ABC Australia coordinated a purchase as part of an investigation into "dangerous", unapproved medications being sold via social media.

[sheilarae74]

To prove how easy it is to buy unregulated peptides the ABC organised a deal



The injectable drugs have not been approved for use in Australia but are advertised widely on social media.

www.abc.net.au

Unregulated peptides illegally sold on Facebook marketplace or distributed through Australia Post

​#-face-with-rolling-eyesface-with-rolling-eyesface-with-rolling-eyes

 

[Chili777]

They went out of their way to tow the Pharma line on this one. Yikes.

 

[jailbird]

Chili777 said:


They went out of their way to tow the Pharma line on this one. Yikes.

Click to expand...

The liver failure part was kind of interesting that they threw in. You'd think Pharma would want them to explicitly say that it was due to the illegal nature, not due to the drug itself.

 

[Skidude]

jailbird said:


The liver failure part was kind of interesting that they threw in. You'd think Pharma would want them to explicitly say that it was due to the illegal nature, not due to the drug itself.

Click to expand...

They did elaborate on that later, also mentioned that some of the Reta tested at 190% labeled mass.

They pointed out the liver issues were sterility/endos

 

[lastresort]

sheilarae74 said:

To prove how easy it is to buy unregulated peptides the ABC organised a deal



The injectable drugs have not been approved for use in Australia but are advertised widely on social media.

www.abc.net.au

Unregulated peptides illegally sold on Facebook marketplace or distributed through Australia Post

​

Click to expand...

Honestly, I applaud the attempt. Its way better than FOX news in the US that talks nonsense about "European" peptides flooding the US. Remember Kay Ives' interview?

Also, FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE!!! That is the last place to buy ANY medicine.

 

[lessthanhalf]

I do wonder whether people on this forum get a false sense of security about the whole peptide market. It does seem quite uncommon for people on here to get scammed, or get vials with no drug or contaminated products, which is a good thing, but this is a selected, relatively well educated population, and there are processes in place that remove obviously dodgy vendors, so the vendors are going through some degree of selection as well.

I suspect that random purchases from facebook or tiktok have pretty high odds of getting scammed, or of getting substandard products, even if people on here seem to experience 95-99% success rates with buying peptides, so the risks overall might be quite a bit higher than it would seem just from looking on here.

 

[bluewater]

The ABC article seemed very shallow and biased to me and the girl in the test lab seemed very naive. She talked about GHK-CU having heavy metal contamination (by including free Copper as a heavy metal). I didn't quite understand the validity of that statement, because if it had say 7% free copper (heavy metal contamination) then presumably it would test as 93% or less purity.

 

[JohannesSweden77]

bluewater said:


The ABC article seemed very shallow and biased to me and the girl in the test lab seemed very naive. She talked about GHK-CU having heavy metal contamination (by including free Copper as a heavy metal). I didn't quite understand the validity of that statement, because if it had say 7% free copper (heavy metal contamination) then presumably it would test as 93% or less purity.

Click to expand...

The (fake) news where I live did the same. But they didn't just say dangerous they added fake to. They ordered "Dangerous fake glp1 medicine" and had it tested. I laughed when in the end of the article said "The medicine we bought was not fake nor dangerous however...."

 

[lastresort]

lessthanhalf said:


I do wonder whether people on this forum get a false sense of security about the whole peptide market. It does seem quite uncommon for people on here to get scammed, or get vials with no drug or contaminated products, which is a good thing, but this is a selected, relatively well educated population, and there are processes in place that remove obviously dodgy vendors, so the vendors are going through some degree of selection as well.

I suspect that random purchases from facebook or tiktok have pretty high odds of getting scammed, or of getting substandard products, even if people on here seem to experience 95-99% success rates with buying peptides, so the risks overall might be quite a bit higher than it would seem just from looking on here.

Click to expand...

After months of sleuthing around peptide space and years of lurking around steroid communities, I learned that there is a sense of shaky but consistent sense of honor between the vendors and the customers, especially in steroid spaces.

