Employees at New York City smoke shops are openly selling synthetic kratom compounds banned nationwide by an August DEA emergency order, a two-week investigation across 52 stores found.
Eight stores — roughly 15 percent — stocked products containing mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MGPI) or dihydro-7-hydroxy mitragynine (MGM-15), both now classified as federal Schedule I controlled substances carrying penalties of up to 20 years in prison. The Post visited smoke shops, convenience stores, and dispensaries across all five boroughs to see what dangerous substances lined shelves or hid behind counters.
At New City Smoke Shop on Park Place and Church Street in lower Manhattan, employees promoted 1,000 mg packs of Kama brand “7-Hydroxy+Psuedoindyl” containing MGPI. A worker there reluctantly admitted customers choose it specifically because it dwarfs other varieties in potency — though a health inspector had warned months earlier the tablets would soon be illegal. The employee claimed not to know the current legal status.
An East Village Smoke Shop worker along First Avenue tried enticing a reporter with the same Kama product by noting it’s now “hard to find” because “it’s about to be banned” — apparently unaware the ban already took effect. That store also sold Rush brand tablets containing 7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), MGPI and MGM-15, with a worker saying they would become illegal soon.
The Astoria business Ditmars Organic Convenience took more precautions. Rather than display Kama and Opia brand pseudoindoxyl products openly, an employee pulled out an iPad to show the illicit selection — suggesting awareness they were selling contraband.
Each product containing MGPI or MGM-15 also contained 7-OH, a kratom-derived compound still legal in New York that is 13 times stronger than morphine and widely known as “gas station heroin.” MGPI itself is 31 times stronger than 7-OH, according to the National Library of Medicine. Flashy colorful packages of 7-OH pills and powders sat readily available at 34 of the 52 stores visited.
Greg Kiesow, founder of Kratom Anonymous and a former user, was 18 years sober before getting hooked on 7-OH — which he had no idea was addictive. He had started with kratom leaf powder before progressively needing more.
“It hollows you out. It makes you a ghost of yourself. You aren’t really capable of feeling joy, love, peace, and connection with others,” Kiesow, of Illinois, said. “You completely isolate. And that’s what I did. I I just spent 10 months on my back porch staring at the birds with my bird feeder thinking my life is perfect.”
Customers at these shops described why they keep coming back. “I asked [customers] why are they taking this and they say that it makes them feel stronger, stay awake, focused,” a man identifying himself only as Rifa said. But the aftermath tells a different story. “[But] when you see him [after they take the tablet] they’re too f–king weak. Literally you can see them too weak. If you push them, maybe they’re going to fall down,” a worker at an Astoria shop said.
“We are licensing these places [and they’re] like crack houses,” said Rich Marianos, a former ATF boss who founded the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network. “No synthetic narcotic producing a euphoric high like heroin should ever be sold without a doctor’s authority.”
The ingredients matched those in “SMAX Pseudo-DHM” tablets linked to the September 21 deaths of University of Mississippi students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20. A federal filing says toxicology found mitragynine, MGM-15 and MGPI in both men, who died in separate incidents. Two men have been charged with selling the narcotics to the students. One defense attorney said in court Friday that Hamilton died from combined substance use including cough syrup, while Strang died from inhalation asphyxiation, WMC-TV reported.
This week Utah officials issued an urgent warning after four deaths were linked to “cat’s claw,” containing “dangerous semi-synthetic kratom chemicals.” The CDC reported 1,221 kratom-involved overdose deaths between December 2024 and December 2025. New York State saw 100 kratom-linked overdoses from 2023 to 2024 and 45 kratom-contributed deaths from 2024 to 2025, though other substances were involved in some cases.
“When’s it going to end?” asked Wendy Chamberlain, founder of Kratom Danger Awareness, whose son Joseph Chamberlain, 38, died in his upstate New York home in 2020 from an accidental kratom overdose. She has dealt with hundreds of people of all ages struggling with addiction and is begging lawmakers for immediate intervention.
“You can’t have one without the other—if you get rid of the entire plant, then you’re not going to have the synthetic or semi-synthetic,” she said.
Another grieving mother, Dana Knox of South Carolina, whose 26-year-old son Micah accidentally overdosed from synthetic kratom in June, slammed the drugs as “just like fentanyl and heroin.” She asked: “If it’s going to be just as addictive as those, why are we selling it over the counter?”
“What you see with these synthetics is your predictable opioid-like toxicities. You see respiratory depression. You see withdrawal, you see death,” Jennifer Brandt, a Virginia-based pharmacist, told The Post. “With the kratom leaf …you still have the opioid withdrawal…. Seizures, cardiac abnormalities, liver failure.”
The Department of Justice announced Friday plans to add 7-OH to the federal Schedule I list, matching MGM-15 and MGPI with the same 20-year prison penalties. A veto-proof state bill outlawing 7-OH awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s review, with lead sponsor Assemblyman Phil Steck (D-Schenectady) expecting a signature early next year. Steck blasted Hochul’s previous kratom warning labels as “watered down” due to industry lobbying; Hochul spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds defended the governor’s record. Long Island Republicans are pushing for a total statewide kratom ban, while Albany, Oneida, and Nassau counties have already enacted full prohibitions.
The DEA did not return requests for comment.