The DEA has moved to put concentrated 7-OH in Schedule I by emergency order — and it can sign that order any day now. The Senate is finally moving: Ron Wyden opened a Finance Committee investigation and set an August 31 deadline for answers. Here is exactly what to say, and to whom, while the window is open.
Where this actually stands, as of August 8, 2026. The DEA published a Notice of Intent on July 6 and said the order “will not be issued before August 5.” That is a floor, not a start date — and no final scheduling order has been published as of this writing. The comment period closed July 31. So the ban is imminent, not finished, which is exactly why calls still matter. Every script below is written to be accurate whether or not the order has dropped by the time you dial.
Look them up, say you're a constituent, and use the generic script at the bottom. Your own members answer to you — that's the strongest call you can make.
Reaching someone you admire?
You don't have to be their constituent to be heard. Lead with the value they're known for. The messages below are written to do exactly that.
Members worth a message
Copy, drop in your name, send. Keep it short and personal — staff count every one.
Rep. Thomas Massie · R · Kentucky-04 · U.S. House
Why he'd care: Massie doesn't move on outrage — he moves on defective process and delegated lawmaking. This one hands him the statute on a plate: 21 U.S.C. §811(h) lets the DEA schedule a substance expressly "without regard to" the full scientific and medical evaluation Congress wrote into §811(b), and it forecloses judicial review of the finding. Congress delegated away the power to criminalize, and then wrote the courts out of it. Give him the citation, not the adjectives.
Call:(202) 225-3465Frame: §811(h) delegation defectFrame: no judicial reviewFrame: 2016 precedent
Representative Massie, my name is [your name]. I'm not in your district, but I follow your work on agencies that write criminal law without Congress. Here's a live one. Under 21 U.S.C. 811(h), the DEA can place 7-OH in Schedule I by emergency order — and the statute says it may do that "without regard to" the full scientific evaluation Congress required in 811(b), with the finding shielded from judicial review. So an unelected administrator creates a federal felony, skips the science Congress mandated, and no court can check it. The DEA tried this exact move on kratom in 2016 and withdrew it after twenty-three thousand public comments. I'm asking you to make the delegation argument out loud, and to ask the DEA to justify the emergency finding on the record. Thank you.
Sen. Rand Paul · R · Kentucky · U.S. Senate
Why he'd care: two levers nobody else has. He is a physician, and he chairs Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — the committee with direct oversight of the department Secretary Mullin runs. He doesn't need anyone's permission to send a letter or hold a hearing about a cabinet officer's undivested stake. Paul also responds to the doctor-prosecution angle: in Ruan v. United States the Supreme Court rejected the government's prescribing standard in 2022, and DOJ kept convicting on it anyway.
Senator Paul, my name is [your name]. You chair Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which means Secretary Mullin's department answers to your committee — and his federal ethics filing shows an undivested stake of up to a million dollars in Botanic Tonics, a kratom company whose direct competitor the DEA is about to ban by emergency order. You don't need anyone's permission to ask him about that in writing. And as a physician you'll appreciate the second half: in Ruan the Supreme Court told the government it has to prove a doctor knowingly prescribed unlawfully, and prosecutions carried on at the same conviction rate anyway. Please put the conflict question to the Secretary on committee letterhead, and ask the DEA to show its work before it signs. Thank you.
Sen. Ron Wyden · D · Oregon · U.S. Senate
Why he'd care: he already opened the case — on Aug 5, as Finance ranking member, into the administration's ties to Big Tobacco and the kratom industry, naming Mullin's stake in writing. He is a document-demand investigator, not a floor-speech one, and his tool here is a deadline. This is a minority investigation: he cannot subpoena alone, so the realistic failure mode is getting stonewalled past Aug 31 and letting it die quietly. The ask is to make that deadline expensive to ignore.
Call:(202) 224-5244Frame: he opened it — keep it aliveFrame: Aug 31 or it diesFrame: tie the ban to the conflict
Senator Wyden, my name is [your name], from [your city]. Thank you for opening the Finance Committee investigation into the kratom industry's ties to this administration, and for putting Secretary Mullin's stake in Botanic Tonics in writing. I'm calling about one thing: the August 31 deadline. A minority investigation lives or dies on whether the stonewall costs them anything, and right now the easy path is for them to run out the clock. Please connect the two halves publicly — the same conflict you're investigating is the reason the DEA is banning that company's competitor — and ask the DEA to hold the order until the conflict is resolved. If you get nothing by the 31st, say so out loud. Thank you for actually doing the work on this one.
Sen. Cory Booker · D · New Jersey · U.S. Senate
Why he'd care: Booker argues in moral terms and named human beings, not process. He's the Senate's most consistent voice that prohibition creates the harm it claims to prevent — and he signed the 2016 letter. Give him the documented cost of cutting people off: after the DEA suspended one California pain physician in November 2022, three of his patients died within six weeks. That's the register he speaks in.
