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No prescription is required. The products are virtually unregulated: Bills to curb their sale have repeatedly died in Tallahassee. State and federal regulators have done almost nothing to intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientists say the substance, called 7-hydroxymitragynine or 7-OH, poses a public health threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
7-Hydroxymitragynine<\/strong> (7-OH<\/strong>) is a terpenoid<\/a> indole<\/a> alkaloid<\/a> from the plant Mitragyna speciosa<\/a><\/em>, commonly known as kratom.[2]<\/a><\/sup> It was first described in 1994[3]<\/a><\/sup> and is a human metabolite metabolized from mitragynine<\/a> present in the Mitragyna speciosa<\/em>. 7-OH binds to opioid receptors<\/a> like mitragynine, but research suggests that 7-OH binds with greater efficacy.[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n 7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), a metabolite of the psychoactive botanical kratom, exhibits significantly higher binding affinity to mu-opioid receptors<\/a> (MOR) than morphine<\/a>, with estimates ranging from 14 to 22 times greater potency. Although kratom’s primary alkaloid, mitragynine, is associated with lower abuse potential and moderate safety, 7-OH demonstrates opioid-like effects and can substitute for morphine in a dose-dependent manner, raising concerns about its potential for physical dependence and addiction.[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n 7-Hydroxymitragynine, like mitragynine, appears to be a mixed opioid receptor agonist<\/a>\/antagonist<\/a>, with recent research indicating that it acts as a partial agonist<\/a> at \u03bc-opioid receptors<\/a> and as a competitive antagonist at \u03b4-<\/a> and \u03ba-opioid receptors<\/a>.[6]<\/a><\/sup>[7]<\/a><\/sup> 7-OH does not appear to activate the \u03b2-arrestin<\/a> pathway, distinguishing it from traditional opiate & opioid chemicals.[6]<\/a><\/sup> It shares this trait with mitragynine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In natural kratom leaves, 7-Hydroxymitragynine is only present in extremely small amounts (around 0.01% to 0.04% of total alkaloid content). Therefore, extracting 7-OH in high concentrations directly from natural kratom leave is not feasible due to the natural yield being too low. This means that all high-concentration 7-OH products must be produced via chemical synthesis rather than simple extraction. The most common methods usually involve chemically modifying mitragynine, the most abundant alkaloid in kratom, to artificially increase 7-OH concentration via oxidation reactions. This process often involves the usage of reagents such as hydrogen peroxide, enzymes, or strong acids to convert the mitragynine into 7-OH.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Around the Tampa Bay region, consumers can walk into smoke shops and gas stations and buy a substance that experts say mimics a powerful opioid. No prescription is required. The… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtODktNy53ZWJwP2ZpdD01MDMlMkMyODkmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJcdTIwMThMZWdhbCBtb3JwaGluZVx1MjAxOSBpcyBmb3Igc2FsZSBpbiBGbG9yaWRhLiBXaWxsIG9mZmljaWFscyBhY3Q_IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.aBUzIynR0pxmF0DjKIl1ieIkIo7rj9Fq3N7EyVh78qIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55382,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-89-7.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11371],"class_list":["post-55381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-legal-morphine-is-for-sale-in-florida-will-officials-act"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55383,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55381\/revisions\/55383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pharmacology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Synthesis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n