Committee on 1 December 2026: BtMG and NpSG on the agenda

Hi,

On Tuesday, 1 December 2026, at 13:00, the expert committee on narcotics and new psychoactive substances meets in Bonn. The venue is the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM). The BfArM published the agenda on 26 October 2026.

Nothing is banned that day. The committee issues a recommendation. A ban exists only once a later ordinance is in the Federal Law Gazette and in force. From past changes, that is not the next day. If a change comes, we expect it in spring 2027, typically by the end of March 2027. The agenda does not say which substances those would be.

The catalog therefore stays as it is for now. We are following the process and will write again once wording, substance names, or a concrete date are public.

Separate from the payment notices

This article has nothing to do with the notices about payment methods. The session is about the Narcotics Act and the NpSG. It does not change which payment methods are available in the shop.

What happens on that day

This is the 62nd session of the committee under section 1 (2) of the Narcotics Act (BtMG) and section 7 of the New Psychoactive Substances Act (NpSG).

The committee advises the federal government. It does not adopt an ordinance or an act. It issues a recommendation, called a vote.

The BfArM publishes the results later, on its own website. That can take time. The 60th session was on 13 May 2025. The BfArM published the results report on 13 February 2026. On the evening of 1 December, do not expect a finished list of substances.

The agenda in plain language

The published agenda has seven items:

Item 1: Welcome.
Item 2: The agenda can still be added to or changed. It is then adopted.
Item 3: The minutes of the 61st session are adopted. That session was on 2 December 2025.
Item 4: Report from the Federal Ministry of Health.
Item 5: Report from the BfArM.
Item 6: Draft decision on adding further substances to Annex III of the BtMG and on adjusting Annex 1 of the NpSG.
Item 7: Any other business.

Only item 6 is about substances. The other items are procedure, reports, and minutes.

The published agenda of the 61st session, on 2 December 2025, had no draft decision. It had a welcome, the minutes, the two reports, and any other business. This time there is a draft the committee can vote on. That is why we are writing now, ahead of the session.

On the BfArM's public list, the 61st session appears as an agenda. A results report is not listed there at the moment.

Who sits on the committee

The voting members are specialists in addiction medicine, anaesthesiology and pain medicine, pharmacology and toxicology, forensic medicine, psychiatry, social science, and veterinary medicine. They are appointed for three years.

The secretariat sits with the Federal Opium Agency at the BfArM. It publishes agendas and results. The committee meets when needed, and as a rule at least twice a year.

Two lists, two statutes

Item 6 names two different lists. They have different consequences.

Annex III of the BtMG. Narcotics are the substances in Annexes I to III of the BtMG. The statute titles Annex III "narcotics that may be traded and prescribed". A substance on that list is a narcotic that may be supplied under the BtMG, including on prescription. It would have no place in this shop's catalog. The agenda says "adding further substances". It gives no names.

Annex 1 of the NpSG. The NpSG does not catch every substance one by one under a trade name. Annex 1 describes groups by chemical structure. If a substance fits such a description, it is a new psychoactive substance, even when its short name is never written out. Since 12 April 2026 the former annex is called "Annex 1". That is set out in the Act amending the NpSG of 7 January 2026 (Federal Law Gazette 2026 I No. 2).

There is also an Annex 2, with individually named substances. Item 6 does not cover it. The draft concerns Annex 1.

"Adjustment" is not automatically a ban on the whole range. An adjustment can widen a group, add a group, or make the text clearer. A wider definition can already cover substances the old text did not cover. The agenda does not say which of these is meant.

Which substances would be affected

That is not public. The agenda names no substances, no short names, and no substance group.

We are not guessing. We are not repeating rumours from elsewhere either. Until the BfArM, a draft ordinance, or the Federal Law Gazette provides names or group definitions, we have nothing concrete to add.

Current status in Germany

There is no public indication that kratom or its alkaloids are in the draft decision for 1 December 2026. The agenda names no substances. The published recommendations of the committee do not name them either. This covers 7-Hydroxy Mitragynine (7-OH), Dihydro-7-Hydroxy Mitragynine (MGM-15), and Mitragynine Pseudoindoxyl.

On what is public, we currently do not expect a coming ban on kratom and its alkaloids. The unpublished draft may deal with other substances. For kratom and these alkaloids there is no public proposal that announces a ban.

What is under way in Germany is a different discussion. Since 19 October 2023, the joint expert commission of the BfArM and the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety has been considering whether kratom should be classed as a narcotic, a medicine, or a food. The minutes of the session on 18 June 2026 still contain no decision.

The minutes of 19 October 2023 state that, at that time, mitragynine was not listed in the Narcotics Act and was not covered by the NpSG. The minutes of 12 November 2024 record that earlier reviews by the expert committee did not lead to inclusion in the annexes of the BtMG. MGM-15 and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl are not named in these minutes.

BfArM, 1 July 2025: warning against using kratom for medical purposes. That is not a ban. The BfArM states that kratom is not authorised as a medicine.
BfR, 4 September 2025: the legal classification of kratom preparations is not finally settled. The notice names mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine.

Since 2025, the United States has run separate proceedings on 7-OH, mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, and MGM-15. Those proceedings do not apply in Germany.

When a ban could take effect

None takes effect on 1 December 2026. The committee's recommendation is not a ban either. Several steps sit between the two. They take months, not days.

