CALIFORNIA CANCELS KRATOM HEARING AMIDST BACK-AND-FORTH OVER PROPOSED REGULATIONS

The more the conversations around kratom change, the more the complications surrounding reasonable regulations stay the same. 

At least that’s the case in California, where legislators have pushed pause on plans to pass statewide regulations. 

Lawmakers in California took up the task of establishing a regulatory framework in an attempt to solve the problems caused by overreach from state agencies. Instead of settling on a set of regulations, the process turned into a back-and-forth that saw the proposed law amended, then pulled from a committee hearing, despite passing the lower chamber in resounding fashion. The lack of a clear plan has kept California kratom consumers in limbo as advocates continue to push for reasonable regulations.

The bill introduced in California is Assembly Bill 1088, and it received its first reading in February of 2025. In its original form, the bill was unanimously passed through three different committees and the floor of the state Assembly. Yet instead of being taken up by the state Senate last year, the bill was shelved until Jun. 8 of this year, when it was amended and sent to the Senate Health Committee.

Focus on Fees

During previous sessions and debates surrounding kratom regulations, advocates pushed back against the high costs of the proposed regulations and specifically called out state agencies for attempting to extract resources from kratom sales. Instead of addressing the criticisms, the most recent amendments to the bill have doubled down on costs and fees while limiting the scope of regulations meant to protect customers. 

Those changes led to the hearing being postponed on Jun. 9, then the author of the bill requested that the hearing be canceled eight days later. That leaves kratom consumers at the mercy of state regulators, who have handled kratom with a heavy hand over the past year. 

The need for kratom regulations became apparent after the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) initiated actions that led to the seizure of more than $5 million in kratom products in 2025. Rather than relying on state laws, CDPH cited a line in the state code surrounding food additives and unilaterally declared kratom products illegal. A news release also highlighted the specific risk of 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) products that were labeled as kratom. 

Recent debates over kratom regulation have centered on 7-OH, which is an alkaloid that only occurs in trace amounts in natural leaf kratom. Advocates for natural leaf kratom have supported limits on the amount of 7-OH in products that can legally be labeled as kratom. 

Instead of fixing those concerns, lawmakers in California put forward a bill that was light on regulations and heavy on fees and red tape for kratom producers. 

That focus on fees and administrative oversight is what killed a 2024 bill that was aimed at regulating kratom products. Instead of creating regulations on what type of products should be sold as kratom, the new version of the bill featured extensive language surrounding a proposed 15% tax on kratom sales. 

Beyond establishing the tax, the bill also extensively laid out how the fees would be managed and created appropriations mechanisms to distribute the revenue. That section of the law would also require third-party lab testing and certificates of analysis for any producer that registers to sell kratom products in the state. 

Advocating Against Potential Amendments

The amended version of the bill even went so far as to remove specifications about 7-OH and simplify the definition of a kratom product beyond what is typically associated with natural leaf kratom.

On top of eliminating 7-OH-specific language from the definitions of kratom, the new version of the bill also scrapped the limit on the percentage of 7-OH that can be contained in a product labeled as kratom. That type of limitation has become commonplace in kratom regulations across the country, but was taken out of the California bill. The only typical safeguard that remained after the changes was an age requirement of 21 to purchase kratom products. 

In place of the usual regulations, the proposed law created its own regulatory structure that would drastically limit the kratom products that could be legally sold in the state. More specifically, the bill would limit kratom products to 75 milligrams of mitragynine per package. The limit for 7-OH per package is 0.57 milligrams. 

That clause of the proposed law also includes a clause that states the “article does not authorize the sale of any kratom product that is otherwise prohibited by state or federal law.” With CDPH currently claiming that kratom is being illegally sold in the state, advocates sounded the alarm about potential ways this law could be applied. 

“California is one of the most important states in the country for kratom policy,” said a statement from the American Kratom Association (AKA). “What happens there can influence other states.” 

In the same post, the AKA also expressed concerns that the bill could be amended into a ban on natural kratom. That informational post was shared by the AKA before the hearing was canceled, but called on advocates in the state to contact the Committee in favor of regulation over restrictions. Now that the hearing has been canceled, it is unclear what the next potential steps toward kratom regulation will look like in California.