This is a very very niche space, which people seem to forget often. We willfully purchase things that the government cant protect us from because they are not approved (yet). Even if approved (semaglutide/tirzepatide), we implicitly waive our protections by not going to normal routes. I know why people do it ,but that is the reality. When we buy things, the onus of proof of purity is practically on the consumers, not the vendors, which is why businesses like Janosik flourishes.

At the same time, vendors want to be in good graces and will keep their words...until they stop caring.

 

[5byfive]

lessthanhalf said:


I do wonder whether people on this forum get a false sense of security about the whole peptide market. It does seem quite uncommon for people on here to get scammed, or get vials with no drug or contaminated products, which is a good thing, but this is a selected, relatively well educated population, and there are processes in place that remove obviously dodgy vendors, so the vendors are going through some degree of selection as well.

I suspect that random purchases from facebook or tiktok have pretty high odds of getting scammed, or of getting substandard products, even if people on here seem to experience 95-99% success rates with buying peptides, so the risks overall might be quite a bit higher than it would seem just from looking on here.

Click to expand...

I totally agree. The peptide market is huge; the nunber of people here and in similar groups is small fraction of that market. I've said before, our experiences do not reflect those of the general peptide buying population. We read stores about scam vendors and fake peptides as just fear mongering but, for the general peptide buying community, their experience rests more on luck than anything else. There are a lot of people getting mystery vials with who knows what off of Facebook Marketplace and Tik-Tok. If there weren't, you wouldn't see so many ads. In general, buying peptides online is not safe. We are the exception, not the rule.

 

[lastresort]

5byfive said:


I totally agree. The peptide market is huge; the nunber of people here and in similar groups is small fraction of that market. I've said before, our experiences do not reflect those of the general peptide buying population. We read stores about scam vendors and fake peptides as just fear mongering but, for the general peptide buying community, their experience rests more on luck than anything else. There are a lot of people getting mystery vials with who knows what off of Facebook Marketplace and Tik-Tok. If there weren't, you wouldn't see so many ads. In general, buying peptides online is not safe. We are the exception, not the rule.

Click to expand...

Half the posts on reddit peptid subforums are about why their stuff is murky.

 

[TooGood76]

lastresort said:


After months of sleuthing around peptide space and years of lurking around steroid communities, I learned that there is a sense of shaky but consistent sense of honor between the vendors and the customers, especially in steroid spaces.

This is a very very niche space, which people seem to forget often. We willfully purchase things that the government cant protect us from because they are not approved (yet). Even if approved (semaglutide/tirzepatide), we implicitly waive our protections by not going to normal routes. I know why people do it ,but that is the reality. When we buy things, the onus of proof of purity is practically on the consumers, not the vendors, which is why businesses like Janosik flourishes.

At the same time, vendors want to be in good graces and will keep their words...until they stop caring.

Click to expand...

The numbers of everything are so hard to know but there has to be a massive amount of people who are buying from tik tok and Facebook ads that have so much less consistency or transparency than there is here and there's still questionable consistency and transparency here.

If the risk reward wasn't so high people would never do it, but the fact that you can get medication for a tenth of the price of even cheap compounders makes it worth it to learn and figure out how to navigate this world.

 

[lastresort]

TooGood76 said:


The numbers of everything are so hard to know but there has to be a massive amount of people who are buying from tik tok and Facebook ads that have so much less consistency or transparency than there is here and there's still questionable consistency and transparency here.

If the risk reward wasn't so high people would never do it, but the fact that you can get medication for a tenth of the price of even cheap compounders makes it worth it to learn and figure out how to navigate this world.

Click to expand...

I am callous for this opinion, but if you buy any medicine or supplements from Tiktok/Facebook marketplace....you are well past the line of "error or judgment."

 

[Seasonal1]

lastresort said:


We willfully purchase things that the government cant protect us from because they are not approved (yet).

Click to expand...

After going through COVID, I don't believe my government cares one bit about protecting me. I believe they want to protect big pharma and the $$$.