This is the sequence:

Session and vote. The committee votes on the draft. It can adopt, amend, or reject it. The vote is a recommendation to the federal government. It does not change the statute.
Ministerial draft. The Federal Ministry of Health turns that into an ordinance. After the session on 4 December 2023, the draft of the fifth ordinance was dated 7 February 2024, the following spring, not the week after the session.
Agreement of the other ministries. For the NpSG, the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection have to agree. That is section 7 NpSG.
Bundesrat. The ordinance needs consent from the Bundesrat, the chamber of the federal states. It deals with this in its sitting weeks, not on the day of the draft. For the BtMG the ordinary path is the same, section 1 (2) BtMG. No emergency listing without the Bundesrat has been announced for 1 December. Such an emergency ordinance would last one year at most.
Promulgation. Once the text is settled, it is published in the Federal Law Gazette. Only that published text says which substances or groups are covered.
Entry into force. The ordinance names the day itself. For the fourth, fifth, and sixth amending ordinances, that was the day after promulgation. The ban starts on that day. Not on the day of the session, and not on the day of the draft.

The slow part is the path up to promulgation. The session on 1 December starts it. It does not finish it.

If a change comes, we expect it in spring 2027, typically by the end of March 2027. Not in the days after 1 December. That is the usual gap after a session at the end of the year, not a date written into the statute.

The documented range looks like this:

Session on 4 December 2023. Draft of the fifth ordinance on 7 February 2024. In force on 27 June 2024. The draft was in the spring. Entry into force came later, at the end of June.
Fourth ordinance: draft on 28 February 2023, Bundesrat on 3 March 2023, in force on 16 March 2023.
Sixth ordinance, in the year of the session on 13 May 2025: draft on 14 July 2025, Bundesrat on 21 November 2025, promulgated on 1 December 2025, in force on 2 December 2025.

The end of March 2027 is the point by which a change after this December session is, from past timing, usually prepared and can enter into force. That is not guaranteed. The fifth ordinance entered into force only on 27 June 2024, even though the session was the December before. Earlier than the end of March would be the exception on this path. Later remains possible. As soon as a draft or a date in the Federal Law Gazette is public, we will name that date.

What a ban could mean for us

If a substance we offer later falls under the new text, we handle it the way we have handled previous changes to the NpSG. Until the ban takes effect, we sell the inventory we hold. Once the ban applies, we remove the substance from the catalog and stop selling it. Anything still unsold is destroyed. We sell only for as long as the sale is permitted. That keeps us within the law as it stands.

That is what we have done so far, including with O-DSMT HCL, IC-26 HCL, and SR-17018 HCL.

Under the NpSG, section 3 (1) prohibits trade in, and placing on the market, a new psychoactive substance from Annex 1. Section 3 (2) exempts certain recognised uses for commercial, industrial, or scientific purposes. That is not a blanket permission for every sale labelled as research. Whether a particular sale falls under the exemption depends on the wording of the change and on the individual case. Once the ban applies and the new text covers the substance, it leaves the catalog, unless the adopted text clearly allows that exact sale.

Under the BtMG the consequence for the shop is the same: a substance that becomes a narcotic does not stay in the catalog as an ordinary product.

We will say which products those are once we can match the text to the catalog. Not before. Right now the names and the wording are missing.

For orders that are already with us at that point, we will write separately about what happens to those orders. We are not deciding that today. There is no text yet to measure it against.

Substances the new text does not cover stay available to order. They are not affected by this session, unless a text says otherwise.

We hope for the outcome that is best for us and for you. We also reckon with products leaving the catalog. Both are open. We are preparing for both.

What does not change now

On 1 December the catalog is not affected by this session.

No product is removed from the shop because of this date. Orders continue. Payment and shipping continue.

Ordering ahead does not change the law. There is no basis for it, because the substances are not known.

What we are doing

We are watching this continuously: the BfArM page, drafts from the Federal Ministry of Health, the Bundesrat proceedings, and promulgation in the Federal Law Gazette. We know about the session, and we are not waiting for someone else to point it out.

For that we run our own AI agent. It regularly searches known pages and the rest of the internet for keywords that matter to us, and it sends us the evaluation early.

We have known about the session since the agenda was published on 26 October 2026. That date alone did not lead us to write a news article. What did were your questions about this date, some of them stating outright that 7-OH and other alkaloids would be banned. We are answering those questions here, for now.

We will write again as soon as there is something concrete: the result of the session, a public draft with groups or names, or promulgation. If a product is affected, we will name the product and the date from which it can no longer be ordered. Until that date we sell the inventory we hold. What is left afterwards is destroyed.

Depending on how the annex reads in the end, we already have substances we could offer afterwards. We are not giving names, dates, or further details at this point. There is nothing more to say until the wording is fixed and we have checked whether an offer fits it.

What this means for you

The notices on payment methods and on Klarna are separate. This article does not change them.
You do not need to do anything on 1 December. The catalog stays unchanged that day.
The substances affected are not known. We are not naming any.
For kratom and its alkaloids, including 7-OH, MGM-15, and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl, we currently do not expect a coming ban. They are not named publicly for this session.
If a ban comes, we expect it in spring 2027, typically by the end of March 2027. Not in the days after the session. The exact day is set only in the ordinance.
If a substance we offer is covered, we sell the inventory we hold until the ban takes effect and then destroy what is left. That is the later procedure. The substances are not known yet, and this is not a reason to order ahead.
We will tell you as soon as a product changes because of this.
There is no further information now on substances we might offer later.
If you have a question about an existing order, open a support ticket and include the order number.

Sources

Your Remicals.de Team