Hydroxie: the Escondido smoke-shop 7-OH brand FDA warned, a wrongful-death suit named, and its own lawsuit says was counterfeited by the million

Who they say they are, and what the record says

Hydroxie is a brand of 7-OH, the concentrated kratom-derived opioid, sold as chewable tablets, shots, sublingual strips and drink mixes, mostly through smoke shops and gas stations and also from its own site. It is one of the oldest shelf brands: a buyer found “just came across a site selling some new 7oh pills” on 2024-03-14, the first post naming it in the 7-OH subreddits.[1] In a DEA scheduling document of 2026, Hydroxie is one of four brand names the agency gives as examples of the products it means: “kama hydroxie fruity perks and happie tabs”.[2]

It is not Hyroxi, a different shelf brand of 7-OH and later mitragynine tablets. Buyers mix them up constantly, often spelling either one “Hydroxi”; one thread is titled “not to be confused with hy d roxies”,[3] and in June 2024 a buyer accused two accounts of being “obvious shills for hyroxi not hydroxie”.[4] Everything below is about the brand spelled with an e.

The business is Hydroxie LLC, a California company. FDA addressed its warning letter of June 2025 to “recipient name tim r shaw recipient title owner hydroxie llc”, at a suite address in Escondido, California.[5] The site's contact page gave the same Escondido address in 2024 (“escondido ca 92026”),[6] and its terms are “construed in accordance with the laws of united states”, naming no state.[7] A federal complaint filed in 2026, citing the company's December 2025 filing with the California Secretary of State, says its members “are adam s israel and timothy r shaw”.[8] The same complaint says the company's liability policy also covered a second company, Kavahh LLC, and a third, Ricco Management Company Inc (“hydroxie kavahh llc and ricco management company inc”).[8] Kavahh is the name of the brand's kava shots, below.

hydroxie.com was registered on 2023-12-07 with the owner's details not shown.[9] In trademark applications filed in August 2025 the company claimed “first use feb 07 2024”; it filed four marks that month and the next, and each was abandoned in September 2026 after the company did not answer the examiner (“abandonment failure to respond or late response”).[10] A different applicant had already filed HYDROXIE as a word mark in November 2024: Occurs Naturally, a corporation in Stockton, California, which also filed 7-HYDROXIE; that application was abandoned too.[11] We found no record that connects the two applicants.

Who makes the tablets. The brand has not said. In its own lawsuit of October 2025, Hydroxie says a man at a packaging company in Brea, California, Flame USA, told its investigator that Flame USA “was engaged in co packing and” white labelling for Hydroxie, among other companies; Hydroxie's complaint does not say whether that was true, and accuses Flame USA of “pressing millions of counterfeit hydroxie tablets”.[12] The same complaint says “hydroxie has sold tens” of millions of dollars' worth of goods.[12]

Figure 1. The storefront in October 2024: 'your premier source of pure 7-OH', behind a one-click 21+ box. [13]

What they sell

7-OH, 2024 to October 2025. The banner over the site read “your premier source of pure 7 oh”.[13] The tablets were sold as “chewable tablets each containing 15mg of this powerful alkaloid”,[14] then at 30 mg, and from August 2025 at 60 mg: “each tablet delivers a whopping 60mg of this potent alkaloid”.[15] The shots were sold as “30ml 7 oh shot with 30mg 7 hydroxymitragynine enough for 4 servings”.[16] FDA's letter lists the line as it stood in May 2025: 15 mg and 30 mg tablets, strips, shots, free samples, the Hydroxie Red tablets, strips and shots, and drink mixes in several flavours.[5] Its packaging says “7-Hydroxymitragynine” and “Organic Plant Alkaloid” on the front:

Figure 2. Hydroxie's own picture of its genuine 15 mg box and tablets, from its 2025 lawsuit against a packager it accuses of counterfeiting them. [12]

