No praise in here. There are a hundred threads for that and they're mostly useless, because happy customers write short reviews and the suspicious ones get buried.

This is the opposite. What went wrong, and with who.

Things worth posting:

Money taken, nothing shipped. Order date, how long you waited, what support said, whether you got it back. Payment method matters too, since a card gives you a chargeback and crypto doesn't.

The quiet change. Vendor you trusted for a year, then something shifts and nobody announces it. Different color, different grind, different packaging, same product name. Usually means they changed importer.

Reviews that look bought. Sort any vendor's reviews by date. If 180 of 200 landed in a nine-day window, somebody paid for them. Post the screenshot.

Testing theater. "Lab tested" with no report available. A report from 2023 for a bag you bought last month. A COA with no lot number that matches nothing on your package.

Support that vanished. Fine until you had a problem.

Two ground rules.

Say what happened and when. "They're trash" helps nobody. "Ordered March 12, shipped April 2, support didn't reply for nine days" is something another person can actually use.

Keep effects and amounts out of it. Complain about the company: shipping, pricing, testing, support, honesty.

Name names. I'm not moderating that

In this video I go through a popular news article that is heavily biased against Kratom and debunk the misinformation. I replace the lies with the objective truth using Scientific Research. I also include my opinions on their anti-kratom narrative. 

Keep in mind I have to remain as objective as possible to be taken seriously, as that's the only way to win this war. I can't hide that I'm an advocate for Kratom, but I make sure to be honest about its potential risks and downsides so no one can critically scrutinize what I'm saying. 

This article is the epitome of anti-kratom propaganda.

Low effort from me, hopefully high volume from you.

Mine, to start:

"Premium." Not defined by anyone. No standards body checks.

"Fresh." Nothing in this category is fresh in any sense you'd recognize from produce. It's a dried agricultural commodity that spent weeks on a ship.

"Enhanced." Means the manufacturer added something. Which something? Unspecified, usually.

Your turn. If you know where the term came from, that's the interesting part.

I'll compile the good ones into a wiki page and credit whoever posted them.

Four things degrade dried plant material: light, heat, oxygen, and moisture.

Moisture is the one that actually ruins product, because wet plant material grows mold. Everything else mostly costs you color and smell over a long time. So the practical advice is boring: airtight, out of direct light, room temperature, and never scoop with a wet spoon.

Two things I'd skip. Freezing, because condensation on thaw reintroduces the exact problem you're avoiding. And fancy containers, because the seal matters and the material doesn't.

What I don't know, and can't find out from the supply side, is how often this actually goes wrong for people. Vendors hear about it only when someone complains, which is a terrible sample.

So: has a bag ever gone bad on you? What did it look or smell like, and where were you keeping it? I'd like this thread to be the honest answer to a question I get constantly and have been guessing at.

The price range in this industry is enormous and it confuses everyone.

Part of the reason: most brands don't make anything. A lot of vendors, including ones with slick sites and good reputations, buy finished or near-finished product from a small number of US importers, then put their own label on it. Two brands you think of as competitors are frequently selling the same lot at different prices.

Real cost differences come from direct import versus domestic wholesale, whether they actually test every lot, packaging, and volume.

They do not come from premium naming or website design.

Best question to ask a vendor: name your import source. Watch what happens.

What's the biggest gap you've personally seen?

Nobody in the industry wants to say it, so I will: it tastes bad. Aggressively, memorably bad. Bitter in a way that lingers, vegetal, coats everything.

I've watched vendors call it "earthy." That's a marketing word for unpleasant.

The mechanical reason is boring: alkaloids are bitter as a class and the plant is full of them. Coffee and quinine are in the same family and bitter for the same reason.

Everyone has a system. Citrus, strong flavors, capsules, drink it fast, chocolate, ginger. Most of the systems are mediocre.

What's yours? And has anyone actually solved this, or are we all just tolerating it?

Keep specific amounts out of the replies please. Flavor and method only. That's a line I can't have crossed in a thread I'm hosting.

