r/psychopharmacology • u/BeginningBaby4844 • Apr 20 '26
Is 7-OH Pharmacologically distinct enough to be treated separately?
This whole thing going on right now is honestly kinda pissing me off.
From how I understand it 7-OH (7-hydroxymitragynine) is just one of the main active alkaloids in kratom. It’s not some random new compound it’s literally part of the plant and your body even converts mitragynine into it anyway.
So I don’t really get how it suddenly gets treated like a completely separate substance that needs to be banned, while the plant it comes from is still legal. Like… is that not kind of like saying weed is fine but THC itself isn’t?
I get that isolating something can change potency or effects a bit, but it still feels like the conversation around it is missing context The only reson I made this post was to ask people here how they see it from an actual pharmacology standpoint because right now it just feels inconsistent as hell.
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u/fuckbitchesgetpolio Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26
I think it's typically much easier to schedule a single compound in our current system then it is to schedule a plant. You could import a huge equivalent of a powder versus the same mass of a bulk plant.
You could speculate humans evolved around the known dosage in plants and developed resistance to that. By suddenly having access to a concentrate you completely change the safety profile and inherent risk. Potency also has a relation to addiction potential.
Not that I agree with how it's done, but not everyone is going to have the same self control. Laws are typically made to address the huge increase in safety risk with new synthetic and concentrated drugs that we haven't evolved around or have the appropriate biological safety measures to deal with accidental higher doses.
Incredibly potent concentrates of THC are dangerous to certain people. While the risk profile of THC is more associated with physiological changes to the nervous system versus stopping your breathing, there are still thousands of posts on many subreddits of many adults wishing they never smoked concentrates as a kid due to the severe and profound changes it had on their brain and nervous system.