DEA’s Holiday Weekend Emergency Scheduling Order Pushes Criminalization Over Harm Reduction and Risks Slowing Development of Safer Pain Medicines and Addiction Treatments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Kat Murti

Executive Director

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

kat@ssdp.org

DEA’s Holiday Weekend Emergency Scheduling Order Pushes Criminalization Over Harm Reduction and Risks Slowing Development of Safer Pain Medicines and Addiction Treatments

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) urges the public to speak out before July 31 using its federal comment tool as the government moves to criminalize 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) above a proposed threshold while advancing broader emergency Schedule I actions against promising opioid research compounds.

July 7, 2026 – WASHINGTON, D.C. — While much of the country was focused on the Independence Day holiday weekend, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) quietly published two sweeping emergency scheduling actions that could dramatically restrict scientific research into promising pain medications, disrupt harm reduction efforts, and push vulnerable individuals toward more dangerous illicit opioids.

One of those actions — covering naturally occurring 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), a metabolite of the kratom plant, which has been used safely for hundreds of years — is currently open for public comment for fewer than 30 days, giving scientists, healthcare professionals, consumers, and advocates only until July 31 to make their voices heard.

“Rather than following the evidence, the DEA released these actions in the lead up to a holiday weekend and provided the public less than 30 days to comment on the proposed 7-OH threshold and no opportunity at all to weigh in on the other substances being criminalized,” said Kat Murti, Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP). “Scientists, healthcare professionals, consumers, and families deserve a meaningful opportunity to weigh in before policies are adopted that could increase overdose risk, impede lifesaving research, and leave people with chronic pain or opioid use disorder with even fewer options.”

Emergency Scheduling Raises Serious Constitutional and Public Health Concerns

The DEA’s emergency scheduling actions would temporarily place various substances — including SR17018, an opioid agonist which could prove to be a powerful ally in the fight against the ongoing opioid overdose epidemic —  in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). 

“These emergency scheduling actions threaten to do exactly what decades of prohibition have done before — shut down scientific research, limit access to potentially safer alternatives, and push people toward more dangerous substances,” said Murti. 

The first temporary scheduling notice, published July 1, 2026, focuses on various mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonists including the investigational compounds SR17018, SR-14968, and R-6890 alongside 5,6-dichloro-brorphine.  The second scheduling notice, published July 6, 2026 focuses on 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) – a naturally occurring compound found in kratom – and several synthetic mitragynine-like compounds. The FDA originally recommended classification of 7-OH as a Schedule I substance in August 2025.

These actions reflect a broader pattern of policymakers moving to prohibit specific substances before fully considering the implications for scientific research, public health, and human rights. The proposed criminalization of these various opioid agonists is unlikely to address the root causes of drug-related harms. Instead, it risks reinforcing a punitive approach that prioritizes criminalization over evidence-based policies that empower people to make informed decisions about their health and expand access to effective care and harm reduction. 

“The DEA’s increasing reliance on the CSA’s emergency scheduling powers raises serious Constitutional concerns,” said Robert Rush, founder of the Rights and Reason Project and a member of SSDP’s Advisory Council. “The DEA’s use of its emergency powers as a shortcut around evidence, public input, and due process is a blunt-hammer approach to drug policy that places legitimate scientific research in jeopardy and places public health at risk. The emergency scheduling of substances like 7-OH and SR-17018 will shut down critical research, depriving scientists, policymakers, and the public of the data they need to understand the actual risks and benefits of these compounds. The public is best protected through thoughtful, evidence-based policies and regulations, grounded in science and accountability — not through prohibition grounded in fear and panic. We look forward to standing again against the decades-long failed policy that only leads to the proliferation of unknown substances, further endangering public health rather than protecting it.”

