The American Kratom Association

What is the American Kratom Association?

It’s an advocacy organization. It works on behalf of kratom consumers and the companies that sell to them.

The AKA states its founding year as 2014. It describes itself as a Virginia-registered nonprofit corporation operating as a 501(c)(4). That last detail matters more than it reads. A 501(c)(4) is a social welfare organization. Unlike a charity, it may lobby without limit. Lobbying is most of what this group does.

Its published mission is to protect the right of Americans to legally consume kratom to improve their lives. Everything else follows from that one sentence. The legislative work, the manufacturing program and the labeling complaint channel are all instruments of it.

Who runs the group, and who pays for it?

A board of directors sets policy. An executive director runs the organization day to day. The AKA’s own program registration page names Ryan Burroughs in that role.

The board chairman is Matt Salmon. He represented Arizona’s fifth district in the U.S. House across two separate stints. He left in 2000 under a self-imposed term limit and returned in 2012. The group’s account of 2016 turns on his work, and that comes up below.

The money arrives three ways. All three are visible on the AKA’s own website.

Vendors pay to obtain and hold the manufacturing qualification. The registration page listed a $5,000 fee when we last checked. The terms on that page make the registration fee an annual one.

Anyone can donate. That reaches individual consumers, and it reaches vendors, manufacturers and other companies too.

And vendors can sponsor the AKA at named tiers. Those are listed publicly as platinum, gold and silver.

The AKA says its IRS Form 990 filings can be found through the IRS exempt organization search. That’s where its actual numbers live. It’s a better source on this group’s finances than anything the AKA or anyone else writes about them.

What happened when the DEA moved to ban kratom in 2016?

The federal government came within a month of making kratom’s two main alkaloids Schedule I controlled substances. Then it stopped.

On August 31, 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration published a notice of intent. It would have temporarily placed mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine into Schedule I. The notice described both as opioids. It said the placement was necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety. Any final order, it said, could take effect no earlier than September 30, 2016.

On October 13, 2016, the agency pulled it back. The notice doing so gives two reasons. The agency had received numerous comments from the public challenging the action. And it was awaiting a scientific and medical evaluation from the Food and Drug Administration that it had already requested. It opened a comment period running through December 1, 2016.

This is where the record and the story diverge. You should have both.

The AKA’s own account credits its board chairman with organizing 51 members of the House and 13 senators against the scheduling. It says that work is credited with convincing the agency to back down.

The federal notice names no one. It cites comments from members of the public and the pending FDA evaluation. That is the whole of it.

Both accounts can be accurate at once. A congressional letter is not the thing an agency writes into a Federal Register notice. Public comments are. What the documents establish is that the reversal happened. They establish that the agency recorded public opposition as a reason. And they establish that the association was organizing that opposition. What no document establishes is who moved the agency.

What does the association do in state capitols?

It writes a model bill and argues for it, one legislature at a time.

The model bill is the Kratom Consumer Protection Act. It’s a template rather than a law. Legislators take it, amend it, argue over it, and pass their own version. That’s why no two state acts read the same. What those acts contain, and how far they diverge, is on our page about the Kratom Consumer Protection Act.

The AKA lobbies. It testifies at hearings. It works with legislators on drafts. And it runs consumer campaigns asking people to contact their own representatives.

It publishes dated releases as it goes. In May 2026 it announced that Minnesota had approved statewide kratom consumer protections.

Where has the association lost?

Often enough that the record is worth reading honestly.

Kentucky is the clearest case. It had a consumer protection act. The legislature rewrote it into a ban.

In June 2024 the AKA published that Rhode Island’s governor would veto a kratom consumer protection bill. And a number of states prohibit the plant outright. That map is on our page covering whether Kratom Is Legal in the US.

The AKA has been arguing this case since 2014. The map is not finished.

What is the GMP Standards Program, and why does it keep coming up?

It’s the AKA’s manufacturing qualification. It’s the only voluntary standard this industry has.

