I once asked about melatonin in a health food shop and was told it’s illegal in the UK!
The seems odd in a country where (for example) you can buy codeine pills over-the-counter, so now I’m curious about why it was banned, considering it’s reported to have few side effects?
You can easily buy it on eBay. A USA company which has local dropshipping sells it, and manages to skirt the regulations.
My understanding is that it’s not sold over the counter (otc) is because it’s a hormone. The class of drugs isn’t available otc.
Also: I think many people use it in completely the wrong quantities and in the wrong way. I’ve heard of people in countries where it’s legal giving their kids 30mg to get them to sleep.. “it’s otc so it must be safe”. I don’t blame the NHS
When I moved to Berlin and found I couldn’t get paracetamol, ibuprofen, or aspirin in the supermarkets, a local told me the “it’s otc so it must be safe” attitude had caused people to overdose on them.
It's not illegal as such, it just not licensed and no drug company has bothered to go through the process to get it licensed in the UK. You can get it on prescription in certain rare circumstances.
Apparently, it was previously available in health food shops (like Holland & Barrett), as in many other countries, but was banned around 1995 and is now considered a prescription-only medicine.
Drugs as those which are controlled under the Medicines Act not by the Misuse of Drugs Act.
There is no limit on importing POM for self use, the violation only happens if you distribute them without a prescription.
Just in case it's not totally clear for anyone reading this - it is illegal in the UK to import drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act, even if they are also licensed medicines.
The cynical answer is that sleep medications (and I mean the more highly scheduled varieties) are among the biggest pharmacological money spinners. Melatonin is cheap and unpatentable (although there was several attempts at melatonin mimetics, e.g. agomelatine). It's unfathomable that melatonin is available only on prescription (and has become increasingly hard to obtain). I think the toxicity is close to water... one would be more likely to gag on the number of pills necessary to O.D. and I'm not sure if there's even a single melatonin related death on record.
Weird, where are you that Melatonin is prescription only and difficult to obtain? I Can get it at any drug and grocery store I walk into in a variety of doses.
It’s not permitted to be sold by chemists in the UK. If so it would be an over-the-counter medicine.
Rather, it looks some online chemists skirt around the rules by having an “online doctor” issue you with a prescription. But the UK-based ones I found were very expensive and it is surely cheaper just to import from the US via eBay etc.
The seems odd in a country where (for example) you can buy codeine pills over-the-counter, so now I’m curious about why it was banned, considering it’s reported to have few side effects?