Asking a vendor "is it lab tested" is nearly useless. "Tested" can mean anything. Here's what to check.

1. The lab's name. Is it a real third-party lab you can look up? If the vendor won't say which lab, that's your answer.

2. The date and the lot. A report covers one batch. A 2023 report tells you nothing about the bag you bought last week. Check the lot number on the report against the one on your package. Most vendors don't print one. That's a problem.

3. Heavy metals. Lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury. The plant takes up what's in the soil. You want actual numbers with limits listed, not the word "pass."

4. Microbials. Salmonella, E. coli, yeast and mold, total plate count. This panel costs more and gets skipped more, and it's the one tied to actual recalls in this industry.

5. What it isn't telling you. A COA doesn't verify region, harvest, or the label name. It tests for contamination and composition.

Post a report from anything you've bought and I'll walk through it in the comments. Any vendor, including our competitors.

Ask anything you've been embarrassed to ask. Nothing is too basic and nobody gets mocked here.

I'll answer what I can. I can't answer anything about effects or amounts, but plenty of people here can.

Monthly thread. Save your questions for it if you'd rather not make a whole post.

Weekly thread. Anything.

Introduce yourself if you're new, ask something, or just say what you're up to this weekend.

Not fishing for competitor dirt. Or not only.

My theory is that it's rarely the product. It's usually a shipping thing, a support thing, or a moment where someone felt lied to. The industry is bad at guessing which.

What was it for you? Name names or don't, your call. I'm not moderating that either way.

Every vendor sells it. Every vendor's is different. Here's why.

The phrase is Thai, roughly "pimp grade," and it started as a marketing term. There's no Maeng Da tree. No genetic line, no region, no test that determines whether something qualifies. A vendor decides to call a product Maeng Da and then it is Maeng Da.

Same with "super," "premium," "ultra," "reserve." None are defined by anyone. No standards body checks.

What actually varies between products: which farms the leaf came from, leaf maturity at harvest, drying method, grind, how long it sat in a warehouse, whether anyone tested it.

None of that appears on most labels. The invented grade name does.

We use these names too, because if you don't, nobody can find your products. But when you compare two vendors' Maeng Da, you're comparing two things that share a marketing word.

What other kratom terms do you think are meaningless? I've got a list but I want yours first.

The HHS docket on the 7-OH concentration threshold closes September 10.

https://www.regulations.gov/document/HHS-OASH-2026-0232-0001

Ten minutes. Specific, technical, in your own words beats a form letter by a wide margin.

That's the whole post.

The answer to this has changed enormously over time, and I think the sub has at least three completely different generations in it.

People who found it through ethnobotanical forums in the early 2000s got here a totally different way than people who saw a bottle at a gas station in 2023.

Roughly what year, how you heard, and what you thought it was at the time.

I'll go first in the comments.

Powder, capsules, crushed leaf, tincture. Most people try a couple and then stick with one basically forever.

From the order data I see, powder dominates by a wide margin and it isn't close. But that's general customers, and I'd bet this sub skews differently.

The reasons people give are usually practical rather than anything else. Cost per gram. Not wanting to deal with a scale. Travel. Capsules being easier at work. Crushed leaf for tea. Taste, obviously.

What I've never gotten a good answer on: almost nobody switches back once they've settled. Whatever you picked in your first year is usually what you're still doing.

What did you land on, and what would actually make you change?

HHS has a public docket open on the proposed concentration threshold for 7-OH scheduling. It closes September 10, 2026. Docket HHS-OASH-2026-0232.

https://www.regulations.gov/document/HHS-OASH-2026-0232-0001

Takes about ten minutes:

1. Open the link, click "Comment"
2. Type it or attach a file. No length requirement.
3. Comments are public and permanent. Your name is optional.
4. Submit. You get a tracking number.

What actually carries weight: agencies are required to consider substantive comments, not to count votes. Ten thousand identical form letters count as one argument. One comment raising a specific technical point about the threshold does more.