The United States continues to face unprecedented rates of overdose and chronic pain, underscoring the urgent need for safer analgesics and more effective medications for opioid use disorder.  Researchers in academia and industry are actively investigating novel opioid receptor compounds to better understand how pain can be treated while reducing risks such as respiratory depression, dependence, and misuse. Restricting access to research compounds through emergency Schedule I placement risks slowing that work at a time when innovation is urgently needed. Meanwhile, individuals have sought out unscheduled products including kratom and 7-OH for self-treating chronic pain, opioid withdrawal, and to reduce use of injectable opioids like heroin. 

Scheduling Promotes Research Harms

Several of the compounds included in the scheduling action are not simply novel psychoactive substances. They are products of sophisticated medicinal chemistry programs designed to answer one of medicine’s most pressing questions: Can we develop opioid-like pain medications that produce effective analgesia with fewer dangerous side effects?

SR17018 was developed by researchers studying opioid receptor signaling as part of an effort to separate pain relief from respiratory depression, tolerance, and dependence. Research published by investigators at Scripps Research demonstrated that compounds like SR17018 could provide valuable insight into opioid receptor pharmacology and the development of safer analgesics. 

Similarly, SR14968 has been investigated as a research compound to better understand opioid receptor pharmacology and structure-activity relationships. These compounds are valuable not because they are intended for immediate commercial use, but because they allow scientists to study receptor function, efficacy, tolerance, dependence, and overdose liability. 

“These compounds have been researched by hundreds of scientists to understand and leverage their pharmacology to make better medicines,” said Dr. Alaina M. Jaster, neuropharmacologist and Chair of SSDP Science Policy Committee. “I’ve worked in laboratories during my PhD that used some of these compounds and there was never any threat of diversion from the lab. Scheduling chemicals that are used in research to better public health just doesn’t make sense.”

Other compounds included in the emergency scheduling action, including 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), MGM-15 and R-6890, represent ongoing efforts to explore the unique pharmacology of mitragynine-derived molecules. Researchers have increasingly turned to mitragynine analogues, because they appear to interact with opioid receptors differently than conventional opioids, making them promising candidates for understanding how safer analgesics might be developed. Restricting access to these compounds risks slowing an entire area of medicinal chemistry at a time when innovation is desperately needed.

Placement of these substances into Schedule I will halt scientific discovery and require scientists to navigate costly, time-consuming regulatory hurdles before they can continue their work. This is not a hypothetical concern. In 2024, SSDP established an important legal precedent during a Drug Enforcement Administration Administrative Law Judge proceeding opposing the Schedule I placement of two research compounds that were widely used in neuroscience laboratories. During that case, SSDP introduced the concept of “research harms” to describe the damage caused when government drug scheduling restricts or deters legitimate scientific inquiry by making it more difficult for researchers to access substances needed for scientific investigation. The Administrative Law Judge formally recognized this definition in the record, marking the first time these broader scientific consequences were acknowledged in a DEA scheduling proceeding.

The same principle applies here. Regardless of whether a substance ultimately proves to be a successful medicine, prematurely placing promising research compounds into Schedule I makes it more difficult to answer critical scientific questions about how they work, whether they are safe, and whether they could lead to better treatments for pain, addiction, or other serious medical conditions. Policies that restrict research ultimately leave scientists, policymakers, healthcare providers, and the public with less evidence on which to make informed decisions.

The Human Cost of Blanket Scheduling

The kratom plant (Mitragyna speciosa) contains several alkaloids with mitragynine being the main substance to produce the effects of kratom. Mitragynine is metabolized by the body into 7-OH and  both activate MORs. The plant has been used for hundreds of years for pain relief in Southeast Asia, among other uses. Only recently has it become a popular choice for those weary about pharmaceutical opioids in the United States. Products containing synthesized 7-OH have also become popular for those trying to treat pain, reduce consumption of alcohol and other opioids and more. Despite the rise in use, there has been no deaths associated with kratom or 7-OH use alone, there is no established lethal overdose threshold for 7-OH in the scientific literature, and serious adverse events involving 7-OH alone remain uncommon. Most reported fatalities associated with kratom products involve multiple substances rather than 7-OH by itself.