Call:(202) 224-3224Frame: prohibition creates the harmFrame: named human costFrame: 2016 signer
Senator Booker, my name is [your name]. You signed the 2016 letter that helped stop the DEA's rushed kratom ban, and you've spent your career saying prohibition creates the harm it claims to prevent. Here's what that looks like in practice. When the DEA suspended one California pain doctor in November 2022, three of his patients were dead within six weeks — two of them a married couple who left a note saying they had no options left. Now the agency is about to remove another option from people who already lost the first one, by emergency order, with no hearing. Banning it doesn't end the need; it moves people to a supply nobody is testing. Please say that publicly, and ask for a real review before the order is signed. Thank you.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand · D · New York · U.S. Senate
Why she'd care: Gillibrand's pattern is demanding the data and then demanding accountability for its absence — it's how she worked military justice and 9/11 health. The strongest fact for her isn't the ban, it's the hole next to it: when federal policy cut high-dose opioid prescribing by roughly half, no agency tracked what happened to the patients. HHS's own Inspector General shows Medicare Part D patients above the 120 MME threshold falling from 501,008 in 2016 to about 267,000 in 2019, and there is no national follow-up on any of them.
Call:(202) 224-4451Frame: nobody tracked outcomesFrame: OIG's own numbersFrame: 2016 signer
Senator Gillibrand, my name is [your name]. In 2016 you joined the call for the DEA to slow down its rushed kratom ban, and the agency is doing it again with 7-OH by emergency order. But here's the part I'd ask you to look at, because it's the kind of accountability gap you've gone after before. HHS's own Inspector General shows Medicare Part D patients on high-dose opioid therapy dropping from about five hundred thousand in 2016 to two hundred sixty-seven thousand in 2019 — and no federal agency tracked what happened to any of them afterward. We cut the supply in half and never counted the people. Please ask HHS and the DEA, in writing, what outcome data exists before another option is removed. Thank you.
Rep. Mark Pocan · D · Wisconsin-02 · U.S. House
Why he'd care: he is the one member here with a proven win on this exact statute — he co-led the bipartisan 51-member House letter in 2016, and the DEA withdrew that scheduling notice on October 13, 2016 after 23,236 public comments. Pocan's skill is assembling a cross-party letter fast. The difference now is that the 2016 fight was about science; this one has a cabinet officer with money in the outcome.
Call:(202) 225-2906Frame: you already beat this onceFrame: 23,236 comments did itFrame: rebuild the letter
Representative Pocan, my name is [your name]. You co-led the bipartisan House letter in 2016 that helped stop the DEA from emergency-scheduling kratom — the agency withdrew that notice in October 2016 after twenty-three thousand people filed comments. It's the same statute and the same playbook again with 7-OH, except this time a sitting cabinet secretary holds an undivested stake of up to a million dollars in a company that directly benefits from the ban. You know how to build that letter because you already built it once. I'm asking you to start it again, and to name the conflict in it this time. Thank you.
Sen. Bernie Sanders · I · Vermont · U.S. Senate
Why he'd care: forget process — Sanders' entire register is drug pricing and who gets rich off sick people, and the pricing data here is the best single fact in this whole fight. Using the government's own numbers: a month of generic oxycodone costs Medicaid about $27. One monthly Sublocade injection costs Medicare $2,068. And buprenorphine sold under a pain label runs a patient up to $1,324 a month while the identical molecule under an addiction label costs as little as $12. He signed the 2016 letter too.
Call:(202) 224-5141Frame: $27 vs $2,068Frame: same molecule, different priceFrame: 2016 signer
Senator Sanders, my name is [your name]. You helped lead the Senate push against the DEA's rushed kratom ban in 2016, and it's happening again with 7-OH — but I want to give you the number, because this is your fight. Using the government's own pricing: a month of generic oxycodone costs Medicaid twenty-seven dollars. One monthly Sublocade injection costs Medicare two thousand and sixty-eight. And the exact same molecule, buprenorphine, costs a pain patient up to thirteen hundred dollars a month under one label and as little as twelve dollars under another. Nobody ever made money keeping people on the cheap generic. I'm asking you to say that out loud, and to demand the DEA justify a ban that clears the field for the expensive option. Thank you.
Rep. Summer Lee · D · Pennsylvania-12 · U.S. House
Why she'd care: Lee sits on House Oversight and her consistent theme is public money that never reaches the public. The freshest documented example is right next door to this fight: of the opioid settlement money tracked by Johns Hopkins in 2024, 20% could not be traced at all in public records — over 30% in sixteen states — while KFF documented $61 million of it going to law-enforcement purchases including rifle suppressors, drones and Tasers. Same policy area, same pattern: the money is accounted for to everyone except the people it was for.