Pseudoindoxyl. From mid-2024 the brand also sold “5 chewable tablets containing 15mg pseudoindoxyl each”, “the next step in the evolution of mitragynine alkaloids”,[17] and shots and strips of it. Mitragynine pseudoindoxyl is a second opioid made from mitragynine; DEA placed it in Schedule I on 2026-08-26.[2] The home page in 2024 described it as “this stuff is shall we say potent”.[13]

Hydroxie Red and Kavahh. The Hydroxie Red tablets were sold in 2025 as tablets “each containing 15mg of alkaloids”, naming none.[18] FDA's letter counts them among the products that appear to contain 7-OH.[5] In September 2025 the site added Kavahh, kava shots whose listing gives the “ingredients propylene glycol water kavalactones pseudo sucralose”.[19]

Mitragynine, from October 2025. On 2025-10-09 the home page told buyers that during “upgrades” “all orders have a min of 350 and must be completed using the hydroxie payment portal”, and listed a new product, “hydroxie mit tablets”, beside the 7-OH line.[20] Ten days later a buyer reported the 7-OH gone from the site: “i noticed they even removed the 7oh lab results”, and “they just have mit and pseudo”.[21] By December 2025 the site listed two products, “hydroxie mit tablets” and “hydroxie red 15mg tablets”, and would ship pseudoindoxyl, and only that, to Florida (“florida pseudo only”).[22] In March 2026 a buyer wrote that “the only product i see from the site is 100mg mit tablets”.[23] In October 2026 the site was a single page headed Hydroxie Mit with a link reading “hydroxie mit certificate of analysis”.[24]

Figure 3. What the brand's site was in October 2026: one page, 'Hydroxie Mit', and a certificate link. The archive did not keep the box photographs, only their descriptions. [24]

In shops, buyers found the brand's mitragynine tablets sold as Mitragynine-A, 35 mg. Many believe they contain MGM-15, a semi-synthetic opioid DEA scheduled with pseudoindoxyl. One buyer wrote that “the labs on hydroxies website don't even show mgm just mit”, while a reseller's copy of what looked like the same certificate had a line for it;[25] another, that “some folks have speculated that hydroxie has doctored the labs for these to omit dhm or mgm 15”.[26] We have not seen a certificate that settles it. After the 2026 bans, a buyer in a state that banned 7-OH described the brand's shop tablets as “hydroxie post ban 0 7 oh on package front”.[27]

What the brand said it was. The home page said of concentrated 7-OH that “this organic natural supplement is a new product to the market”,[13] said that “sustainably harvested kratom leaves from our partners in indonesia are the only input”, and added “we like it as both a pre workout and a post workout supplement”.[13] By September 2025 it said “we've managed to achieve 99 pure 7 oh”.[28] Its blog described “7 oh extracts with greater than 99 purity”, made by “advanced solvent selection specifically optimized for 7 oh isolation”.[29] FDA's letter quotes the brand's Instagram (“hydroxie strips are ultra concentrated powerful by design”, “calm clarity relief”) and the customer reviews on its product pages;[5] one such review, “the amount of relief that i get for my fybromyalgia and osteoarthritis is amazing”, was on the home page in April 2025.[30]

What buyers report

We searched the local Arctic Shift archive of 33 subreddits on 2026-10-17 for the spelling “hydroxie”, from 2024-03-14 (the first post naming the brand) to 2026-10-16. 961 posts by 629 authors name it, 633 of them in r/7_hydroxymitragynine; posts peaked at 79 in July 2024 and fell below 30 a month after August 2025. The archive holds posts, not comments. Posts that only say “Hydroxi” were not counted, because most of them are about Hyroxi; nor were 32 posts about a different vendor called 7HydroxieRAW, a different tablet sold as 7Hydroxie, or the word used for the compound. We then classified all 123 threads with the name in the title and 10 or more comments by what the opening post describes, a thread counting in each row it fits.[31]

