Kratom Science has been following a lengthy political process that has taken place to regulate kratom in the Czech Republic since 2022, when groups such as the European Kratom Alliance (EKA), the Czecho-Slovak Kratom Association (CSKA), and the Pirate Party began to push for such regulation. The Czech Republic’s progressive National Drug Policy Coordinator, Jindrich Voboril, championed regulation as well. The proposal came about not to regulate kratom as a food, drug, or dietary supplement, but to create a new category for kratom as well as hemp byproducts called “psychomodulatory substances”.
Under threat of prohibition, Vobořil pushed for regulation in Parliament, until a vote finally took place in October 2024 to regulate kratom as a psychomodulatory substance. The new regulation was technically enacted at the beginning of 2025, but it took until November 2025 for a fully enforced system to be up and running.
In February and March 2026, the billionaire Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš made a series of statements in favor of banning kratom. While in Parliament, he said, according to iDNES.cz, “We’ll come up with legislation where we ban this shit. In order to protect mainly our children and adolescents against this drug crap, and kratom is crap.” This proposal, however, was opposed by experts and advocates and ultimately rejected by a Parliament that had worked for so long to reclassify kratom. Experts emphasized that kratom could not possibly be controlled in the illicit, harm-producing drug market. In an editorial, Forbes.cz noted the revenue that kratom could bring to the state in the form of excise taxes.
Asked if he was relieved that Babiš walked back his prohibition proposal, Czech addition doctor Pavel Kubů told Radiožurnál, “I wouldn’t say I’m relieved. This is not the first time that there are proposals that the solution to the availability of kratom in the Czech Republic is its absolute prohibition. At the same time, it is great that both the Prime Minister and the government have heard the appeal of a number of experts from the public and will give more room for the new regulation of psychomodulatory substances to have time to show their effects, which we, who are engaged in it, are already seeing.”
Prime Minister Babiš has since changed his stance to one of monitoring the new psychomodulatory program and reevaluating it after a period of time.
For years, the Czech Republic has taken a harm-reduction approach to drug regulation, far from the punitive “War on Drugs” approach of the United States. The psychomodulatory substances program is its most recent incarnation. Drug policy experts around the world are watching the Czech Republic’s model to assess its benefits and detriments. There is even a bill in the US state of Kentucky that is similar to the Czech model. Introduced in March 2026, HB895 will create a “Department of Psychoactive Substances” in the state of Kentucky that would be “responsible for the oversight, regulation, and enforcement of cannabis, kratom, and designated hemp products”. Follow Kratom Science on X and Bluesky for a forthcoming article on the Kentucky bill.