Missouri settlements halt sales of concentrated kratom product 7-OH

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announces the state’s lawsuit against American Shaman in a press conference outside her office March 31, 2026 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

Dustin Robinson says he was skeptical when a longtime friend first approached him about going into business selling a concentrated kratom compound known as 7-OH.

Robinson had served seven years in a Kansas prison for marijuana offenses. Both of his parents struggled with addiction. And when Vince Sanders, owner of CBD American Shaman, began researching the potential of 7-hydroxymitragynine, Robinson said his first reaction was the same one Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway would later make in court.

“I was against it, too,” said Robinson, who completed a paralegal certification program in prison. “I was like, ‘Well, it could be addictive. I can’t morally do this.’”

He eventually changed his mind, saying he came to believe that 7-OH could potentially offer people struggling with addiction or chronic pain an alternative to more dangerous drugs, after some research.

Hanaway reached a different conclusion.

Last week, Robinson and his Kansas City-based distribution and wholesale company, Relax Relief Rejuvenate Trading LLC, agreed to suspend all in-state sales of 7-OH and other kratom alkaloids as part of a settlement ending litigation brought by the attorney general’s office.

The agreement came nearly a week after Hanaway reached a similar settlement with Sanders and Kansas City-based CBD American Shaman, which her office described as the state’s largest distributor of 7-OH products in Missouri.

Together, the agreements effectively halt the companies’ Missouri sales of the products at the center of a months-long fight over whether concentrated 7-OH should be treated as a dangerous, unregulated opioid or as a product that could be regulated and sold legally. Sanders declined to comment on the agreement.

“This resolution is a win for Missouri families,” Hanaway said in a news release announcing the settlement with Robinson’s company. “7-OH is a dangerous opioid that is infecting our communities.”

Robinson disputes that characterization. But he said the companies settled partly because of the potential cost of continued litigation and partly out of concern that a courtroom loss in Missouri could set a precedent in other states, where the businesses are still allowed to sell 7-OH products.

“If they win this case, then every other attorney general in the United States is going to jump on it,” Robinson said. “The government’s not looking out for the best interest of the people. Otherwise, they’d regulate it.”

Under Robinson’s agreement with the attorney general, Relax Relief Rejuvenate Trading agreed to not sell, ship, deliver or facilitate the sale of 7-OH, dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine also called MGM-15, mitragynine, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, or paynantheine at any retail store in Missouri, or to sell those products to Missouri consumers only, according to Hanaway’s announcement.

The company will also not sell, transfer or ship to any retailer or distributor with a place of business in Missouri. Under the agreement, any sale of these products to out-of-state distributors must be subject to a contract that they not be resold in Missouri.

If the company breaches the agreement, including by making a retail sale of any 7-OH product in Missouri, the attorney general may seek a court order to stop the conduct. If RRR fails to immediately remedy its breach, the attorney general may invoke an agreed $5 million penalty.

The agreements also come after Missouri lawmakers had lengthy debates this spring about potentially banning 7-OH and kratom products, but failed to come to a consensus.

Both Robinson and Sanders said in court filings that their companies only sell 7-OH products, and not kratom products that are often sold as powders or pills.

The settlements came after Missouri lawmakers spent the spring debating whether to ban or regulate 7-OH and kratom products, but failed to reach an agreement before the legislative session ended.

Dosage matters

Kratom leaves come from a tropical tree found in Southeast Asia, and they can be crushed and then smoked, brewed with tea, or placed into gel capsules.

The leaves contain an alkaloid called mitragynine. During digestion, the body converts it into 7-hydroxymytragynine, or 7-OH, in small amounts. It’s what gives people the opioid-like effect.

The 7-OH products contain a highly concentrated amount of 90% to 100%. To make it, companies take mitragynine and chemically oxidize it to make a concentrate.

Sanders told The Independent previously that White Vein Alkaloid tablets sold by American Shaman contain 7.5mg of 7-OH and have helped people who suffered from chronic pain.

Shaman Botanicals manufactures Relax Relief Rejuvenate’s Electro Dream Plant “EDP” 50mg shot of 7-OH, along with the products of several other companies not named in Hanaway’s lawsuits.