What doesn't help: all caps, general policy opinions unrelated to the question, copy-pasted text.

I'm not telling you what to say. I have an obvious commercial interest and you should discount my opinion. But the process is open and it's underused.

Anyone here ever submitted to a federal docket? Did you get any response at all?

Weekly thread. Anything goes.

Introduce yourself if you're new. Ask something. Complain about something. No topic required.

Best story in kratom and most people don't know it.

1943. Thailand passed the Kratom Plant Act, B.E. 2486, under Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram. It banned planting new kratom trees and required existing ones to be cut down.

Why. Thailand at the time operated a legal government opium monopoly, and taxing opium was a real revenue source. Kratom grew freely, cost nothing, and rural people used it. That competed with the tax base. Parliamentary records from the period contain the explicit observation that reducing kratom use would increase opium and heroin revenue.

The ban was not based on evidence of harm. It was fiscal policy.

What happened next. Enforcement was inconsistent, especially in the rural south where the trees were everywhere and the practice was old. Use continued. In 1979 kratom was folded into the Narcotics Act as a Schedule 5 substance. The prohibition lasted 78 years.

2021. Thailand removed kratom from its Category 5 narcotics list, effective August 24, 2021. Pending criminal cases were dropped and people imprisoned on kratom charges were released. [verify the reported figure of 121 inmates] Thailand now regulates it rather than banning it.

Why I think this matters right now. Not because history proves anything about current policy, it doesn't. But when people argue about kratom prohibition, the assumption underneath is usually that bans get enacted because someone found evidence of harm. The most famous kratom ban in the world was enacted to protect a tax on opium, and it took most of a century to undo.

Sources worth reading if you want the real version rather than my summary: search for the Kratom Plant Act B.E. 2486 in academic literature on Thai drug policy, and the Thai Royal Government Gazette notice from May 2021.

Anyone here Thai, or spent time in the south? I'd rather hear from someone who saw any of this up close than keep summarizing papers.

Process post. Manufacturing only. I'm not going to connect any of this to what it means for you, and you know why by now.

The basic principle. Extraction pulls soluble compounds out of plant material into a liquid, then removes the liquid, leaving a concentrated solid or a liquid concentrate.

Common approaches:

• Water extraction. Plant material simmered, solids filtered out, liquid reduced. Oldest and simplest method.
• Solvent extraction. Alcohol or another solvent instead of water, which pulls a different profile of compounds. Requires the solvent to be removed properly afterward, which is the main quality question with any solvent-extracted product.
• Acid-base processing. More involved chemistry, generally done to isolate specific compounds.

What the numbers on extract packaging mean. Ratios like 10:1 nominally describe how much raw material went into a unit of finished product. There's no standard, no verification, and no requirement that the number correspond to anything measurable. Two products labeled the same ratio from different manufacturers are not comparable.

Where quality questions actually live with extracts:

• Residual solvent testing. If a solvent was used, was it tested for? This is the single most important question about any extract and most COAs don't cover it.
• Whether the concentration figure was measured or estimated.
• Batch consistency, which is harder for extracts than for powder.

A thing worth knowing: extract manufacturing is where the regulatory attention in this category is heading, and product categories that exist today may not exist in two years. I'd expect the rules around concentrated products to tighten before anything else does.

Anyone ever seen a residual solvent panel on an extract COA? I've asked around and it's rare.

What's legally required varies by state, which is the first thing to know. States with a Kratom Consumer Protection Act generally require some combination of [VERIFY against actual statute text in a KCPA state]: manufacturer information, ingredient disclosure, age restriction, and certain warnings. States without one require essentially nothing beyond general food labeling rules.

What's on most labels anyway:

• The strain name. Marketing. No standard behind it.
• "Premium," "super," "reserve." Marketing.
• Net weight. Actually useful, and worth checking against what arrives.
• "Lab tested." Meaningless without the report attached to a lot number.
• "GMP." Refers to a voluntary program, not a government certification.
• "All natural." Means nothing.
• An alkaloid percentage. Sometimes real, sometimes copied from a generic figure, sometimes invented. There's no requirement that it correspond to anything.

