Peptide sellers and influencers now in Australia's crosshairs

Once ordinary gym enthusiasts running supplement brands with names like biff get shut down, criminal networks will simply move in. Nice work. Lol
 
That's unfortunate. While I still can here in America, I'm going to stock up.
 
A

Johnny D said:

Australian authorities have begun targeting those who sell peptides, along with influencers.

Link: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS4pX47aQ/
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Australia is not great, but I hope they succeed in stopping them. Calling it skincare is totally legal, and they also use special shipping routes where a single container holds thousands of packages; it gets scanned and allowed through because the contents can't really be identified.
 
Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
 
That's just how things go around here.

Leave certain foolish folks without anyone watching over them and they'll end up harmed. At some point, someone is going to do themselves in using nothing but bac or saline.

Authorities are going to do their job, and they'll craft blanket regulations aimed at shielding those with limited brainpower.

So grab whatever you can while the opportunity is there, and given how large the demand is, rest assured the sellers will figure out a route to get it through.
 
This comes as a letdown, and it clashes with the relaxed picture of Australia I seem to have held rather naively. Down the line, the pharmaceutical sector's intense lobbying against cheaper routes to the many medications we all benefit from could end up making those medications harder to get and more expensive for every one of us, no matter where we live.
 
reta-stacker said:

This comes as a letdown, and it clashes with the relaxed picture of Australia I seem to have held rather naively. Down the line, the pharmaceutical sector's intense lobbying against cheaper routes to the many medications we all benefit from could end up making those medications harder to get and more expensive for every one of us, no matter where we live.
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unfortunately, that's the reality
 
Take a look at Lilly's earnings for this year. With that amount of cash, political influence can be purchased anywhere in the world. Media organizations could be influenced too, with a message like "We'd like to purchase a large volume of advertising from you, but only on the condition that...."

The one holding all the gold is the one who writes all the rules.
 
Just A Cat said:

Take a look at Lilly's earnings for this year. With that amount of cash, political influence can be purchased anywhere in the world. Media organizations could be influenced too, with a message like "We'd like to purchase a large volume of advertising from you, but only on the condition that...."

The one holding all the gold is the one who writes all the rules.
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This week, that sham study Lily ran with three staffers — the one claiming some vague sinister outcome when compounders mix B12 into tirzepatide — has popped up all of a sudden across at least 3 different social media platforms I follow. Eli Lily bots, that's what it smells like to me. With Reta about to be fully rolled out and auto-approved by the FDA, I figure LILY will push to choke off other supply sources, and I'd bet the same kind of fearmongering about Reta starts any day now.
 
lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
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A friend from Australia told me peptides have become hugely popular down there. According to him, it's impossible to sit in a pub or coffee shop without hearing conversations about them. Local suppliers in AUS also sound pretty sketchy, since there are reports of people being harmed, not only from self-inflicted issues. Back here in the US, I haven't noticed that as much, but the Ken's and Karen's are certainly involved now, together with the TikTok crowd.

Prohibition showed us that the market will shift to fill a void. Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
 
Given the sheer number of individuals injecting, the number of reported issues appears quite small.

Yet real evidence will never be allowed to obstruct a political process.
 
Australia's approach to both regulating and subsidising medicines differs greatly from the US, and generally works out better for the ordinary citizen. In most cases for most individuals, a script runs $40 at most, or roughly $7 for those on a pension or without work — that by itself changes things enormously, and far fewer people here go without basic preventative drugs such as blood pressure tablets compared with the US (because of expense). Bankruptcy from illness is basically unheard of here. Naturally GLP's fall outside this, with the exception of semaglutide for diabetics or severe obesity following heart attacks or strokes (though not beforehand). Peptides are essentially all illegal to bring in or sell, so there's no grey market.

There's also no direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Because the government covers a large share of medication costs, it holds a strong bargaining position and can push drug companies toward far more sensible pricing, since it simply won't greenlight something if the expense is too high or the cost/benefit balance doesn't add up. Tirzepatide isn't on that list and can only be obtained privately at full price, as no mutually acceptable price could be reached. (For the Aussie system to subsidise it for any purpose, the price would likely need to be cut by at least half.)

Enforcement against things like peptide sales is also far harsher, which is probably why there are almost no resellers here (or at least none easily found online), and the ones that do exist charge a fortune — the business just isn't very viable here. Jail time doesn't seem common for it, though it would follow if someone died, while fines are enormous.

