Overdose in Aisle Three

One night in early October, I visited my local Marathon gas station, near Pittsburgh. The cashier stood at his register in front of a wall of brightly colored boxes, bags and blister packs. These garishly branded products were the same oddball army of “supplements” that have become familiar at gas stations across the country, each promising to energize my libido and alter my consciousness. There were boner pills, of course, and a rainbow of flavored nicotine and THC vapes. There were also gummies containing synthetic THC, a liquid stimulant called “Addall” and multiple forms of kratom, a Southeast Asian plant used for its stimulant and pain-relieving effects. 

I was interested in products containing the concentrated, semi-synthetic form of kratom called 7-OH, short for 7-hydroxymitragynine. The cashier pointed to a small case next to the register displaying two products. The budget option, with the disturbing name Limitless Black, was $59.99 for 10 50-milligram tablets. Next to it sat the Limitless Platinum version, which offered 10 tablets twice as potent for only $15 more. There were only a few packages left in each box, evidence of 7-OH’s breakout success in the gas station economy of mind-altering substances. 

“These do a brisk business?” I asked. 

“They sell,” was all he said. 

Unlike ordinary kratom products, concentrated 7-OH is manufactured by chemically converting kratom’s principal alkaloid, mitragynine, into 7-hydroxymitragynine through oxidation. The result is a potent semisynthetic opioid that can produce dependence and severe withdrawal. Animal studies have found that it can suppress breathing, and human case reports document overdoses requiring medical treatment. In Oklahoma, 20-year-old Evan Bartholomew was hospitalized in June after taking a 7-OH pill purchased at a gas station. His sister found him unresponsive at home. He died 10 days later.

When the first 7-OH products began appearing in American smoke shops and gas stations in September of 2023, the tablets, gummies and shots — many with branding similar to more mundane energy supplements and even candy — escaped scrutiny. Only in June of 2025 did the Food and Drug Administration send letters to manufacturers and distributors of concentrated 7-OH, warning them that the products had not been evaluated for safety and that they were engaged in illegal marketing. But more than a year later, little has changed, and the compound still has not been federally scheduled as a controlled substance, despite carrying many of the same risks as prescription opioids. 

Regulation varies considerably from state to state. Ohio has banned synthetic kratom derivatives, including 7-OH, while allowing the sale of natural kratom leaf. Oklahoma limits the amount of 7-OH permitted in kratom products and prohibits synthesized compounds. Pennsylvania is considering legislation that would ban concentrated 7-OH products, but for now they remain available in places like my local Marathon station.

In the absence of regulation, 7-OH producers competed with each other to make the strongest version possible without triggering regulations. “It was an unofficial war between these manufacturers to see who could get the most potent extract product out there,” Chris McCurdy, a University of Florida medicinal chemist, told Axios in July 2025. 

The market is now dominated by brands like 7OHMZ, Hydroxie and Opia, which sell 7-OH as gummies, chewable tablets, fruit-flavored drink mixes, liquid shots and even miniature ice cream cones. All told, researchers have identified 250 distinct 7-OH products, most of which move through the same distribution networks that supply convenience stores with cigarettes and vapes. Together with a robust online marketplace, the domestic 7-OH market is estimated to range anywhere from $2 billion to $8 billion. 

Befitting the precarity of its legal status, the 7-OH industry prefers to keep a very low profile. By design, there is scarce public information about the industry to be found online, and they do not invite press relations. Even at the corner smoke shop and convenience store, there is a kind of omerta about 7-OH. At Cigarettes 4 Less, a smoke shop down the street from my Marathon station, an employee named Nick quickly shut down my questions about 7-OH products. 

“We have a strict media policy,” he said. “Sorry.”  

“Why does a tobacco shop need a media policy?” I asked.

“We’ve been through several, uh, things since the store opened,” he explained. “We just don’t talk to anybody.” 

Dozens of emails and phone calls to wholesalers and distributors also went unanswered. The one reply I received was from Tyler Montroy of Dubz Smoke & Vapor, who went silent after an initial text. 

The closest I got to the industry was YouTuber Metta Beshay, a YouTuber whose video, “The Insane World of Kratom and 7-OH,” features his mom trying the drug on camera. So far, it has garnered 871,000 views in the last year. When I asked who was buying 7-OH, he didn’t hesitate.

“Everyone,” he said. “People think it’s like junkie, addict-types. I know many people that just do 7-OH once a week, like a glass of wine. One of my best friends does that. Some do it for pain. Some people like to do it because they like to get high and they’re running away from their problems.” 

Beshay makes a good living from his ethnobotany videos on YouTube. After one of his early videos went viral, he earned roughly $10,000 in a month through affiliate arrangements with vendors selling kratom and other botanical products. But he has reservations about the way 7-OH is sold, and refuses to accept affiliate commissions on 7-OH products.

“Are they [gas stations] the right person to be selling it?” he said. “The easy answer is no. I think the more complex answer is people are just responding to the environment that they are in.” 

Beshay favors a regulated market in which accurate labeling and consistent dosing allows access for both medical and recreational use. But these reforms would not eliminate the risk of dependence or overdose, especially if the products remain within easy reach of teenagers at the local gas station. Federal regulators have proposed a more restrictive approach. In October, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced plans to place concentrated 7-OH products in Schedule I, effectively banning their commercial sale while leaving natural products containing trace amounts of the compound outside new controls.

Federal regulators have also begun cracking down on companies selling 7-OH. In December 2025, federal agents seized approximately $1 million worth of 7-OH products from three Kansas City-area warehouses. The companies had ignored FDA warnings that their products violated federal food and drug laws.

Meanwhile, Beshay hopes regulators won’t confuse banning 7-OH with harm reduction. 

“I think you don’t want to go down the prohibition route of psychoactive drugs, this idea that drugs that get you high are purely medicinal,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s okay to get a little high on your opioid receptors, just for funsies.”