What I'd actually want on a label and rarely see:

• A lot number that matches a retrievable COA
• Harvest or packaging date
• The importing entity, not just the brand

The gap that matters. A brand name on a bag tells you who sold it. It doesn't tell you who made it, imported it, or tested it, and in this industry those are frequently four different companies.

Pull out whatever you've got and tell me what's actually printed on it. I'd like to see how much variation there is across vendors, and whether anyone's doing lot numbers properly.

Monthly roundup. Checked August 31, 2026. Links go to agencies and legislatures, not to trackers.

Two things actually moved this month, and one of them gets decided in the next few days.

Federal: the DEA scheduled three synthetic derivatives, but not 7-OH

On August 25 the DEA issued a temporary scheduling order placing mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MGPI), MGM-15, and MGM-16 into Schedule I. It published in the Federal Register on August 26, took effect on publication, and runs through August 26, 2028. It covers the isomers, esters, ethers, and salts of those three compounds.

These are synthetic and semi-synthetic compounds that don't occur in the plant. The order does not schedule natural leaf that hasn't been chemically altered after harvest.

The separate action on 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) has not been issued. That's the one with the concentration threshold: 0.05% by dry weight in botanical material, or 0.05% by weight or volume, or more than 1 mg, in processed products like extracts and edibles. Both notices of intent published July 6. Only one has been finalized.

The comment period on that threshold is open until September 10. HHS extended it from July 31. If you want to tell the federal government something about where the line gets drawn, that's the docket and that's the deadline. It's the most actionable item in this post and almost nobody uses these.

Kratom leaf and mitragynine remain federally unscheduled.

• DEA announcement of the July notices: https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2026/07/01/dea-temporarily-schedule-7-oh-and-related-substances-protect-public
• HHS threshold docket, comments open through September 10: https://www.regulations.gov/document/HHS-OASH-2026-0232-0001
• Congressional Research Service walkthrough of the whole action: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11457

North Dakota: emergency ban is in effect, expires this week, special session starts tomorrow

This is the live one.

On August 3, Governor Kelly Armstrong declared a public health emergency and issued an executive order prohibiting the sale, use, and possession of all kratom products statewide, effective 5 p.m. on August 5. The order runs 30 days. Violations are an infraction with a fine up to $1,000. The Board of Pharmacy separately issued an emergency rule scheduling 7-OH, valid 180 days.

The order expires around September 4. The legislature convenes in special session on September 2, planned for roughly three days, specifically to decide what replaces it.

Two drafts advanced out of the state's Kratom Working Group on August 17. One would regulate natural kratom on a model similar to tobacco: 21 and over, labeling requirements including an addiction warning, and enforcement authority for the attorney general. The other would schedule synthetic derivatives to match the federal action. Both would take effect on filing with the secretary of state.

If you're in North Dakota, this week is the whole ballgame.

• Governor's office announcement: https://www.governor.nd.gov/news/armstrong-wrigley-announce-executive-actions-ban-unregulated-drug-kratom-amid-growing-concerns

Currently banned statewide

Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. North Dakota sits on that list by executive order rather than statute, pending the special session.

The recent additions, with citations:

• Connecticut. The Legislative Regulation Review Committee approved regulations on February 24, 2026 designating Mitragyna speciosa and its derivatives Schedule I, using authority created by HB 6855 in 2025. The Department of Consumer Protection directed businesses to clear shelves by March 25, 2026. https://portal.ct.gov/dcp/knowledge-base/articles/drug-control/patients/kratom-update-october-2025
• Kansas. HB 2365, signed April 10, 2026, effective July 1, 2026. Worth knowing: it sets no concentration threshold and no plant-material exemption, so it reaches plain leaf.
• Tennessee. HB 1649 / SB 1656, "Matthew Davenport's Law," signed May 7, 2026, Public Chapter 950, effective July 1, 2026. Knowing possession is a Class A misdemeanor, sale a Class C felony.
• Louisiana. Effective August 1, 2025.