I'm wondering how customs manages to intercept so many peptides entering the country. Given the sheer overall import volume, I'd have assumed catching more than single digit percentages would be impossible. Perhaps they flag them by Chinese region of origin, or by parcel size and type? X-ray every package? Particular courier services? The Aussie thread on here claims anything headed to Sydney or Melbourne (I believe) gets seized. I'm almost surprised the black market tobacco gangs here haven't moved into peptides, or maybe that's still to come — they rarely seem to struggle getting entire shipping containers of cigarettes past customs.
 
lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
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That's basically me—I can't stop buying from Temu 😆. Sure, we all joke about Temu, but for horse and human supplies, the prices are absurdly cheap and the quality can be surprisingly good... clothes are a gamble, some work and some don't, but since they cost so little, the occasional dud isn't a big deal.
 
Chili777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
Click to expand...
A friend from Australia told me peptides have become hugely popular down there. According to him, it's impossible to sit in a pub or coffee shop without hearing conversations about them. Local suppliers in AUS also sound pretty sketchy, since there are reports of people being harmed, not only from self-inflicted issues. Back here in the US, I haven't noticed that as much, but the Ken's and Karen's are certainly involved now, together with the TikTok crowd.

Prohibition showed us that the market will shift to fill a void. Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
Click to expand...
Beyond people harming themselves through peptide errors, are others also being harmed? Could this be organized crime targeting smaller-scale dealers, or something else?
 
AngieHolmes said:

Chili777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
Click to expand...
A friend from Australia told me peptides have become hugely popular down there. According to him, it's impossible to sit in a pub or coffee shop without hearing conversations about them. Local suppliers in AUS also sound pretty sketchy, since there are reports of people being harmed, not only from self-inflicted issues. Back here in the US, I haven't noticed that as much, but the Ken's and Karen's are certainly involved now, together with the TikTok crowd.

Prohibition showed us that the market will shift to fill a void. Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
Click to expand...
Beyond people harming themselves through peptide errors, are others also being harmed? Could this be organized crime targeting smaller-scale dealers, or something else?
Click to expand...
Reports came out about 6 individuals who suffered serious liver harm after taking peptides that had been adulterated in that country. I think @lessthanhalf shared an article covering this.
 
Chili777 said:

AngieHolmes said:

Chili777 said:

lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
Click to expand...
A friend from Australia told me peptides have become hugely popular down there. According to him, it's impossible to sit in a pub or coffee shop without hearing conversations about them. Local suppliers in AUS also sound pretty sketchy, since there are reports of people being harmed, not only from self-inflicted issues. Back here in the US, I haven't noticed that as much, but the Ken's and Karen's are certainly involved now, together with the TikTok crowd.

Prohibition showed us that the market will shift to fill a void. Let's hope that lesson has sunk in.
Click to expand...
Beyond people harming themselves through peptide errors, are others also being harmed? Could this be organized crime targeting smaller-scale dealers, or something else?
Click to expand...
Reports came out about 6 individuals who suffered serious liver harm after taking peptides that had been adulterated in that country. I think @lessthanhalf shared an article covering this.
Click to expand...
So was that adulteration put down to human error? Or did anyone suspect it was deliberate? I'll go find @lessthanhalf 's post
 
lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
Click to expand...
A large number of Australian resellers buy their labels from me, and seizures are causing problems for all of them.

In my opinion, things will likely deteriorate considerably before any improvement occurs.
 
DingoXL said:

lessthanhalf said:

Over the last several months, the Aussie thread here has been filled with posts saying customs has been seizing shipments. That lines up with a TGA (Australia's equivalent of the FDA) announcement roughly 2 months back about a peptide import crackdown. Because of that, I've been hesitating before placing any order.

In Australia, 3/4 of cigarette sales happen through the black market. The cause is absurdly high tobacco taxes, which pushed buyers underground (I believe a pack retails for around $60-100 Aud, so well-meant efforts to cut smoking produced a black market complete with weekly firebombings of tobacco shops). With that in mind, I doubt they will manage to block much of the peptide flow into the country, especially considering how many parcels arrive from China through Temu and similar services. Unless every small package is being xrayed, I don't see how they could single out peptides so easily.

Vendors who promote Australian warehouses do appear to be struggling badly to bring in stock; at points I've noticed them listing only 1 to three different peptides. My past orders from China mostly looked like they were shipped in bulk and then reshipped locally, but it has been too long since my last order for me to say whether that approach is still in use.
Click to expand...
A large number of Australian resellers buy their labels from me, and seizures are causing problems for all of them.

In my opinion, things will likely deteriorate considerably before any improvement occurs.
Click to expand...
That's the reason I'm grabbing my supplies now, then I'll keep a low profile for a bit.

With any luck the tiktok pep trend will shift to something different and things will settle the hell down.
 
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