“Emergency scheduling 7-OH would be a public health mistake,” said Dr. Michele Ross, Scientific Advisor to the 7-HOPE Alliance and an SSDP Ambassador. “Our survey of 1,521 adult 7-OH consumers found that the majority are using it to manage chronic pain, maintain employment, support their families, or avoid opioids, alcohol, and illicit drugs. If the federal government bans 7-OH instead of regulating it, our data show many consumers may move toward far more dangerous options, including illicit products, prescription opioids, heroin or fentanyl, alcohol, or even suicide. That is not prevention—that is foreseeable harm. We need adult-access regulation, testing, labeling, education, and research, not another Schedule I ban.”

At a time where access to harm reduction services like syringe service programs and other evidence-based interventions are under increasing pressure, substances like 7-OH and other analogues can serve as a tool to reduce dependence on injectable opioids such as heroin. This has a meaningful positive impact on infectious disease, overdose deaths, and overall health. Many members of SSDP work directly with street medicine operations, witnessing how people who inject drugs are given limited avenues for recovery and safer alternatives.

“If my syringe exchange participants wish to seek enrollment into a rehabilitation facility, they often run the risk of first waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed,” says Brooke Shockey Sanders, Neuroscience PhD Researcher and Director of Network for SSDP. “I have seen many cases of individuals reducing or discontinuing their injectable opioid use through self medication with recreational mu-agonists, such as 7-OH. This directly reduces their risk of overdose, injection site infection, and risk of contracting infectious disease.” 

These various MOR substances are also slightly different pharmacologically, allowing individuals to decide for themselves what is best for their own bodies. For example, heroin is a full agonist at the MOR, meaning it binds to the receptor like really good Velcro, making it difficult for other substances to displace it. While 7-OH has a higher potency, it is only a partial agonist meaning that while it takes less of the drug to produce the same effect as another opioid, it only triggers a certain amount of response because of the ceiling effects.

“Grasping the nuances of pharmacology is critical for informed analysis of the drug’s effects. Blanket bans on entire drug classes are not effective or evidence-based,” said Jaster. “These compounds all activate the mu-opioid receptor to produce their effects, but the pharmacology of each compound can vary greatly. Instead of banning substances because they activate the same receptors, there should be a focus on educating individuals who use them so they can use them safely. We’ve seen how prohibition creates more unregulated analogues with fentanyl, so why are we following the same playbook that clearly doesn’t work?”

Take Action Before July 31!

The DEA’s broader emergency scheduling actions are already underway, but the federal government is currently accepting public comments only on the proposed threshold for scheduling 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH). This limited public comment period closes on July 31, 2026.

SSDP encourages scientists, healthcare professionals, people who use kratom or 7-OH, researchers, patients, family members, and all concerned members of the public to submit a comment explaining how this proposal could affect scientific research, pain management, harm reduction, and public health.

Comments submitted during this process will become part of the public record and provide an opportunity for the Department of Health and Human Services to consider the real-world consequences of this proposal before the threshold determination is finalized.

To make participating as easy as possible, SSDP has created a public comment tool that walks users through the submission process in just a few minutes.

“Providing public comments is an important tool for concerned citizens to exercise their right to free speech. Anyone who has and can be harmed by kratom and 7-OH prohibition should take this opportunity to speak out against the 7-OH scheduling order. Every voice matters. Whether you are a scientist, healthcare provider, person with lived experience, family member, or concerned citizen, your comment can help demonstrate why evidence — not fear — should guide drug policy,” said Naomi Shifman, an Elected Director on SSDP’s youth-led Board of Directors. “We need your help!”

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With chapters on campuses and in communities across the country, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is the largest youth-led grassroots network dedicated to replacing War on Drug policies with those rooted in evidence, compassion, and human rights.

For more information, please visit ssdp.org.