What the opening post describes	Threads
Weak, inconsistent or changed batch	21
Praise, a recommendation	16
Price	8
Harm, addiction or withdrawal	7
Laboratory results	7
What is in the Mitragynine-A tablets	7
Chemical taste or malformed tablets	5
Suspected counterfeit	5
Suspected added drug	3
The 7-OH leaving the site	2
Support unanswered	1
Questions, comparisons, other	47

The commonest complaint is that a box was weaker than the last one. In May 2024 a buyer noticed “only two out of 5 have the specks”;[32] in September a shop told a buyer “apparently hydroxie has been putting out some bad batches recently”;[33] in October another wrote that the brand “changed the formula to be way weaker to maximize profits”.[34] Five opening posts describe a chemical taste: a 2024 batch “tasted like butane and wouldn't dissolve at all”,[35] and in April 2025 “all 10 tasted heavily like ammonia”; that buyer wrote he had “reached out to hydroxie via their website regarding and have not heard back”.[36] Another said “they didn't respond to five separate emails”, and a reply in the same thread disagreed: the 30 mg tablets were “accurately dosed and the provide the same kind of high” as other brands.[37]

Praise centres on consistency. In July 2024 a buyer wrote “hydroxie has been the most consistent” of the brands he had used;[38] in November 2025 another, “they're the only company i truly trust in the smoke shop”.[39]

Counterfeits. From 2024 buyers asked whether boxes were fake. The brand added a serial-number check to its site (“product verification serial number”, April 2025)[40] and, one buyer wrote, “hydroxie introduced the verify seal in like summer of 2025”.[41] In 2026 buyers still reported boxes where “the pills are a little bigger and a little different”,[42] and one, who had bought from an online reseller, wrote that “when i scanned the back today they came up as fake”.[43] Hydroxie's own lawsuit says its customers complained that counterfeit tablets “tasted different and lacked the efficacy of genuine hydroxie” products.[12]

Figure 4. The genuine box and the copy, as Hydroxie's complaint shows them. The company says the copies held more than 25 times the residual solvents of its own tablets. [12]

Harm. Seven opening posts describe harm, addiction or withdrawal. In June 2024 a buyer who had moved from kratom extract shots wrote “addiction turned up a notch”.[44] In August 2024 a man wrote that “my wife tried them for pain relief” and then could not stop: “hydroxie pseudoindoxyl withdraw is bad”.[45] In April 2025 a buyer in recovery from heroin wrote “i wake up with sweats and yawns and body aches”.[46] In July 2025 a woman wrote that “i found 2 empty boxes of hydroxies hidden in the trash” after her husband said he had stopped.[47] In August 2025 a smoke-shop worker called it “the tab that has by far the quickest and worst withdrawals” he had had.[48] In September 2025 a buyer wrote that at a gas station “they recommended the red hydroxie shot i only drank one”, and described five days of breathlessness: “it's basically air hunger”.[49] None of these was tested.

Lab results

The site had a lab results page from 2024. In 2025 it held one certificate per product, as images: 15 mg and 30 mg tablets, shots, strips, drink mix, and the pseudoindoxyl tablets and shot.[50] They are from PharmLabs San Diego. The certificate for the 15 mg tablets, reported on 2025-01-06, finds 81.74 mg of 7-OH in a five-tablet box, about 16 mg a tablet, and no mitragynine. It is a potency test only, with no residual solvents, metals or microbes.[51] We found no solvent panel among the brand's certificates. The 7-OH certificates came down in October 2025.[21]

Figure 5. The certificate Hydroxie posted for its 15 mg tablets in 2025: about 16 mg of 7-OH per tablet, and a potency test only, with no solvent, metal or microbe panel. [51]

