{"id":316370,"date":"2026-06-23T01:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/316370\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T01:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:46:14","slug":"florida-expands-ban-and-criminalizes-legal-morphine-linked-to-hundreds-of-deaths-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/316370\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida expands ban and criminalizes &#8216;legal morphine&#8217; linked to hundreds of deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Attorney General James Uthmeier signed an emergency rule expanding the ban<a href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/toxicology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/268\/2025\/08\/Aug25-7-hydroxymitragynine.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> 7-OH<\/a> in Florida, and criminalizing it as a controlled substance.<\/p>\n<p>The rule, announced during a Monday press conference, places several 7-OH-related compounds into Schedule I, allowing law enforcement to seize products and pursue felony charges for manufacturers and retailers selling illegal formulations.<\/p>\n<p>In a news release, Uthmeier highlighted the dangers of the compound:<\/p>\n<p>Today I signed an emergency rule because these dangerous concentrated 7-OH products present an imminent hazard to the public safety of Floridians\u2014especially our children and teens. By expanding the rule to include new 7-OH related compounds to Schedule I, we are removing these addictive poisons from store shelves, protecting families, and holding manufacturers and sellers accountable.<\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/cbs12.com\/news\/local\/deadly-crashes-fuel-debate-florida-police-pursuit-policies-fleeing-suspects-public-risks-florida-highway-patrol-treasure-coast-palm-beach-county-trooper-discretion-pregnant-mother-grandmother-killed-ghost-chase-officers-fired-crash-fink-i-95-turnpike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Deadly crashes fuel debate over Florida police pursuit policies<\/a><\/p>\n<p>7-OH, sometimes referred to as <a href=\"https:\/\/drugfree.org\/article\/kratom-7-oh-what-to-know-about-this-powerful-compound\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">&#8220;legal morphine&#8221; or &#8220;7-Hydroxy&#8221;<\/a> occurs naturally in kratom in trace amounts but is often sold in concentrated forms at gas stations, vape shops and online under brand names such as Hydroxy, 7Tabz and 7OHMZ.<\/p>\n<p>State officials say the products act on opioid receptors and can cause respiratory depression, rapid addiction and sever withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>To date \u2014 medical examiners have linked at least 587 overdose deaths to the substances since 2013, while poison control centers have reported hundreds of recent exposure cases.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdacs.gov\/About-Us\/Meet-Commissioner-Simpson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson<\/a> said inspectors have removed over 23,000 illegal 7-OH products from the shelves, and there&#8217;s still a long road ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n<p>BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n<p>Violations of the new rule can carry criminal penalties of up to 30 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 Attorney General James Uthmeier signed an emergency rule expanding the ban 7-OH in Florida,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-316370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}