Call:(202) 225-2135Frame: 20% untraceableFrame: suppressors and dronesFrame: Oversight can subpoena
Representative Lee, my name is [your name]. You sit on House Oversight, and you've built your record on public money that never reaches the public. Here's a live case. Johns Hopkins tracked the opioid settlement funds and found a fifth of the spending can't be traced at all — over thirty percent in sixteen states — while KFF documented sixty-one million going to police purchases, including rifle suppressors and drones. Meanwhile the DEA is about to ban 7-OH by emergency order, no comment period, no court review, and a cabinet secretary holds a million-dollar stake in a company that benefits. It's the same story twice: the money and the policy both answer to somebody, and it isn't us. Please put an Oversight letter on both. Thank you.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez · D · New York-14 · U.S. House
Why she'd care: she sits on Energy & Commerce — the committee with FDA and drug-policy jurisdiction — including its Oversight & Investigations subcommittee. Her signature move is naming who benefits from a rule and who had no seat at the table. Both halves are documented here: a cabinet secretary with an undivested stake in a company the ban protects, and a fight in which every organized participant is a trade group. Not one national chronic-pain organization has taken a public position on this scheduling action.
Call:(202) 225-3965Frame: E&C has jurisdictionFrame: who profitsFrame: patients had no seat
Representative Ocasio-Cortez, my name is [your name]. You sit on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over the FDA and drug policy, and you're the member who asks who profits from a rule and who wasn't in the room. Both are documented here. The DEA is about to ban 7-OH by emergency order with no comment period and no judicial review, and Secretary Mullin holds an undivested stake of up to a million dollars in a kratom company the ban protects. And when I looked at who's been arguing this publicly, every single organized voice on both sides is an industry trade group. Not one national chronic-pain patient organization has taken a position. The people who actually use this had no seat at all. Please use your subcommittee to ask who drove it and who was left out. Thank you.
Facts you can back up
If a staffer pushes back, these are the ones that hold. Every number is from a government record or a peer-reviewed journal.
The DEA already lost this fight once. It filed the same kind of notice on kratom in 2016 and withdrew it on October 13, 2016 after 23,236 public comments.
The statute really does skip the science. 21 U.S.C. §811(h) permits temporary scheduling "without regard to" the full evaluation required by §811(b), and shields the finding from judicial review.
The conflict is on a federal form. Secretary Mullin's OGE financial disclosure lists $500,001–$1,000,000 in Botanic Tonics, undivested.
Prescribing was already cut in half. Retail opioid prescriptions fell from 260.5 million in 2012 to 125.7 million in 2024 — and no agency tracked what happened to those patients.
The price gap is a government number. A month of generic oxycodone costs Medicaid about $27; one Sublocade injection costs Medicare $2,068.16. Same-molecule buprenorphine runs up to $1,324/month under a pain label and as little as $12 under an addiction label.
Cutting people off is measurably harmful. Peer-reviewed cohort studies found elevated overdose and mental-health-crisis rates that persist into the second year after a taper. (Use the corrected 2022 figures — the widely shared "68%" was revised downward.)
No patient group is at the table. Reviewing public statements, the organized voices on both sides are industry trade associations. No national chronic-pain organization has taken a public position on this scheduling action.
Calling your own rep? Use this.
The constituent version — works for any senator or House member the lookup gives you.
Hello, my name is [your name], and I'm a constituent in [your city/town]. I'm asking [Rep./Sen. name] to speak up about the DEA's emergency scheduling of 7-OH. It's being done under emergency authority — no public comment, no hearing, and the statute shields the finding from court review — and a sitting cabinet secretary holds an undivested stake of up to a million dollars in a company the ban protects. The DEA tried this same move on kratom in 2016 and withdrew it after twenty-three thousand people objected. Whatever anyone thinks of the product, a federal felony shouldn't be created by decree while an official with money in the outcome cheers it on. I'd like to know where [the member] stands, and I'm asking them to demand a real review before the order is signed. Thank you.
Also worth it: anyone from the 2016 bipartisan coalition who's still in office — they've stopped a rushed DEA kratom ban before. Look up whether yours signed.
Save your breath with: members already pushing for the ban — Sen. Roger Marshall (KS), Rep. Rob Bresnahan (PA), and Sen. Pete Ricketts (NE) have urged the DEA and FDA to act. They aren't the audience for this message.
Beyond the ban — leaders worth backing
Not a vote on 7-OH — a reminder that constituents-first, anti-capture leadership gets noticed and supported.
Mayor Katie Wilson · Seattle · Mayor's Office
Why she matters: won on a people-powered coalition, then actually cleared out the insiders who serve the building instead of the city. She has no hand in the DEA fight — but she's modeling the opposite of capture, and that's worth backing out loud.