Independent tests. TestMyKratom, a community testing service, published 16 results for the brand between July 2024 and February 2025, 15 of them graded on potency.[52] Three were within 10% of the label. Seven were between 10% and 20% off by the measured milligrams. Five were further: the 15 mg shot, “hydroxie liquid shot contained 2 7mg of 7 hydroxy which was 82 weaker than its 15mg claim”; the 30 mg shot, “hydroxie liquid shot contained 3 12mg of 7 hydroxy which was 90 weaker than its 30mg claim”; the July 2024 tablets, “hydroxie tablets contained 9 63mg of 7 hydroxy which was about 35 weaker than its 15mg claim”; and two drink mixes, among them “hydroxie orange drink mix contained 7 20mg of 7 hydroxy which was 52 weaker than its 15mg claim”. By December 2024 the tablets tested at 14.4 mg (“hydroxie nearly backed up their 7 oh claim completely”), and in February 2025 “hydroxie classic 7 oh tablets contained 12 33mg of 7 hydroxy which was about 18 weaker than its 15mg claim”. The February 2025 strips held close to their claim but failed: they “tested positive for isopropyl alcohol at levels that anresco laboratories deemed too high”.[52][53] The first of these results was posted in July 2024: “the tablets only contain 9 63 mg each not 15mg”.[54] A month earlier a buyer had posted a test of the 30 mg shot showing that “it seems it only has 14mg of hydroxy plus 10mg of mit”.[55]

In its lawsuit Hydroxie says it tested counterfeit tablets in September 2025 and found they “contained more than 25x the amount of residual solvents of the genuine hydroxie” tablets.[12] It has not published that comparison.

If you bought Hydroxie and had a product tested, rate it below or comment on the thread at the foot of this page.

Regulatory and legal

FDA, June 2025. FDA's letter of 2025-06-25 says the tablets, strips, shots and samples “are unapproved new drugs introduced or delivered for introduction into interstate commerce”, and that the “drink mix product offered in various flavors is marketed to contain 7 oh and therefore is adulterated”. It notes that “your instagram social media account directs consumers to your” online shop.[5] On 2025-07-15 FDA “announced seven recent warning letters sent to companies for illegally marketing products containing 7 hydroxymitragynine”; the list ends “hydroxie llc 7tabz retail llc”.[56] Two months later the company filed its trademark applications.[10] In October 2025 the 7-OH left its site.[20][21]

Hydroxie v. Flame USA, October 2025. Hydroxie sued Flame USA Inc and a distributor in federal court in Los Angeles for trademark and trade-dress infringement, alleging counterfeit tablets made in Brea and sold in shops.[12] The case was open in October 2026.[57]

A wrongful-death suit, July 2026. A widow sued in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, over her husband's death at home in South Carolina in July 2024. The complaint says he “died of a massive overdose of kratom” and 7-OH bought at Charlotte smoke shops, and names as defendants the shops, Thang Botanicals (the maker of 7OHMZ), Hydroxie, and its two members. It says one shop sold him 7-OH “which was manufactured and distributed by defendant hydroxie”, and calls each member a “member manager of defendant hydroxie”.[58] Its allegation against the brand, as the insurer summarises it, is that the Hydroxie defendants “conspired to sell and distribute 7 oh despite” knowing it was dangerous.[8] These are allegations; no court has ruled on them.

Kinsale v. Hydroxie, September 2026. Hydroxie's liability insurer is defending it under a reservation of rights and has asked a federal court in San Diego to declare that “kinsale never had a duty to defend”, relying among other terms on the policy's “kratom opioids and narcotics exclusion”.[8] A federal docket search on 2026-10-17 found these two federal cases and no other naming the company.[57]

DEA, 2026. DEA's temporary order placing mitragynine pseudoindoxyl and MGM-15 in Schedule I from 2026-08-26 names Hydroxie among its example brands,[2] and its October 2026 notice on 7-OH cites user reports that “users consistently report transition from traditional kratom leaf to 7”-OH tablets, naming 7OHMZ, Press'd and Hydroxie.[59]

What the site said about the law. The warnings page said “kratom products are not for internal use”, on a site selling chewable tablets, and that “levels of 7 hydroxymitragynine in these tablets are extremely concentrated”.[60] By July 2025 it read “the us fda has not approved hydroxie as a dietary supplement”.[61] The FAQ said “the legal status of 7 hydroxymitragynine varies depending on the region”.[62] The shot listing warned “there are anecdotal reports of people developing an addiction to alkaloid products”.[16] The site opened behind a one-click 21+ box; the rebuilt site of October 2025 offered a button reading “i am 18 or older”.[63]

Still open

Who manufactures the tablets. The brand has not said; its own complaint reports a packager's claim to have made them.