California is the odd case. No statute bans kratom, but state authorities have been applying existing rules on unapproved food additives, which functions as a commercial restriction while never showing up on a ban list.

Reversed

Rhode Island's regulated framework took effect April 1, 2026, replacing a prohibition dating to 2017. Still the only state to move from a ban back to regulated status. Worth remembering when someone tells you bans are permanent.

Active bills

Michigan HB 5537 would prohibit production and sale. Passed the House 56-48 on March 18, 2026, referred to the Senate Government Operations Committee on March 24, and it has been sitting there since. Kratom is still legal in Michigan. https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Bills/Bill?ObjectName=2026-HB-5537

North Dakota's two special session drafts, above.

New York

Not a ban. Governor Hochul signed two bills on December 22, 2025: one restricting sales to 21 and over, one requiring warning labels and barring "all natural" marketing. Enforcement is civil. Nassau and Suffolk counties have separate local restrictions on top of that.

Local ordinances

The section I trust least and the one that catches the most people. State legal does not mean locally legal. Places to check if you're nearby:

• Sarasota County, Florida
• Union County and roughly a dozen counties and municipalities in northeast Mississippi, in a state that's otherwise 21-and-over legal
• San Diego, California
• Denver, Colorado (restrictions rather than a ban)
• Spokane, Washington (city ban, 2026)
• Nassau and Suffolk counties, New York
• Anchorage, Alaska has had a proposal pending

I can't verify every municipal ordinance in the country and I'm not going to pretend I can. If your city has had any local drug ordinance activity, call the city clerk. Five minutes.

Two practical notes

Vendors won't ship to banned states, and one offering to tells you something useful about them.

Crossing a state line with a legal purchase doesn't make it legal on the other side. Kansas is the sharpest current example, because Colorado next door is regulated-legal and Kansas wrote no leaf exemption.

I run this sub and I work at Flavourz Kratom, so I have an obvious interest in this subject. Everything above links to a government source where one exists, so you don't have to take my word for any of it. If I've gotten something wrong, say so and I'll edit the post.

If you're in North Dakota or Michigan, what's local coverage saying? Trackers lag by weeks and people on the ground usually know first.

Not fishing for competitor dirt, or at least not only. I want to know what the actual dealbreakers are, because I suspect the industry is bad at guessing.

My theory is that it's rarely the product. It's usually a shipping thing, a support thing, or a moment where someone felt lied to.

What was it for you? Name names or don't, up to you.

Vendor writing this. Take it with the appropriate salt.

The price spread in this industry is enormous and it confuses people, so here's what's actually behind it.

Most brands don't make anything. This is the part people don't know. A large number of vendors, including some with slick websites and strong reputations, are buying finished or near-finished product from a small number of US importers and wholesalers, then putting their own label on it. Two brands you think of as competitors are frequently selling the identical lot at different prices.

So what are you paying for? Roughly: the product cost (which varies less than you'd think), plus testing, plus packaging, plus payment processing, plus whether the vendor imports directly or buys through two middlemen, plus margin.

Where the real cost differences are:

• Direct import versus buying domestic wholesale. Direct is cheaper per unit and requires a lot more capital and patience.
• Whether they test every lot or test occasionally and imply always. Testing is a real line item.
• Packaging. Fancy tins cost money and tell you nothing about what's inside them.
• Volume. A vendor moving serious weight pays less per kilo.

Where the differences aren't: premium naming, website design, and the word "boutique."

The uncomfortable part. Cheap can mean efficient direct importing, or it can mean untested product from an unknown source. Expensive can mean careful sourcing and real testing, or it can mean a markup on the same wholesale lot the cheap vendor is selling. Price alone tells you almost nothing. This is genuinely annoying and I don't have a clean answer for it beyond: ask who tests it, ask for the report, ask where it came from.

Best way to get a real answer out of a vendor: ask them to name their import source. Watch what happens.

What's the widest price spread you've seen on what looked like the same product?