A vendor registers, pays the fee, and has 90 days to complete an independent third-party audit. The auditor and the testing laboratory both have to be approved by the AKA in advance. A vendor can’t shop for a friendly inspector. The AKA reviews the audit report and makes the call.

The current version is GMP 4.0. Its manufacturing requirements are largely based on 21 CFR Part 111, the federal good manufacturing practice rule. Participation does not require a product to be labeled as a dietary supplement. Its labeling requirements are based on the AKA’s own model act.

Qualified vendors are listed publicly on the AKA’s website. What the qualification covers, and what it refuses to claim, is on our page about AKA GMP Qualified kratom.

One structural fact belongs here. It is not an accusation. The AKA writes the model labeling law. It operates the program that qualifies vendors against that labeling standard. And it collects fees from the vendors it qualifies. All three are stated on its own pages. That’s how a trade association works. Knowing it is part of reading the list correctly.

What is Truth in Labeling, and what can it accomplish?

It’s a complaint channel pointed at the FDA.

Anyone can report a kratom seller marketing with illegal health claims. The AKA forwards the report to the Food and Drug Administration. That agency can investigate and act where warranted. A running count of submissions sits on the program page. It read 99 when we last checked.

The limits are real. An advocacy group cannot fine a company. It cannot pull a product or close a website. What it can do is take the industry’s worst marketing and put it in front of the agency that can.

The program is also the clearest statement the AKA has made about what damages kratom’s standing. Its answer is not the plant. It is sellers telling people what kratom will do for them. That is the marketing this site does not do. It’s why so much of what we publish on Responsible Kratom Use reads as a caution rather than a pitch.

Where does the association stand on 7-OH?

It has asked the federal government to schedule the concentrated and synthetic compounds. That puts it on the same side as the DEA on this question.

In April 2024 it published a vendor advisory and a consumer warning on enhanced 7-OH products. In January 2025 it published a listing of 7-OH products it said were improperly marketed as kratom.

On July 6, 2026, the DEA issued a notice of intent covering 7-hydroxymitragynine above a specified threshold. It adapted that threshold from a definition used by the Department of Health and Human Services.

On August 26, 2026, the agency issued a temporary order. It placed three related substances into Schedule I: mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 and MGM-16. The order took effect that day and runs through August 26, 2028. The AKA published its position the same day, in favor of the emergency scheduling.

The 7-OH threshold proceeding was open when this page was last checked. Its comment period was extended on August 26, 2026.

The line the AKA draws is between leaf and chemistry. A leaf product and a concentrated compound derived from it are not the same article. Its position is that scheduling the second is not scheduling the first.

What can an advocacy group not do?

It cannot make law. It cannot approve a product. And it cannot make anyone honest.

Legislatures write law. The text that passes belongs to the state. That is why the acts differ so widely from one another.

Federal agencies approve products. The FDA has approved no kratom product for any use.

And a voluntary program only reaches the companies that volunteer for it. The sellers doing the most damage to consumers are the ones who never registered and never will.

There is also the plain fact of what an advocacy organization is. It advocates. Its published material argues a position. Read it as argument rather than as neutral finding. That is not a criticism. It is what the organization exists to do.

Why should any of this matter to you?

Because the qualification you see on a kratom product page came from somewhere. You’re entitled to know where.

When a company puts AKA GMP Qualified on its site, it is telling you one thing. A third-party auditor, approved in advance by a trade association, inspected its manufacturing and its labels within the last year. That’s worth something. It’s not a government approval. It is not a test of the bag you received. And it was paid for by the company making the claim.

Our own read is that it’s the strongest voluntary signal available in an industry with no mandatory federal manufacturing standard. It’s also nowhere near sufficient on its own.

The rest of what you can check is the result behind a batch. That’s what our page on kratom lab testing is about, and it’s what our own lab tested kratom reports publish. Then there is the conduct of the seller itself, which is on our page about choosing a kratom vendor. Where federal law sits on the plant overall is on our page about whether kratom is legal federally.