Why is 7-OH Called ‘Gas Station Heroin’ but Caffeine and Alcohol Are Not?
/By Crystal Lindell
I think it’s because I work as a manager at a truck stop that the phrase “gas station heroin” particularly pisses me off.
If you haven’t seen the coverage, “gas station heroin” is the favorite phrase used by the media and anti-7-OH groups to describe kratom and the alkaloid 7-OH (7-hydroxymitragynine).
But it’s not based on anything real, because kratom and 7-OH are not even close to being heroin.
So as the DEA nears a potential nationwide ban on 7-OH, and state and local governments ban kratom, it’s a good time to really look at the ways media and advocacy groups try to justify these bans. Notice how their labeling never extends to other substances like caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol.
Indeed, calling 7-OH and kratom “gas station heroin” is about as accurate as calling coffee and energy drinks “gas station meth.” Or calling beer “gas station LSD.”
Lots of mind-altering and addictive things are sold at gas stations. But something being a little addictive and a little bit mind-altering does not mean it should be lumped in with more dangerous and more mind-altering substances like heroin.
Take this New York Post article trying to scare readers about 7-OH. Large portions of it focus on the idea that 7-OH is sold at gas stations, as though that’s a reason to ban it in and of itself.
"People can buy 7-OH at vape shops and truck stops with little guidance on how much they’re actually supposed to take," the Post warned.
Okay, so does that apply to the nicotine products sold at vape shops? Or the alcohol sold at truck stops? I mean, there’s little to no guidance for those substances too.
The Post also includes a quote from Dr. Oliver Grundmann, a kratom specialist at the University of Florida.
“Even if 7-OH can help people wean themselves off stronger opioids, it has no business being peddled at bodegas,” Grundmann said. “It should be appropriately labeled and also only available in the hands of someone who can provide professional guidance, like a licensed pharmacist. Not a clerk at a gas station.”
Here again, we can easily flip this around to apply to the beer and cigarettes that are readily available at gas stations and “bodegas” – a fancy way of describing a neighborhood convenience store.
Imagine saying: ““Even if alcohol can help people relax, it has no business being peddled at bodegas.”
Or this: "Nicotine should be appropriately labeled and also only available in the hands of someone who can provide professional guidance, like a licensed pharmacist. Not a clerk at a gas station.”
In fact, when it comes to things like alcohol and nicotine, we as a society have decided that even if something causes thousands of deaths a year, it can still be sold at gas stations.
The thing is, kratom and 7-OH do not cause thousands of deaths a year. If they did, the DEA would no doubt have thousands of deaths they could point to to justify a ban. Instead, they had to really stretch to find any deaths to share.
In fact, the DEA could identify only one man in Norway who supposedly died from using 7-OH. The only problem was the death occurred in 2014, long before concentrated 7-OH actually became available in the U.S. in 2022.
By that logic, caffeine should also be turned into a Schedule One drug. After all, a U.S. teen died from cardiac arrhythmia after chugging three caffeinated drinks in 2017. And a young woman died in 2022 after going into cardiac arrest hours after drinking caffeinated lemonade.
Oh, and in regards to the Norway death, that man also had a sedative, antidepressant, and anti-seizure medication in his blood and urine. So it was clearly a case of polysubstance use.
Someone having 7-OH or kratom in their system at the time of death should not be enough reason to classify those substances in the most restrictive DEA drug category.
Imagine if we tracked how many people had caffeine in their blood when they died. Or nicotine. We don’t even bother because when it comes to those drugs, we all understand that simply having a substance in your blood when you die does not mean that it caused your death.
I’m not saying kratom and 7-OH should be sold without any regulations or age restrictions. Rather, just the opposite. I believe the industry should be heavily regulated and nobody under 21 should be able to buy any kratom products.
The good news is that we already have a model for how to implement that: We just need to look to the other drugs already sold at gas stations, like nicotine, alcohol and caffeine.
