Kava, kanna, functional mushrooms and cat's claw are all legal to sell at the federal level in the United States as of July 30, 2026, but the word "legal" is doing different work in each case, and state law diverges from federal law in several of them. Blue lotus is where that gap is widest: it is not a federally scheduled substance, and it is also not a plant we will put on our shelves. This is a map of where each category actually sits, and how to check any of it yourself.
Quick answer: the categories at a glance
| Category | Botanical name | Federal scheduling | Notable state law | Our position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kava | Piper methysticum | Not scheduled | Broadly legal; some local rules on kava bars | Covered here for reference; not currently on our shelves |
| Kanna | Sceletium tortuosum | Not scheduled | No statewide prohibition we are aware of | Covered here for reference; not currently on our shelves |
| Blue lotus | Nymphaea caerulea | Not scheduled | Louisiana Act 159 (2005) bars sale for human consumption | No. We do not carry it and do not plan to |
| Functional mushrooms | Hericium, Ganoderma, Cordyceps, Trametes | Not scheduled | Broadly legal as foods and supplements | Open to carrying, under the same certificate standard |
| Amanita muscaria | Amanita muscaria | Not scheduled | Louisiana Act 159 (2005); several states have moved to restrict | No. Not a category we will stock |
| Cat's claw | Uncaria tomentosa | Not scheduled | No statewide prohibition we are aware of | Our core category |
Why "is it legal?" is really three separate questions
Most arguments about botanical legality go wrong because the two people arguing are answering different questions. There are three of them, and a product can pass one while failing another.
Question one: is the substance scheduled? This is the Controlled Substances Act question, and it is what people usually mean by "legal." A plant or compound is either named in a federal schedule or it is not. None of the categories in the table above is federally scheduled today.
Question two: is it a lawful dietary ingredient? This is a food-law question and it is entirely separate. Under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, an ingredient marketed in the United States before October 15, 1994 is treated as grandfathered. Anything introduced after that date is a "new dietary ingredient" and requires a notification submitted to FDA at least 75 days before marketing. A plant can be completely unscheduled and still not be a lawful supplement ingredient. This is the question category marketing skips most often.
Question three: what does your state say? States legislate faster than Congress and are under no obligation to mirror federal schedules. A plant can be unscheduled federally and prohibited where you live.
Keep those three apart and the rest of this page is straightforward.
Kava (Piper methysticum)
Kava is a shrub from the western Pacific whose root has been prepared as a ceremonial and social beverage in Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa for centuries. It entered the US supplement market well before 1994, which puts it on firm ground for question two, and it is not scheduled anywhere in the United States.
The complication is a safety history worth stating rather than hiding. In March 2002, FDA issued a consumer advisory regarding rare reports of severe liver injury associated with kava-containing dietary supplements. Several European regulators went further at the time and restricted sales, with some of those restrictions relaxed in later years. The science never fully resolved. The leading explanations point at extraction solvent, at use of aerial parts rather than root, and at the difference between noble and tudei cultivars — tudei having a chemotype traditional growers historically avoided for daily preparation.
Those distinctions are invisible on most retail packaging. A product that names its cultivar, states root-only sourcing and identifies its extraction method is telling you something; one that says "premium kava extract" is not. We walk through the evidence in our review of kava and liver safety and cover the plant itself in the introduction to kava.
Kanna (Sceletium tortuosum)
Kanna is a succulent from South Africa's Cape region with a long record of traditional use among Khoisan peoples. It is not federally scheduled, and we are not aware of any state that schedules it.
Its regulatory footing is thinner than kava's, and that is worth being honest about. Kanna's presence in the US market is comparatively recent, which puts real weight on question two — whether a specific kanna preparation has defensible dietary-ingredient status. Some standardized extracts have been through the new-dietary-ingredient notification process; a great deal of the material circulating in the market has not. Those are meaningfully different legal situations, and no package tells you which one you are holding.
The downstream consequence is quality variance. Extract ratios are described inconsistently, "standardized" appears with no named marker compound, and finding a kanna product with a current, batch-matched certificate is genuinely difficult. That is not an argument that kanna is dangerous. It is an argument that the category's documentation has not caught up with its distribution. We cover what to look for in our kanna primer.
Blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea) — and why we do not carry it
Blue lotus is an aquatic plant associated with ancient Egyptian iconography, sold today as dried flowers, extracts, vapes and gummies. It is not a federally scheduled substance. We still will not stock it, for three reasons we would rather state plainly than dress up as a sourcing philosophy.
It has no established status as a lawful dietary ingredient. We are not aware of an acknowledged new-dietary-ingredient notification for Nymphaea caerulea, nor of a credible pre-1994 US supplement history that would make one unnecessary. That leaves the category resting on question two with no good answer. "No one has enforced yet" is not an answer; it is a description of timing.