Shaman Botanicals and Relax Relief Rejuvenate were among the first to market 7-OH products in the country.

In July 2023, Robinson became the majority owner in the distribution business along with his business partners, Stephen Sanders III, Vince Sanders’ son, and Ajaykumar Patel.

Robinson said one of the most important questions surrounding 7-OH is dosage.

“Dosage is everything,” he said.

If a person takes 20mg to 30mg and they aren’t already taking kratom or opioids, Robinson said, they will vomit, according to what he’s read online and heard from clients. If they only take a dose of less than 10mg a day, Robinson said they are unlikely to experience withdrawal symptoms from his research.

“Once you start taking it in high doses, like anywhere between 100mg to 200 mg for consecutive days, weeks and months, the withdrawals can be pretty severe from what I’ve read,” he said.

His company was targeting a consumer base that was already taking 300mg to 1,000mg of mitragynine, which he believes equated to 50mg to 100mg of 7-OH.

“The question that needs to be answered is the tolerance threshold,” he said. “If you’ve taken a Xanax before taking Adderall, and it’s the first time your body’s taken it, you feel really good. But then if you start taking it every day for five to 10 days, you don’t get that feeling anymore because your body begins to build a tolerance to it.”

Throughout Missouri, there are gas stations and smoke shops selling 100mg shots and pills, Robinson said. He believes most people who buy them know what they’re getting, but said someone who buys one impulsively at a gas station could get sick.

That kind of easy access to highly concentrated products is central to Hanaway’s argument that 7-OH poses a public health threat.

EDP’s labels contain product facts and a disclaimer that “[t]hese statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

With his paralegal background, Robinson said he wrote a warning label that he feels is transparent and clear.

“We have done our best to be completely transparent,” he said. “You read our label, it says not to mix with any over-the-counter medications, recreational drugs, prescribed drugs, etc. because it may cause serious health complications and/or death.”

Robinson said he still believes in the product. But he also recognizes the moral tension of selling something that can become addictive, similar to the alcohol industry.

“It’s a hard moral dilemma,” he said, “It has the potential to save lives, but it also has the potential to ruin people.”

Hanaway’s arguments

Hanaway’s petition begins by quoting from an email where Relax Relief Rejuvenate Trading LLC employee James Wingard was sending a document to three new hires last year.

“That attachment, crassly entitled, ‘So you wanna be a Mitragynacologist?’ laid out the company’s talking points for sales calls,” the petition states.

The fact sheet states that 7-OH is not classified as an opioid, which Hanaway called “false.”

“It ‘offers a safer alternative to heroin over the counter or prescription pain killers.’ False,” the petition states. “‘You cannot overdose on it’ alone. False. ‘Studies have not been done on interactions with other drugs. What we do know, however, is you can’t die.’ Absolutely false.”

Hanaway argued that the company’s 2025 product catalogue admits that the compound’s “overall impact and safety require further investigation.”

“Defendants sell it anyway,” the petition states.

Hanaway lost her attempt to get a temporary restraining order to immediately stop American Shaman, Robinson and several affiliated companies from selling their products.

Her argument was backed by sworn statements from an undercover narcotics officer with the highway patrol who said 7-OH is being used to cut fentanyl and a woman whose brother died from a kratom overdose.

Her office also submitted a FDA report that points to 7-OH as “a potent opioid that poses an emerging public health threat” and state health data showing kratom was involved in at least 197 Missouri deaths.

However, there is no state data that isolates 7-OH related deaths, according to an affidavit her office submitted.

Relax Relief Rejuvenate submitted statements of its own from five toxicology and addiction experts, who largely said there wasn’t enough evidence to show that 7-OH and kratom posed a public health risk.

Robinson also argued in court filings that the company does not sell raw kratom leaf, kratom powder or conventional kratom products. The state sought an injunction barring the sale of kratom products, and “that request is broader than the products RRR actually sells.”

Jackson County Circuit Judge Charles McKenzie’s ruling in May stated there are “competing affidavits” from experts on both sides of the argument.

Hanaway has made it clear which side she believes.

“These are addictive, unregulated, chemically synthesized compounds with unknown outputs,” Hanaway said. “My office will continue to hold accountable bad actors who sell harmful drugs in Missouri.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.