Rachel Carlson

So I asked the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and they told me in an email statement, it depends on the specific product.

And on top of that, there's one compound in the kratom plant in particular that's been in the headlines recently.

People call it 7-OH, which stands for 7-hydroxymetragynine.

Some people also pronounce it mitragynine, but mostly people just say 7-OH.

7-OH.

Okay.

Where do people buy 7-OH?

You can pretty much buy it anywhere.

So it's sold in smoke shops, gas stations, convenience stores.

It's possible you've actually seen it advertised on those neon signs that say weed, but instead it'll say Kratom or 70H in those bright letters.

That was FDA Commissioner Marty McCary during a press conference in July.

And that's when the FDA said they were recommending certain 70H products be scheduled alongside opioids.

But not every researcher I talked to was ready to sound those alarm bells.

They told me Kratom and 7-OH are at the heart of a big public health debate right now.

Past estimates for how many people use Kratom every year run anywhere from 2 million to more than 10 million.

But there's not that much recent data.

And those numbers include people who use Kratom or 7-OH to wean themselves off opioids like heroin or as a way to manage chronic pain without prescription drugs.

Yeah, I mean, according to the CDC, 76% of drug overdose deaths in 2023 involved opioids.

I can imagine having an alternative, a way out of using opioids, would be really appealing.

For some people, it is.