to be built rather than inherited.
You are not the only one asking for that floor. NACS, the convenience retail trade body, says it wants federal rules delivering regulatory certainty on natural versus synthetic, sales restricted to consumers 21 and over, clear labelling of intoxicant levels and sound manufacturing practices. That is the channel asking to be regulated. Ours is 21 and over on every account and every SKU, and we would rather lose an order than a licence.
Minnesota is the sharpest recent example, and it is sharper than most operators realise because it reaches the customer rather than only the seller. Chapter 63 of the 2026 session laws makes it a misdemeanour for a person under 21 to possess any amount of kratom or a substance containing mitragynine or 7-hydroxymitragynine, effective 1 August 2026. The plain operator response is to run 21 as a house rule everywhere, card without exceptions, and keep the till prompt on. It costs you a small number of sales and removes an entire class of problem.
14. Keep every report for longer than you keep the stock
File the certificate with the lot, the invoice and the date you received it, and keep the set for as long as the product could still be in somebody's cupboard. Not in an inbox. In something you could hand to an inspector, a lawyer or an insurer without a search.
The reason retailers get hurt is unglamorous. When a question arrives it usually arrives about a lot you sold months ago, and the difference between a conversation and a problem is whether you can produce, on the day, the document that shows what you bought. Nobody has ever regretted the filing. Plenty have regretted the search.
The script for the question your staff will get
Somebody will ask at the counter whether this is the kratom that is being banned. Give your team a short answer they can say without improvising, because the improvised version is where the trouble starts.
Then keep the numbers where staff can reach them. The SAMHSA National Helpline is free, confidential and staffed around the clock on 1-800-662-4357. Poison Control is 1-800-222-1222. Naloxone reverses opioid respiratory depression, and DEA's own case summaries in the notice include a 29 year old whose cardiopulmonary arrest was reversed with it. If someone is difficult to wake, is not breathing normally, or is unresponsive, that is 911 and not a judgement call. And be straight with anyone who asks: kratom is not a treatment for opioid use disorder or withdrawal, and the medicines with an evidence base behind them are buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone.
What to do with this
Turn the first five into standing conditions on your purchase orders. Under an act that names labelling and testing duties, those five are the documents you would have to produce on the day somebody asks, and the supplier who cannot produce them has made the decision for you.
If you are rebalancing the shelf while the federal position is unsettled, look at categories where your exposure is different rather than absent. Our wholesale kava range is one of them, and the same checks apply without a word changed: some kava blends are formulated with mitragynine, so the plant on the front does not tell you what a rule naming mitragynine will catch. This is not a route around anything.
If you want the reports, the lot codes and the pricing in one place, the fastest route is to apply for a wholesale account and ask us for the certificate for a lot you have not bought yet. That request is the best test of any supplier in this category, including us.
This article is general information for retail and wholesale operators. It is not legal advice and it is not medical advice. Rules in this category change quickly and differ by jurisdiction, and questions about your own inventory, pack sizes or licensing should go to qualified counsel in the states where you sell. Statements about products and compounds discussed here have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and no product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
