TAMPA, Fla. — Hillsborough County could soon have its own rules on 7-OH, a concentrated chemical tied to kratom products, after county commissioners meeting in Tampa voted without dissent Wednesday to move a proposed ordinance forward.
The compound’s full name is 7-hydroxymitragynine. It is made by the kratom plant but is far stronger than the leaf itself, and the draft county rule is aimed at it and at similar synthetic products. Natural, herbal kratom would stay outside the proposal for now, though commissioners left the door open to widening it later. Kratom remains legal across Florida, but buyers have to be at least 21.
The local push comes because the state’s emergency ban on 7-OH and related synthetic products may lapse next year, and county leaders want protections in place if that happens. Advocates for tighter drug rules told the board that kratom’s active ingredient played a part in more than 30 deaths in the county last year. Families who said they lost relatives spoke in favor of action, while supporters of kratom argued the plant-based product is safe.
At the state level, Attorney General James Uthmeier signed an emergency rule placing concentrated 7-OH and several related chemicals on Schedule I, the most restricted class of controlled substances, with the rule taking effect immediately. State Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson has said his department’s inspectors pulled more than 23,000 illegal 7-OH packages from Florida retailers after the earlier emergency action. State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has linked the products to addiction, overdose and seizures because they act on the body’s opioid receptors.
Sarasota County has already adopted a wider ban that covers kratom and its products. The Hillsborough measure goes to a public hearing on Nov. 10, where commissioners could also weigh added restrictions.
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