The facts
On October 14, 2026, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a notice of intent to publish a temporary order placing 7-hydroxymitragynine and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl above a specified threshold in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. The notice, Docket No. DEA-1570, follows a July 7, 2026 notice of intent covering 7-hydroxymitragynine above a lower threshold, an August 26, 2026 temporary order placing mitragynine pseudoindoxyl in schedule I without a threshold, and an October 8, 2026 letter from the Department of Health and Human Services recommending the new threshold.
Under the notice, the two substances are controlled in schedule I when either substance alone, or their combined amount if both are present, is greater than 1 mg per gram for solid powders, encapsulated material, or other solid forms, or greater than 1 mg per milliliter for liquid preparations, or when the mass of mitragynine divided by the mass of the two substances is less than 100. The temporary scheduling order will be published in the Federal Register on or after November 13, 2026. And the notice includes this line: "neither HHS nor DEA has made a finding that these substances are safe to use at below-threshold levels."
Our take
The DEA has now taken three bureaucratic shits on the same problem in three months, producing a notice, an order, and now this new notice with the math homework of a fucking coward. The war on drugs has devolved into a spreadsheet, where some pencil-necked cunt in a government cubicle does long division on your baggie to decide if you go to prison. More than a milligram per gram, or if the mass of mitragynine divided by the mass of the two substances is less than 100? Get the fuck out of here. This is the regulatory equivalent of a teacher making you show your work before they flunk you for a thought crime.
But the absolute pinnacle of this agency's pathetic, cover-your-own-ass bullshit is the single sentence they tucked in there: 'neither HHS nor DEA has made a finding that these substances are safe to use at below-threshold levels.' Let that bureaucratic diarrhea sink in. They have drawn a legal line with a fucking ruler, but on the 'legal' side of that line, they refuse to say you won't drop dead. They've created Schroedinger's Schedule - simultaneously approved for public consumption and potentially lethal, with the only difference being whether you passed high school chemistry.
So the official stance of the United States government is this: here is the exact amount you can possess without us sending a SWAT team. But if you take that exact amount, that's on you, prick. We wish you the best of luck. It's a regulatory shrug so weak it should come with a white flag. These bureaucratic dickheads spent months crafting a threshold so precise it needs a calculator, then immediately pissed on its meaning by admitting the math doesn't equal safety. They've managed to be both tyrannically specific and gutlessly non-committal in the same document, which is a new low in federal fuckery.
Three tries to ban something, and their final answer is a fraction and a 'we assume no responsibility.' It's the policy work of a middle manager who knows he's full of shit but needs to hit his quota for the quarter. Mission accomplished, you absolute clowns.
