The tropical plant Mitragyna speciosa, better known as kratom, is a coffee-like plant native to Southeast Asia, heralded for its pain relieving-properties. For thousands of kratom users and supporters, the plant is the difference between a life of agony and a life without.

On August 31, the Drug Enforcement Agency issued a notice of intent to schedule and ban kratom and its two main active constituents, mitragynine and 7-Hydroxymitragynine. It will make kratom a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act—the category that includes heroin and LSD.

The federal ban, which will go into effect on September 30, will affect those who use (and sell) the herb for medicinal purposes. Its leaves, commonly sold at nutritional stores and smoke shops, are traditionally brewed into tea and used to treat a variety of symptoms, from opiate withdrawal to pain relief, psychological disorders and more.

“A lot of different suppliers, they’ve stopped producing [kratom] and they’ve already emptied out their inventories,” says independent kratom distributor Tom Power. As a result, he’s also seen a rise in demand for the herb. “Every single smokeshop in this town will feel the effect of this, and every one of their clients will feel the effect of the loss of this product,” he says.

The DEA states that from 2010 to 2015, the Center for Disease Control reported 660 poison control calls in relation to the plant. But local kratom supporters like After nightlife founder Thom Svast argue that statistic means little. Citing a Forbes article, Svast says there were 6,843 poison control center reports of children ingesting detergent pods from January to July 2016 alone. “If that is the DEA’s case, you’d have to ban laundry detergent pods, too,” he says.

“Doctors had me on [oxycodone] for a long period of time. I hated that feeling of being controlled by a pharmaceutical drug,” says Svast, who was later recommended kratom for his chronic health issues. He hasn’t touched a pain pill since. “No one in the world deserves years [in jail] for something in the coffee family. This is something that helps people.”