Four Massachusetts retailers that sell kratom have filed a lawsuit seeking to block an emergency order from taking effect this Friday that would temporarily classify all products derived from the Southeast Asian plant as a Schedule I drug.
The complaint against the Department of Public Health and DPH Commissioner Robbie Goldstein contends that Goldstein lacked the authority to place kratom into Schedule I, failed to satisfy state requirements to justify the emergency order, and too broadly applied the order to all kratom products rather than synthetic derivatives that pose greater health risks.
The retailers filed the lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court last Friday. They include Rihaan Corporation, which does business as Jay’s Smoke Shop in Salem; Bhakti, LLC in North Billerica; V & K Smoke Shop, LLC in Quincy; and Ambreen & S Inc. in Bellingham. They’re represented by California- and Washington-based attorneys with Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.
State health officials have not yet filed a response as of Wednesday, and no hearing date has been scheduled.
Gov. Maura Healey and Goldstein announced the emergency order concerning kratom sales Aug. 13 through a press release, giving convenience stores, gas stations and other commercial establishments about a two-week period to remove all forms of kratom products from their shelves.
“I’m doing this because I care a lot about people’s health and safety, particularly the health and safety of young people,” Healey later told reporters. “And parents shouldn’t have to be afraid that their kids are going to walk into some gas station or a convenience store and buy something that looks harmless that later they ingest or use with other substances that leaves them in really bad shape, including death.”
A DPH spokesperson said Wednesday afternoon that the department had not been served with the lawsuit. It is unclear how the complaint may interfere with the order that’s supposed to take effect in two days. The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order, followed by a hearing and preliminary injunction that bars local authorities from enforcing the kratom order until a decision is made in the case.
“Residents across Massachusetts have raised serious concerns about dangerous kratom products being sold in smoke shops, convenience stores, and gas stations, often in forms that are easily accessible to young people,” the DPH spokesperson said. “These products are not FDA-approved for medical use, are sold without consistent safety standards, and can vary widely in their ingredients and potency, leaving consumers with no reliable way to know what they are taking.”
In its press release, the Healey administration warned that unregulated kratom products can lead to physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms that are similar to opioid withdrawal. While derived from a leafy tropical plant, kratom can be mixed with “highly concentrated” and lab-modified compounds that “can have significantly stronger opioid-like effects,” the administration said.
Goldstein’s order calls kratom an “imminent hazard to the public safety.” The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last month filed notices of intent to temporarily place the alkaloid 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), which is naturally occurring within the kratom plant, and three related substances into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.
Beyond conforming with federal scheduling, state law outlines another pathway for the DPH commissioner to temporarily classify dangerous drugs. The commissioner needs to make three key findings: The substance has a “high potential for abuse,” it has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” and there’s a “lack of accepted safety for use of the substance under medical supervision,” according to the lawsuit.
In a core argument in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs say Goldstein did not sufficiently establish those findings, which makes his order “invalid.”
“Plaintiffs do not dispute that some kratom products raise genuine public-health concerns, that some products are marketed irresponsibly, or that the Commonwealth may lawfully regulate them—through labeling requirements, potency limits, age restrictions, testing requirements, or targeted scheduling of concentrated and synthetic derivatives,” the lawsuit says. “Plaintiffs’ claims concern whether the Commissioner complied with the statutes that govern how the Commonwealth may declare a substance a Schedule I controlled substance, and whether the regulation he adopted is supported by the reasons he gave.”
The DPH order delegates monitoring and enforcement responsibilities to municipalities. Local boards of health, inspection departments and municipal governments are authorized to pursue “any enforcement action consistent with a finding of an imminent health hazard,” including a summary suspension of a business’s license or permit to operate.
The lawsuit says that enforcement mechanism could deprive the plaintiffs of their due process rights, contending the order “prescribes no notice, no pre-suspension opportunity to be heard, no post-suspension hearing within any specified period, no standards governing the exercise of that discretion, and no mechanism for prompt review.”
Come Friday, the plaintiffs say the DPH order will turn their store inventories into “contraband” and that removing kratom products will cause “immediate and substantial loss.” The plaintiffs add they will suffer “imminent and irreparable harm,” including losing customer relationships and facing “reputational consequences” from being designated an imminent health hazard.
Massachusetts has recorded more than 100 kratom-associated deaths since 2020, according to the order. The Massachusetts and Rhode Island Poison Center has reported about 130 kratom-related calls from January 2021 through July 29, 2026, and this year’s volume so far is nearly equal to all calls made in 2025.
The lawsuit says that public health data does not “describe a sudden emergency.”
“The Order describes long-standing market conditions, essentially flat mortality data, and undifferentiated poison-center and surveillance figures, and it attributes acute risk to a discrete class of concentrated and synthetic products,” the lawsuit says. “Those reasons do not explain why immediate adoption of a rule declaring the entire kratom plant and every product held out as kratom a Schedule I controlled substance was necessary, or why ordinary notice and comment as to that scope would have been contrary to the public interest.”
Alison Kuznitz is a reporter for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach her at akuznitz@stateaffairs.com.