At least one state already prohibits it. Louisiana's Act 159 of 2005 names blue lotus on a list of plants that may not be grown, sold or possessed for human consumption, with a carve-out for strictly ornamental use. One state today is a signal about direction, not a ceiling.
The products are not consistent. The compounds usually cited in blue lotus marketing — apomorphine and nuciferine — are rarely quantified on any certificate that travels with the product. We could not apply our sourcing standard here even if we wanted to: the batch-level analyte data it depends on largely does not exist for this category. Where we can verify nothing, we add nothing. The longer version is in our full explanation of the blue lotus decision.
Functional mushrooms — and the Amanita exception
The functional mushroom group — lion's mane (Hericium erinaceus), reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), cordyceps, turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) — is the least legally complicated set on this page. These are foods with long culinary and supplement histories, they are not scheduled, and their dietary-ingredient status is uncontroversial.
The problem here is not law, it is labeling. A large share of US mushroom supplements are grown as mycelium on a grain substrate and sold with the substrate included, which means a meaningful fraction of the powder in the capsule is starch rather than mushroom. Products that disclose fruiting body versus mycelium, and that report a measured beta-glucan percentage rather than a "polysaccharide" figure that can include grain starch, are giving you a real number. Products that do neither are asking for trust they have not earned.
Amanita muscaria belongs in a different paragraph entirely and should never be marketed alongside lion's mane. It is not federally scheduled, but its active compounds — ibotenic acid and muscimol — behave in a way that makes consistent consumer dosing genuinely hard, and it appears on the same Louisiana Act 159 list as blue lotus, with additional states having moved to restrict it since. We do not carry it, and we set out the reasoning in our note on Amanita muscaria.
Cat's claw (Uncaria tomentosa)
Cat's claw is a woody vine from the Amazon basin, named for the curved thorns along its stems. It has been present in the US supplement market since well before 1994, it is not federally scheduled, and we are not aware of any statewide prohibition.
One point needs saying clearly, because it is constantly confused. Uncaria tomentosa is a different plant from kratom (Mitragyna speciosa): different genus, different continent, different chemistry. Cat's claw is not named anywhere in the DEA action described below. If you want the botany without the marketing layer, start with our cat's claw overview.
What the DEA scheduling action does and does not touch
On July 1, 2026, DEA filed two Notices of Intent to temporarily schedule substances under 21 USC 811(h). Both published in the Federal Register on July 6, 2026.
- FR Doc 2026-13580 covers 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) above a threshold: 0.050% w/w, or 1.00 mg per article.
- FR Doc 2026-13581 covers mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15 (dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine) and MGM-16 (9-fluoro-dihydro-7-hydroxymitragynine), with no threshold — any detectable amount.
The orders take effect on or after August 5, 2026, on the date the final order publishes. Temporary scheduling runs two years and can be extended by one. Under 21 USC 811(h)(6) the order is not subject to judicial review. There is no grace period and no sell-through provision: retail sale of a Schedule I substance to the public is not permitted, and unregistered holders must surrender stock.
None of the categories in the table above is named in either notice. That is a fact about the notices, not a clean bill of health for any individual product. What matters for a specific item is what that item contains and — just as importantly — which compounds its laboratory panel actually looked for. We publish the certificates we hold on our COA page, together with a plain statement of the compounds those panels do not cover.
How to check any of this yourself
- Read the Federal Register directly. Notices are public and free. A brand's summary of a rule is not a substitute for the rule.
- Check your state legislature's own site. State botanical law changes fast and secondhand summaries go stale within months.
- Ask for the certificate before you buy. A seller who cannot produce a batch-matched report for the item in your cart has already answered your question.
- Read the analyte list before the results column. A non-detect result covers only the compounds the laboratory actually measured.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is blue lotus illegal in the United States?
It is not a federally scheduled substance. It is prohibited for human consumption in Louisiana under Act 159 of 2005, and it lacks an established status as a lawful dietary ingredient. Those are two distinct legal problems, and neither is the same as being scheduled.
Is cat's claw affected by the DEA scheduling action?
Cat's claw (Uncaria tomentosa) is not named in either Federal Register notice, and it is a different plant from kratom. What any specific product contains is a separate question, answered by that product's laboratory report rather than by the plant on the label.
Why don't you carry kava or kanna if they are legal?
Legality is the floor, not the standard. We stock what we can support with batch-level third-party results supplied by the brand, and we have not yet brought those categories through that process. That may change; it has not yet.
Does "not federally scheduled" mean a product is safe?
No. Scheduling is a control-status determination, not a safety assessment. Kava is unscheduled and also carries an FDA consumer advisory about rare liver injury. Both facts are true at once.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. For adults 21+. Legality depends on the specific formulation and applicable state law — check the rules where you live. Nothing here is legal advice.