Does Huberman have inside info?

[sfkid]

He probably has strong connections, no doubt, but China can't be halted. They made steroids illegal, yet they're still easy to get for anyone who wants them.

 

[Chili777]

He's clearly putting effort into appearing informed, no doubt about that. Time will tell.

 

[Mr.Tired]

For months, he's been going on and on about grey markets and an impending crackdown. For some reason, it comes across as almost personal.

Huberman tends to be fairly open minded on most subjects, so his strong negativity here is puzzling—unless there's some financial stake he hasn't revealed.

 

[Calm Logic]

Is it just me, or do these "peptides are done next month" claims tend to come from guys/bros?

 

[Raptorrunner]

What he means by "the gray" is those US-based resellers, websites, and social media peddlers.

His point stands. To shut down anyone eating into their profits, Big Pharma will grease any wheel necessary. Safety will be the stated reason, but don't kid yourself — it's about money and shareholder returns.

One crossfit gym nearby charges $350 for 20mg of Reta. That cash is what Big Pharma is after.

 

[Calm Logic]

sfkid said:

View attachment 11891

He probably has strong connections, no doubt, but China can't be halted. They made steroids illegal, yet they're still easy to get for anyone who wants them.

Agreed.

What's really made me stop and think recently is Uther saying he's having a tougher time finding sources:




Supply going like hotcakes!



I'm trying to place my first order....thanks to this community! I see the vendors, price and supply. As soon as I email an order, it's "out of this, out of that" etc. Man, these supplies go fast. Do you split orders between who has what or wait until someone has fully supply? What's your technique?

GLP1Chat.com

Whether that's mostly just the usual vendor drama, I couldn't say.

 

[sfkid]

Calm Logic said:


Right.

The only thing that has given me pause lately is Uther alleging that things are getting harder for him to source:




Supply going like hotcakes!



I'm trying to place my first order....thanks to this community! I see the vendors, price and supply. As soon as I email an order, it's "out of this, out of that" etc. Man, these supplies go fast. Do you split orders between who has what or wait until someone has fully supply? What's your technique?

GLP1Chat.com

How much of that is just Uther-related, I have no idea.

Click to expand...

For the time being, my freezer is full.

Should supplies begin to run short, I'll simply get a larger freezer and pile in even more until the situation settles down.

 

[Chili777]

Calm Logic said:


Right.

The only thing that has given me pause lately is Uther alleging that things are getting harder for him to source:




Supply going like hotcakes!



I'm trying to place my first order....thanks to this community! I see the vendors, price and supply. As soon as I email an order, it's "out of this, out of that" etc. Man, these supplies go fast. Do you split orders between who has what or wait until someone has fully supply? What's your technique?

GLP1Chat.com

How much of that is just typical vendor drama, I have no idea.

Click to expand...

On top of that, he might be dealing with the usual slowdown that follows Chinese New Year. My own situation is just now stabilizing. And since his minimum order is $800, it's hard to say what kind of effect that's had on the people supplying him.

 

[Calm Logic]

Another possibility:

lessthanhalf said:

A statement in one of the earlier posts, attributed to Uther, has me somewhat uneasy: [[Q1]] My understanding was that TikTok cannot be reached from inside China, beyond the great firewall — or is there a domestic counterpart over there?

The one development that could genuinely bring the entire operation down is Beijing choosing to get serious about shutting the peptide business inside its borders. A domestically developed, owned and launched GLP product already exists in China, and the big producers there are already slashing prices hard in reaction to it — possibly also in reaction to the black market. Historically, the Chinese state has looked the other way on piracy and IP theft whenever that stance was useful to it, then come down on it ferociously once it stopped being useful and started threatening other sectors that could earn far more legally. With peptides, I regard that turn as unavoidable; the timing is the open question, not whether it happens.

It would only take a handful of well-publicised serious health incidents or fatalities tied to peptides in China to push the government into action to close them down. Given the sheer size of the population there, that is a matter of when, not if. This sits apart from the purely local economic friction of the peptide pirates undercutting legitimate domestic producers, and apart from any diplomatic or political pressure coming from western governments because those pirates are eating into the profits of the major pharmaceutical firms.

Whether someone in the west is harmed by peptides strikes me as a matter of indifference to them. Chinese citizens being harmed inside China is a different matter — they will care about that. After all, those behind the melamine contamination of baby milk powder were executed.

Should that crackdown come, supply would not automatically vanish, but obtaining it would become considerably more difficult and considerably more costly.

 

[Calm Logic]

Chili777 said:


He also may be experiencing the post-CNY hangover. Mine are only now getting back to normal.

Click to expand...

 

[Chili777]

From what I understand, selling peptides at retail in China is technically against the law already. The same goes for performance enhancing drugs, such as oils and BPC-157, and so on. Domestic sales face restrictions, yet Chinese peptide makers turn out and ship products labeled RUO intended for markets abroad. As long as these exports aren't promoted for human use inside China, they don't violate Chinese law. GLPs are tightly regulated too, and regulation will only increase now that China has its own domestically developed GLP. Without revisions to existing legislation — which could happen — I can't see the grey market shifting.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Scare tactics. I've made this point previously, but steroids were prohibited during Reagan's era (1980s). Nowadays they're simpler to obtain than at any prior time.