What the Mitragynine-A tablets contain. Buyers believe MGM-15; the certificates on the brand's site show mitragynine; we have not seen a test of a shop box.

Whether the brand's certificates ever included residual solvents. Those we read did not; its lawsuit says it compared solvents in 2025.

How the wrongful-death suit and the insurer's suit end. Both were open on 2026-10-17.

Changes

2026-10-17: first published.

References

1. Hydroxie? (2024-03-14) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
2. Schedules of Controlled Substances: Temporary Placement of Mitragynine Pseudoindoxyl, MGM-15, and MGM-16 in Schedule I (FR Doc. 2026-17429), effective 2026-08-26 — Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Register, 2026-08-26
3. Hyroxi shots (not to be confused with hy"D"Roxies) (2025-01-03) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
4. Shills for sure (2024-06-25) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
5. FDA warning letter to Hydroxie LLC, MARCS-CMS 709661, 2025-06-25 — U.S. Food and Drug Administration
6. Hydroxie contact page, archived 2024-09-17 — Wayback Machine
7. Hydroxie terms of service, archived 2024-10-05 — Wayback Machine
8. Kinsale Insurance Company v. Hydroxie, LLC et al., S.D. Cal. No. 3:26-cv-05265, complaint for declaratory relief filed 2026-09-11 (RECAP PDF) — U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, via CourtListener
9. RDAP record for hydroxie.com (registered 2023-12-07, GoDaddy, registrant not shown), read 2026-10-17 — Verisign RDAP
10. USPTO TSDR: HYDROXIE (stylized), application 99347265, Hydroxie LLC, filed 2025-08-20, abandoned 2026-09-21, read 2026-10-17 — US Patent and Trademark Office
11. USPTO TSDR: HYDROXIE, application 98858991, filed 2024-11-18 by Occurs Naturally, a California corporation, abandoned 2026-01-05, read 2026-10-17 — US Patent and Trademark Office
12. Hydroxie LLC v. Flame USA Inc et al., C.D. Cal. No. 2:25-cv-09985, complaint filed 2025-10-17 (RECAP PDF) — U.S. District Court, Central District of California, via CourtListener
13. hydroxie.com home page, archived 2024-10-01 — Wayback Machine
14. Hydroxie 15mg 7-OH tablets listing, archived 2025-04-29 — Wayback Machine
15. Hydroxie 60mg 7-OH tablets listing, archived 2025-08-02 — Wayback Machine
16. Hydroxie 30mg 7-OH shot listing, archived 2024-09-10 — Wayback Machine
17. Hydroxie Pseudo 15mg tablets listing, archived 2024-09-10 — Wayback Machine
18. Hydroxie Red 15mg tablets listing, archived 2025-06-14 — Wayback Machine
19. Kavahh watermelon kava alkaloid shot listing on hydroxie.com, archived 2025-09-18 — Wayback Machine
20. hydroxie.com home page, archived 2025-10-09 — Wayback Machine
21. Hydroxie website no longer offers 7OH (2025-10-19) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
22. hydroxie.com, all products, archived 2025-12-12 — Wayback Machine
23. Hydroxie brand? (2026-03-19) — r/7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
24. www.hydroxie.com, archived 2026-10-08 — Wayback Machine
25. Hydroxie mit a (2026-04-13) — r/MGM_Fifteen — anecdotal report, not evidence
26. What has everyone's experience been with Hydroxie Mitragynine-A? (2026-03-08) — r/7ohm — anecdotal report, not evidence
27. Searching for alternatives in a post-ban state (2026-10-08) — r/7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
28. hydroxie.com home page, archived 2025-09-18 — Wayback Machine
29. Hydroxie blog, 'How our state-of-the-art 7-OH purification process revolutionizes 7-OH', archived 2025-03-16 — Wayback Machine
30. hydroxie.com home page with customer reviews, archived 2025-04-29 — Wayback Machine
31. 961 posts naming Hydroxie in the local Arctic Shift archive of 33 subreddits, 2024-03-14 to 2026-10-16; 123 threads with the name in the title and 10+ comments classified by opening post — Arctic Shift — anecdotal report, not evidence
