DHEA AND PREGNENOLONE
UNFORESEEN VICTIMS OF ANTI-ANDRO BILL

If you're one of the millions of Americans who enjoy and benefit from dietary supplements such as DHEA and pregnenolone, you have reason to be concerned. Certain members of Congress are intent on taking them away from you and placing you under arrest if you possess them! Sound far-fetched? It's frighteningly real, yet almost no one in the anti-aging/life-extension community is aware of the threat.

By Patrick Arnold

The villain is the so-called "Anti-Andro Bill" -H.R. 207- introduced last October in the House by U.S. Representatives Sweeney and Osborne. Purporting to address the use of muscle-building "andro" supplements by teens, this wildly overbroad bill would have devastating effects on mature adults throughout America. It would actually permit the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to schedule a wide variety of currently over-the-counter nutritional supplements as controlled substances. In effect, this bill would authorize the arrest and criminal prosecution of millions of Americans as drug offenders-just for possessing supplements like DHEA, 7- keto DHEA and pregnenolone. Those caught with these currently legal supplements -proven to have powerful health and anti-aging benefits -would even be subject to federal asset forfeiture laws, permitting the government to seize and retain private property! All this would be done by making an end-run around the proper lawful procedures, and without any evidence of legitimate public health concerns or dangers to American adults. The bill seeks to deal a staggering blow to nutritional supplement freedom and the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

The anatomy of H.R. 207

The intention of the bill is supposedly to keep testosterone precursors like androstenedione away from teens. But rather than restricting sales of these items to minors, H.R. 207 would restrict all steroid hormone precursors from people of all ages. And not by making them prescription medicines, but by reclassifying them as controlled substances (see sidebar for the definition of "controlled substance"). The bill would accomplish this by "bootstrapping" these compounds into the federal Anabolic Steroid Control Act. This act was a 1990 revision to the original Controlled Substances Act of 1970. It reclassified anabolic steroids from simple prescription medicines to highly restricted Schedule III controlled substances. Mere possession of a schedule III controlled substance without a valid prescription is a federal drug offense with serious potential penalties that can even include jail time..

The entire article is at : http://www.vrp.com/hr207/hr207_03.html & http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/mar2003_dhea_01.html