HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania House voted 200-3 Wednesday to rewrite a bill that would keep natural-leaf kratom legal for adults 21 and older, adding a 12% retail tax and pushing back its ban on synthetic products.
The amendment to House Bill 2657, from House Health Committee Chair Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny, sets the synthetic ban to take effect 180 days after the bill becomes law. As introduced, it would have taken effect immediately.
The bill still needs a final House vote, Senate approval, and the governor’s signature.
The changes come as 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, a concentrated kratom compound sold in gummies and vapes, makes up a growing share of state poison center cases.
In the first half of 2026, poison centers logged 106 kratom-related cases, including 41 involving 7-OH, according to Department of Health figures reported by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. That’s 93% of the 114 cases recorded in all of 2025, when 25 involved 7-OH.
By those figures, 7-OH makes up about 39% of kratom cases this year, up from about 22% last year.
As of early September, the department had counted 17 overdose deaths this year with kratom as a contributing factor, 33 in 2025 (a preliminary figure) and 38 in 2024. These counts include deaths involving other drugs.
Under the amended bill, a product would be treated as synthetic if it contains more than 0.05% 7-OH by dry weight, any mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, or a synthetic version of either. The introduced bill set the 7-OH limit at 0.5% of a product’s alkaloid content.
Selling synthetic products would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to five years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
Natural kratom could be sold only by state-registered retailers, in child-resistant packages. A second amendment from Rep. Brenda Pugh, R-Luzerne, approved 201-2, requires a label warning that kratom “may cause dependence and opioid-like withdrawal.”
The 12% tax would apply to the retail price, so a $20 package would carry $2.40 in tax. Three-quarters of the tax and registration fees would go to the Department of Health to run the program and one-quarter to the attorney general for enforcement.
Rep. Tim Twardzik, R-Schuylkill, voted against both amendments. In a Facebook video posted early Thursday, he said a local pediatrician had begged him to act.
“And I voted no because I don’t think we need six months. This is something that should be off the streets right now,” Twardzik said.
Before the floor vote, the American Kratom Association, an industry lobby, told the Capital-Star it wanted the bill to allow some extracts. The amended bill excludes any product containing a kratom extract from its definition of natural kratom.
District attorneys in Bucks, Chester and Berks counties have asked Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen to use emergency powers to make 7-OH a controlled substance. A department spokesperson told the Capital-Star it is “reviewing the situation and considering all options.”