Is Kratom Legal in Massachusetts?

What law bans kratom in Massachusetts?

One instrument, and it isn’t a statute.

The Commissioner of the Department of Public Health published an emergency regulation, 105 CMR 726.000, on August 13, 2026. The authority is M.G.L. c. 94C, section 2A, which lets the Commissioner place an unscheduled substance into Schedule I temporarily after finding it to be an imminent hazard to public safety.

The legislature didn’t vote on it. Section 2A says in as many words that no further approval by any other person or body is needed before the emergency regulation takes effect. One official made the findings, signed the order, and the clock started.

That’s worth holding next to Connecticut, the other state that reached a ban through a regulation rather than a bill. Connecticut’s regulation had to clear a legislative committee before it could take force. Massachusetts wrote a tool that skips that step, and it added that tool to the law in 2014.

When did Massachusetts kratom ban take effect?

August 28, 2026.

Section 2A gives a 14-day notice period, and the clock starts when the order is published on the Department’s website. Publication was August 13. Two weeks was the whole window retailers had to clear their shelves. Connecticut’s window was about a month.

What does the ban cover?

The plant, four lab-made derivatives, and anything sold as kratom.

The regulation defines kratom as Mitragyna speciosa, mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine and 9-fluoro-7-hydroxymitragynine, along with their isomers, esters, ethers and salts. Then it adds one more clause. Kratom includes “any product held out or holding itself out to be kratom.”

That clause is doing real work. Most banned states name the plant, kratom’s two main alkaloids, or both, and every argument that follows is about whether a particular product contains the named thing. Massachusetts closed that door. If it is sold as kratom, it’s covered, whatever’s actually in it.

Powder, capsules, tablets, extracts, gummies, drinks and tea are all covered.

Who enforces it?

Local boards of health, in the first instance.

Section 2A directs the Commissioner to send the order to every local and regional board of health with guidance that possession or distribution by any food, retail or commercial establishment is an imminent health hazard. Boards of health, local inspection departments and municipal agents can then act under M.G.L. c. 111, section 30, up to summarily suspending a municipal license or permit, including the permit to operate.

That’s an unusual shape for a drug ban. The pressure lands on a shop’s health permit rather than on a police report, which is why the state’s guidance documents are written for boards of health rather than for prosecutors.

What are the penalties for kratom in Massachusetts?

Possession is a crime.

Under M.G.L. c. 94C, section 34, nobody may knowingly possess a controlled substance without a valid prescription. The general penalty is up to one year in a house of correction, a fine of up to one thousand dollars, or both. Someone with a prior conviction under that section, or a prior felony under the same chapter, faces up to two years and up to two thousand dollars.

Does the ban expire?

Yes. The regulation runs for one year from August 28, 2026, and it ends sooner if the Commissioner finds the order is no longer necessary. Section 2A caps an emergency regulation at one year, so August 28, 2027 is the outside date on this instrument.

That doesn’t mean kratom is legal again the next morning. The legislature can pass a permanent ban in the meantime, the Department can open an ordinary rulemaking, or the order can simply lapse. Any of those is possible and none is decided. If you’re in Massachusetts, watch the General Court and the Department, not a store’s website. Ours included.

Does the order reach beyond Massachusetts?

It asks to.

Section 2A requires the Commissioner to send a copy of the order to the Attorney General of the United States, with a request that the federal government temporarily place the same substance in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 811(h). That request is mandatory, not optional, and it goes out with every order made under this section.

So a state ban that reaches only the state’s own borders generates a formal request for a national one anyway. Whether the federal government acts on it is a separate question, and nothing in state law obliges it to.

The Commissioner also has to send the order to every acute inpatient hospital in the state, and to the chairs of the legislature’s joint committee on public health.

Why did Massachusetts ban kratom?

The Commissioner’s findings are on the public record, and the numbers in them are Massachusetts numbers rather than borrowed ones.

Since 2020, roughly 100 deaths in the state have been reported as associated with kratom or related substances. The order says those are probably undercounted, because no diagnostic code exists for kratom. Death records naming kratom, mitragynine or 7-OH ran 15 in 2020, 10 in 2021, 16 in 2022, 19 in 2023, 18 in 2024, 21 in 2025, and 8 through July 28, 2026. The state marks 2023, 2024 and 2025 as preliminary, and the 2026 count covers January 1 to July 28 only.

Between July 2025 and July 28, 2026, the state’s syndromic surveillance system recorded 314 visits where kratom appeared in triage notes or the chief complaint field. The regional poison center logged 127 kratom calls from January 2021 through July 29, 2026. Ten were for children aged five or under, half of those for children under one, and about 46 percent of all 127 were rated moderate or major.

The order also spends a long section on how these products are sold. Gummies flavored and packaged like candy. Colorful wrappers carrying no warning label. Product stocked in front of the counter within reach of anyone. No age check at the register. It says that all-natural and plant-based marketing obscures the fact that kratom use can lead to tolerance, withdrawal and misuse.

Did anyone challenge it?

Yes. Four Massachusetts retailers filed suit in Suffolk County Superior Court on August 21, 2026, against the Department and the Commissioner, asking the court to declare the order invalid and to block it.

Their argument has three parts. That the Commissioner lacked authority to schedule kratom this way. That the record doesn’t establish the emergency the statute requires, because the data describes conditions that developed over a long period rather than something sudden. And that the order is too broad, because it puts the natural leaf and concentrated lab-made derivatives in one category.

The order took effect on schedule on August 28 regardless. We have no ruling in that case as of the date at the top of this page. If a court changes the ban, this page changes with it.

Can you order kratom online in Massachusetts?

No. The law applies where you are, not where the seller is. Once a package crosses the state line, Massachusetts law is what applies to it.

We don’t ship to Massachusetts. If you try to check out with a Massachusetts address, our checkout stops you before you pay rather than after. No kratom company that follows the law ships there.

Is kratom legal in the states around Massachusetts?

Not in two of them. Vermont and Connecticut both ban it. New York, New Hampshire and Rhode Island allow it at the state level.

New York allows it with rules attached. The governor signed two laws, one setting a minimum purchase age of 21 and one requiring a consumer warning label on any kratom product made, distributed or sold in the state.

Rhode Island is the one worth knowing about. It banned kratom, then repealed the ban and put a Kratom Consumer Protection Act in its place, effective April 1, 2026. On one side of the Massachusetts border a ban ended in April. Inside Massachusetts a ban began in August. Same region, four months apart, opposite directions. The law reaches you where you are, not where you bought it. Traveling with kratom covers what that means on a drive and in an airport.

Local rules sit on top of state law, and several Massachusetts towns moved before the state did. Hanover’s board of health approved a local ban effective July 6, 2026, seven weeks ahead of the state order.