Peptides are going to follow the same path. That's exactly what a black market is for—it flips the bird of liberty at crackdowns.

 

[Calm Logic]

Mr. Blonde said:

Scare tactics. I've made this point previously, but steroids were prohibited during Reagan's era (1980s). Nowadays they're simpler to obtain than at any prior time.

Peptides are going to follow the same path. That's exactly what a black market is for—it flips the bird of liberty at crackdowns.

The steroid comparison works for me, but there's a counterpoint: right now GLPs represent the major revenue stream for Big Pharma, both in China and the US. Steroids never occupied that position.

Looking at it from a more optimistic angle, running a side operation for peptide manufacturing is less complicated than doing the same for steroids:

Gemini said:


Steroid labs are often "dedicated" facilities—if you raid a pill-pressing or oil-vialing operation, it’s clearly for one purpose.

The Peptide Advantage: The high-end equipment used to make grey-market peptides (HPLC for purification and Lyophilizers for freeze-drying) is the exact same equipment used by legitimate cosmetic, skincare, and research chemical companies.

In China, thousands of labs can "hide in plain sight" by producing legitimate collagen peptides for the beauty industry by day and "research" GLPs by night.

Click to expand...

 

[Calm Logic]

Chili777 said:

From what I understand, selling peptides at retail in China is technically against the law already. The same goes for performance enhancing drugs, such as oils and BPC-157, and so on. Domestic sales face restrictions, yet Chinese peptide makers turn out and ship products labeled RUO intended for markets abroad. As long as these exports aren't promoted for human use inside China, they don't violate Chinese law. GLPs are tightly regulated too, and regulation will only increase now that China has its own domestically developed GLP. Without revisions to existing legislation — which could happen — I can't see the grey market shifting.

What impact this will bring, I can't say, but as of May 15th, a set of new drug regulations from China — 89 articles in all — will take effect.

That said, stockpiling excessively carries its own drawbacks when prices keep falling (which they always have). Should prices ever rise, that's the signal to hoard (and by then, the best chances may have slipped away).

 

[CNCCurrency]

Mr. Blonde said:

Scare tactics. I've made this point previously, but steroids were prohibited during Reagan's era (1980s). Nowadays they're simpler to obtain than at any prior time.

Peptides are going to follow the same path. That's exactly what a black market is for—it flips the bird of liberty at crackdowns.

 

[lessthanhalf]

I realize this is only a summary, yet it doesn't give a truly unambiguous picture of what the new laws say. - based on the post above. Seeing the actual text of these laws, or understanding how they'd be applied in real situations, would be quite revealing. Vague legislation that depends on insider party approval to stay clear of legal or party trouble is something China is famous for.

"The modified rules also tighten the management of drug manufacturing. Management requirements for the production and sale of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces and granules are clarified.

In the area of distribution and use, these regulations improve oversight of online drug sales and place greater responsibility on third-party e-commerce platform operators."

Putting peptides into vials isn't difficult, since it only calls for equipment costing a few or a few tens of thousands, but actually producing them is difficult, and if rules alter how such companies may function and how or to whom they may sell, availability could be wiped out. A genuine black market peptide manufacturing operation inside China that manages to stay hidden from the government and needs millions in equipment is a far harder thing to pull off.

 

[Calm Logic]

lessthanhalf said:

I realize this is only a summary, yet it doesn't give a truly unambiguous picture of what the new laws say. - based on the post above. Seeing the actual text of these laws, or understanding how they'd be applied in real situations, would be quite revealing. Vague legislation that depends on insider party approval to stay clear of legal or party trouble is something China is famous for.

"The modified rules also tighten the management of drug manufacturing. Management requirements for the production and sale of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces and granules are clarified.

In the area of distribution and use, these regulations improve oversight of online drug sales and place greater responsibility on third-party e-commerce platform operators."

Putting peptides into vials isn't difficult, since it only calls for equipment costing a few or a few tens of thousands, but actually producing them is difficult, and if rules alter how such companies may function and how or to whom they may sell, availability could be wiped out. A genuine black market peptide manufacturing operation inside China that manages to stay hidden from the government and needs millions in equipment is a far harder thing to pull off.

Regarding the smaller operations: after GYC went missing briefly in June because of an "inspection," my view has been that China would play the larger role in enforcement. Then SSA and SRY also vanished, which made it look like Beijing holds every advantage.

 

[anhydrous]

In certain respects, their approach to markets is even more capitalist than ours. Anywhere a profit can be extracted, they will make the attempt. What surprises me is that nobody has brought up the extraordinary degree of corruption at play here. Across large parts of the globe, slipping someone money to ignore what you're doing — or, at worst, giving them a cut — is simply how things get done.

 

[d0se1]

Black and gray markets have existed forever. Finding them might simply require digging deeper. I don't think there's much reason to stress over it. Simply buy in bulk whenever your budget allows.

 

[UpDownLeftRightAS*]

Life keeps moving forward, just like it always has. Fresh compounds will keep getting created, and that will fuel a market too. Since Sema/GLP1 now costs $10-15 in certain markets where patents have lapsed, I figure it will either hit the lowest possible price or stop being worth putting on the lengthy product rosters that gray market/China sellers maintain. That "product list" isn't going anywhere....