After Kratom Lobbying Push, Trump Admin Lets a Potent Opioid Stay on Shelves
HHS now allows MGPI in natural kratom at levels up to 500 times what's on the market, after a push by a GOP megadonor facing wrongful death suits.
The Trump administration has backed off its ban on MGPI, a potent opioid derived from kratom, after a kratom lobbying push led by a distributor facing wrongful death lawsuits, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Under the new plan, products sold as natural kratom can keep some of the compound. Three months ago, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the same drug “put American lives at risk.”
“They’re doing this because the industry and the lobbyists are basically writing the policy,” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny of Brandeis University, who reviewed the health department’s justification. Kolodny recently co-authored a journal editorial arguing that kratom itself is an opioid.
How the MGPI ban fell apart
On July 1, DEA announced plans to ban MGPI and two other kratom-derived compounds. On Aug. 25, the Justice Department placed MGPI in Schedule I, the same category as heroin, with no threshold.
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Then on Oct. 9, the Department of Health and Human Services recommended a new line. Products could carry up to 1 milligram of MGPI and 7-OH per gram, or any amount as long as mitragynine outweighs them 100 to 1. “We listened to the public, followed the science,” Kennedy said. The Justice Department adopted the change the same day.
HHS says natural kratom may contain trace amounts of MGPI. The scientist behind the study HHS cited disagrees with where it drew the line. Amar Chittiboyina, a University of Mississippi chemist, measured about 2 parts per million of MGPI in eight liquid products. He told the Times the new limit runs as much as 500 times higher and is “too permissive.”
DEA’s own notice admits that “neither HHS nor DEA has made a finding that these substances are safe to use at below-threshold levels.”
Kratom lobbying and $2.9 million in donations
At the center of the story is David Gabbay, who manages a large distributor tied to the OPMS kratom brand. In July, lawyers for grieving families found MGPI in lab tests of OPMS products used by people who died in Tennessee, Washington and Texas.
Gabbay and his wife, Maya, have given about $2.9 million to Republican candidates and committees this year. On Aug. 25, they gave nearly $160,000 to the Republican National Committee. That same day, the Justice Department scheduled MGPI but said it would not press charges over “incidental trace amounts.”
The next day, the American Kratom Association, which companies tied to Gabbay help fund, sued DEA to allow some MGPI. Its leader, Mac Haddow, told the Times he made his case at the White House and is “very satisfied” with the new order. He dismissed the idea that Gabbay’s donations made the difference.
Letters backing an MGPI allowance came from paid expert witnesses for Gabbay’s legal team. Others came from former Biden drug policy chief Rahul Gupta and from Jack Henningfield, who previously worked for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma. Gupta said no one paid him to write his letter.
HHS and the White House both told the Times that science, not donations or litigation, drove the decision. The Gabbays did not respond to the paper.
Kratom money has drawn scrutiny inside the administration before. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has faced questions over his investment in a kratom company.
The MGPI death toll
DEA data show MGPI in at least 56 overdose cases from February 2025 to May 2026. Forty-eight of them were fatal.
Both University of Mississippi students who died in September had MGPI in their blood, according to toxicology results cited in a federal court filing. Officials have not released a final cause of death for either student. Nationally, CDC data tie kratom to at least 5,208 overdose deaths from 2020 to 2024.
In July, DEA warned that MGPI “poses a high risk for overdose and life-threatening events.” By the Times’ account, the rule letting it stay on store shelves could be final within weeks.
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