Hi rhdrury. Yes, Codex etc. is a bit worrying, but this quite encouraging commentary is from the Alliance for Natural Health website:
Although the Directive was upheld following the Court's ruling, important gains have been made to protect the availability of food supplements through clarification and narrowing of the Directive's scope. Prohibitions by Regulators will now be much more difficult, and we predict that the anticipated wide-scale bans set to come in to force on 1 August in countries such as the UK will now not occur. www.alliance-natural-health.org
It's very hard to find out what's going to happen, exactly what supplements will be banned, but I guess time will tell.
In terms of suppliers, I have never had any problems at all with deliveries from abroad (unless you count having to pay, albeit 'under-quoted', duty). America seems to be the best price-wise, while you'll need to go to Europe and elsewhere for things like Deprenyl and Hydergine.
These are my current favourites:
http://www.iherb.com/http://www.uniquenutrition.net/http://www.bulknutrition.com/http://www.qhi.co.uk/http://www.freedom-pharmacy.com/With regards a bulk buying consortium, have you come across
http://www.nootropica.org/ ?
To be honest, if you're after reasonable quantites of supplements, I reckon it probably best to give Nootropica a shot. I know I said that I haven't had any problems with customs, but once you start importing kilos you will attract the wrong kind of attention very quickly. QHI is based in the UK but there must be a very good reason that they ship from abroad.
You have to pay 20% commission for Nootropica buys but then you only need to worry about taking delivery of your own portion of the buy, and I'm sure Jeff would oblige with plain / 'creative' packaging
Don't get me wrong though - I think it's a great idea in principle and would have loved to be involved (especially with putting a website together).
Edited by jeromewilson, 24 July 2005 - 10:57 AM.