New Law to Affect Research Chemicals in the USA?
There just may be a new law on the horizon that could affect the way research chemicals usa, USA-wide, are regulated, imported and sold. The SITA (Stop the Importation and Trafficking of Synthetic Analogues) Act of 2017 passed the US congress last month, and could go before the senate any time now. This could lead to many unregulated research chemicals becoming illegal overnight all over the USA. The substances most directly under the Act’s sights include nootropics, kratom and just about anything that is a synthetic analogue of any kind of controlled substance of any kind.
The SITA Act creates an entirely new schedule of controlled substances in the USA. The new ‘Schedule A’ would be filled with almost anything notoriously anti-drug attorney general Jeff Sessions wants to put on it. Ironically, this is one of the few issues democrats and republicans are finding any kind of bipartisan ground on, and it may pass the senate with little or no opposition.
What Are Synthetic Analogues?
In this sense, ‘synthetic analogies’ are research chemicals, drugs and other substances which are synthetic – made in labs and not derived from plants – and closely resemble substances that are banned or regulated as drugs. Importantly, these can ‘resemble’ a controlled drug wither chemically or because of their intended effects. In essence, SITA would allow the attorney general to ban any substance that has any drug-like effect with very little oversight and almost no limits.
Why does the USA feel they need SITA?
The simple answer is ‘fentanyl’. Or more to the point, fentanyl analogues. These are synthetic opioids (heroin-like chemicals) which many people abuse as drugs. They are slightly different on the molecular level, and they do have a lot of other uses, but the fear is that many of the research chemicals imported into the USA are intended for use as drugs. SITA is intended to make it more difficult to import these chemicals for any purpose.