The US Drug Enforcement Administration has placed the experimental opioid compound SR-17018 on its most restrictive drug schedule, cutting off an unapproved substance that some people who use drugs have credited with helping them stop using opioids. The emergency action in late August classifies SR-17018 as a Schedule I controlled substance, the same category as heroin, reserved for drugs with no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.
SR-17018 had not been regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration but was not federally controlled, and until recently it was relatively easy to buy online. People who use drugs discuss it frequently on Reddit and Discord, where many describe it as a godsend that helped them quit opioids they were addicted to. There is no clinical evidence that the drug is effective in humans.
The compound's research history traces to Laura Bohn, senior associate vice president of research at University of South Florida Health. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bohn and other scientists reported in the journal Cell in 2017 that several compounds, including SR-17018, relieved pain in mice without causing respiratory depression, the effect that typically causes opioid users to stop breathing and die. Her team filed a patent on SR-17018 and later found that mice using it did not develop a high tolerance and that morphine-dependent mice could use it to reset tolerance without painful withdrawal. Bohn has been trying to conduct the first human clinical trials, and the scheduling decision blocks that work, she said, because she cannot have the drug made, shipped, or handled.
Two former users of 7-OH, a concentrated kratom compound the DEA placed in Schedule I over the summer, described using SR-17018 to taper off. Jim Bates, a 53-year-old kitchen manager in Duncan, Oklahoma, said it took about three weeks to stop MGM-15 without physical withdrawal symptoms and without a high or euphoria. Michael, who asked that his last name be withheld, said he had tried to quit 7-OH at least five previous times, each involving three days of severe withdrawal and another week of feeling low, and that SR-17018 removed the anxiety, sweating, and restlessness while letting him keep working. Both said they had used buprenorphine and methadone but preferred SR-17018 because it does not require long-term use.
Denver attorney Robert Rush, executive director of the nonprofit Rights and Reason Project and Bohn's representative, filed a request to stop the scheduling, arguing SR-17018 has a lower risk profile than other synthetic opioids being banned at the time. He said the DEA never responded and called the use of temporary emergency scheduling powers draconian, noting the drug has not been implicated in emergency room visits or overdose deaths. The DEA referred questions to its notice of intent, which says two samples of SR-17018 were found in two states since 2025 through the National Forensic Laboratory Information System and that the Rapid Drug Analysis and Research monitoring system detected samples on the West Coast. The notice says the four synthetic opioids have no approved medical use and are likely to be trafficked and abused, and that because SR-17018 can reset tolerance, users may be more vulnerable to overdose on their next use.
Emergency scheduling lasts two years with a possible one-year extension, and the DEA could move to schedule the drug permanently during that period through a process requiring public and scientific input. Rush said there is no opportunity for a judge to review the decision while emergency scheduling is in effect. He said banning gas station opioids like 7-OH while removing potentially helpful substances like SR-17018 sets up conditions for another overdose crisis, and that he cannot find a compelling reason to shut down decades of research that could lead to next-generation opioid dependency treatment.
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