32. what the heck is this, did hydroxie screw me over on three tabs? (2024-05-24) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
33. Just went to my local shop and the guy charged me $50 for a 10 count of these Hydroxie tabs (2024-09-12) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
34. Hydroxie went downhill (2024-10-24) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
35. New Hydroxie pack tasted like straight chemicals (2024-07-22) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
36. Hydroxie 15mg 7-OH Tablets tastes like ammonia (2025-04-04) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
37. Hydroxie brand one of the worst on the market (2025-04-24) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
38. Hydroxie "30mg" Liquid Shots - 3rd Party Labs (2024-07-21) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
39. Smoke shop just got Hydroxie 60mg in (2025-11-29) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
40. Hydroxie product verification page, archived 2025-04-29 — Wayback Machine
41. fake hydroxie tabs (2026-04-13) — r/7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
42. fake hydroxie? (2026-03-21) — r/7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
43. Fake Hydroxies (2026-02-21) — r/7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
44. Made the jump from extract shots to hydroxie. Addiction turned up a notch. (2024-06-19) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
45. hydroxie pseudoindoxyl withdraw is bad. (2024-08-27) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
46. Hydroxie has me by the nuts (2025-04-22) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
47. My husband is secretly taking 7OH Hydroxies (2025-07-06) — r/quitting7oh — anecdotal report, not evidence
48. Does anyone else think Hydroxie is cut with something? (2025-08-03) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
49. Shortness of Breath Since Taking 'Hydroxie' Liquid (2025-09-07) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
50. Hydroxie lab results page, archived 2025-06-14 — Wayback Machine
51. PharmLabs San Diego certificate SD250104-027 (104614), 7 Hydroxy Tablets 15mg, tested for Hydroxie, reported 2025-01-06 (image from the lab results page), archived 2025-05-13 — Wayback Machine
52. TestMyKratom, Hydroxie lab test results (16 tests, July 2024 to February 2025), archived 2026-05-11 — Wayback Machine
53. Lab Results: Hydroxie, posted by TestMyKratom (2025-02-27) — r/7hydromitra — anecdotal report, not evidence
54. Hydroxie - 3rd Party Lab Results (2024-07-11) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
55. Hydroxie shots latest labs (2024-06-10) — r/7_hydroxymitragynine — anecdotal report, not evidence
56. FDA issues warning letters to firms marketing products containing 7-hydroxymitragynine — U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025-07-15
57. CourtListener federal docket search for "hydroxie", run 2026-10-17 (two cases naming the company) — Free Law Project
58. Wrongful-death complaint, Mecklenburg County (N.C.) Superior Court No. 26CV038244-590, filed July 2026, as Exhibit A to the Kinsale complaint (RECAP PDF) — U.S. District Court, Southern District of California, via CourtListener
59. Schedules of Controlled Substances: Temporary Placement of 7-Hydroxymitragynine and Mitragynine Pseudoindoxyl Above a Specified Threshold, notice of intent (FR Doc. 2026-20943) — Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Register, 2026-10-14
60. Hydroxie warnings page, archived 2024-09-10 — Wayback Machine
61. Hydroxie warnings page, archived 2025-07-15 — Wayback Machine
62. Hydroxie FAQ, archived 2024-09-12 — Wayback Machine
63. Hydroxie lab results page on the rebuilt site, archived 2025-10-13 — Wayback Machine