Frame: constituents over insidersFrame: anti-capture modelCall:(206) 684-4000
Mayor Wilson, my name is [your name]. I'm not a Seattle constituent, but I'm watching what you're doing — winning with regular people, then clearing out the insiders who answer to the building instead of the city. The fight I care about is bigger than any one town: whether government answers to the public or to the money. You're modeling the right answer. Keep going — and know that people well outside Seattle are paying attention and rooting for it. Thank you.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani · New York City · Mayor's Office
Why he matters: ran a people-powered campaign and beat the party machine to run the country's biggest city on an affordability-first, serve-the-many platform. No hand in the DEA fight — but a model of what winning without the big-money gatekeepers looks like.
Call: 311 · (212) 639-9675Frame: people over the machineFrame: anti-capture modelNote: not a ban vote
Mayor Mamdani, my name is [your name]. I'm not a New Yorker, but I'm watching what you're doing — winning without the big-money gatekeepers and governing for the many instead of the connected few. The fight I care about is bigger than any one city: whether government answers to the public or to the money. Keep proving it can be done — and know people well outside New York are paying attention. Thank you.
Melat Kiros · Colorado-01 · Democratic nominee · U.S. House
Why she matters: a grassroots underdog who unseated a 30-year incumbent in the primary, poised to become one of the youngest members of Congress. Not seated yet, so not a vote on the ban — but exactly the "beat the machine for the people" story worth backing early.
Campaign:kirosforco.comFrame: grassroots giant-killerFrame: anti-capture modelNote: nominee, not yet seated
Ms. Kiros, my name is [your name]. I'm not in your district, but I noticed how you won — a grassroots campaign that beat a thirty-year incumbent without the big-money machine behind you. Whatever the issue, that's the independence this fight needs: leaders who answer to the people who sent them, not the donors. If you make it to Washington, I hope you carry that in with you. People well outside Colorado are watching. Thank you.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed · D · Michigan · U.S. Senate nominee
Why he matters: a physician and epidemiologist who just won a Senate primary against the party-and-PAC-backed favorite, running small-dollar against big outside money. Not seated, so not a ban vote — but a doctor headed for the chamber that writes the next drug-policy law, and a model of beating the money.
Campaign:1-844-223-8548Frame: small-dollar over big PACsFrame: a doctor's readNote: nominee, not yet seated
Dr. El-Sayed, my name is [your name]. I'm not in Michigan, but I watched you win a Senate primary on small-dollar donations against the big outside money — and as a physician, you know the difference between medicine and a moral panic. If you get to the Senate, you'll help write the next chapter of drug policy. I'm asking you to carry one principle in: regulate what's real, don't prohibit by decree, and always ask who profits from the ban. People well outside Michigan are watching. Thank you.
James Fishback · R · Florida · Governor candidate
Why he's here: a right-side outsider challenging his own party's anointed pick for governor — the mirror image of the insurgents above, running at the machine from the other side. Worth watching, eyes open: he's an investment-firm CEO behind the "DOGE dividend" who has courted Trump-world money, so the outsider label is his to prove.
Call: no gov office yetFrame: outsider vs. the party's pickFrame: populist rightNote: bona fides contested
Mr. Fishback, my name is [your name]. I'm watching your run at the governor's office against your own party's hand-picked candidate — because a race where the machine already crowned the winner isn't much of a choice. Whatever our differences, I'd ask you to prove the outsider label is real: name your donors, refuse the strings, and put the people who'd vote for you ahead of the ones who'd fund you. That's the test — on the right and the left. Thank you.
Find every office's phone and form at representme.blaskattacks.com. Sourcing. DEA Notice of Intent, Federal Register, July 6 2026, and the DEA press release of July 1 2026 · the 2016 Notice of Intent and its withdrawal, Federal Register, October 13 2016 · 21 U.S.C. §811(b) and §811(h) · Secretary Mullin's OGE Form 278e financial disclosure · Senate Finance Committee minority investigation opened August 5 2026 · HHS Office of Inspector General reports OEI-02-17-00250 and OEI-02-20-00320 · CMS NADAC pricing and the Medicare Part B ASP payment limit for HCPCS Q9992 · Pain Medicine 26(9):611 (2025) · Ruan v. United States, No. 20-1410 (2022) · Johns Hopkins 2024 National Settlement Fund Tracking Project and KFF Health News · contemporaneous reporting by Pain News Network, VICE News, STAT News and the New York Times.
Status note. As of August 8 2026 the DEA had published a Notice of Intent but no final temporary scheduling order had been located in the Federal Register. Scripts are written to remain accurate either way. This is civic advocacy in my own opinion, not legal advice, and BlaskAttacks is unaffiliated with any advocacy organization on any side of this issue.