Americans are no strangers to crises. We’ve endured hurricanes, blackouts, border surges, and economic downturns. Through it all, we’ve relied on grit, faith, and the freedom to make our own choices. But today, a different crisis is looming—one not born of nature, but of government overreach. The FDA’s push to ban 7-OH, a natural Kratom derivative used by thousands seeking escape from the grip of opioids, is a betrayal of every American fighting to stay alive amid the relentless fentanyl epidemic.
The opioid crisis isn’t some distant problem in Washington think tanks. It’s still hitting neighborhoods coast to coast. It’s the teenager who never woke up after taking a counterfeit pill; the father who turned to kratom and 7-OH after years of dependency on prescription opioids and finally reclaimed his life. These are real Americans with real families, and their lives hang in the balance.
Yet the FDA, in its arrogance, claims to know better. Instead of seeing 7-OH as a harm-reduction tool, it labels it a “threat” and calls for prohibition. This is not science. It’s politics. And it comes at the cost of human lives.
Consider the facts. The FDA admits it lacks sufficient data on 7-OH. Their own commissioner acknowledged, “there isn’t enough research or data to fully understand” its impact. Yet without that data, they’re rushing to ban it anyway. Meanwhile, 7-OH’s safety record is remarkably strong: just 11 adverse events in the FDA’s database and zero confirmed deaths. Compare that to fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin and now linked to more deaths than car accidents, guns, and COVID for Americans under 50.
Banning 7-OH doesn’t protect people. It pushes them back into the shadows, where fentanyl and xylazine rule the streets. That means more overdoses, more funerals, and more broken American families. And the cost to taxpayers is staggering. Every fentanyl overdose requires EMS, ER care, and often multiple doses of naloxone to revive the victim. Our hospitals are overwhelmed. A 7-OH ban guarantees more strain, more costs, and more grief.
The United States has always valued individual liberty. When Washington banned alcohol, speakeasies and gang violence flourished. When states banned kratom, opioid overdoses surged. Why would 7-OH be any different? Americans do not need another failed prohibition experiment.
Instead, the FDA should pursue responsible regulation—age limits, quality standards, and truthful labeling. These are tools that protect consumers while keeping dangerous cartels out of the picture. But a blanket federal ban? That’s a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed.
But there’s something deeper happening here—something every American should see clearly. The FDA’s crusade against 7-OH isn’t really about safety; it’s about control. When bureaucrats in Washington decide that adults can’t make informed choices about their own health, they are declaring that freedom itself is too dangerous. That mindset—paternalistic, elitist, and out of touch—has infected nearly every corner of our public-health establishment. The same people who told Americans to “trust the science” on policies that destroyed livelihoods now insist we surrender personal agency again, this time in the name of “safety.”
Meanwhile, ordinary people—the working mother trying to stay clean so she can raise her kids, the veteran coping with chronic pain without turning back to pills—are treated as collateral damage in a bureaucratic power grab. These Americans aren’t statistics. They’re the backbone of this country, and they deserve compassion, not condemnation.
If Washington truly wanted to save lives, it would listen to the states experimenting with responsible kratom regulation. Florida, Utah, and Georgia have all enacted age restrictions, labeling standards, and consumer protections—models that work without driving products underground. These frameworks empower law enforcement to focus on traffickers, not patients, and give adults access to clean, tested alternatives that help them stay alive.
Instead, the FDA would rather outlaw hope. And that’s what 7-OH represents to many—a final lifeline when every other option has failed. In a nation struggling to heal from decades of addiction, removing that lifeline is unconscionable.
We can do better. America can lead with courage and common sense instead of fear and control. That’s what freedom demands, and that’s what life-saving policy should look like.
The stakes are too high to stay silent. The American people must demand that Washington stop playing politics with our lives. We know what works: faith, family, freedom, and responsibility. Those values should guide our policies, not blind prohibition.
The FDA’s 7-OH ban is not just a bad policy; it’s a moral failure. It strips Americans of choice, endangers the vulnerable, and betrays the very mission the agency is sworn to uphold. If this stands, Washington will be complicit in every overdose that follows.
Americans do not back down from a fight. And this fight—for our lives, our freedom, and our families—is one the nation cannot afford to lose.
Julia Pierce is a realtor, committee chair for the Dallas County Republican Party, and does business development for the Metroplex Civic and Business Association.
