[glp1guide]

It's completely illegal -- the drug is not for sale, obviously is not FDA approved, and is not manufactured anywhere, the only safe/legal way to get it is a via an ongoing trial:

https://trials.lilly.com/en-US/trial/580035

As one might imagine though, capitalism found a way. A LOT of compounding pharmacies are now very good at manufacturing GLP1s (not necessarily the case that the knowledge transfers, but I imagine networks/knowledge sharing groups do), so gray market has sprung up to supply adventurous people with Retatrutide.

[ifwinterco]

I don't know about how hard it is to manufacture GLP-1 agonists specifically, but there's an existing enormous grey/black market for peptides for bodybuilding.

It started in the 90s with synthetic GH and since then the number of research peptides has exploded, all of which are readily available on the grey market.

So all the infrastructure for producing and distributing peptides was already there before GLP-1s were a thing, which probably explains why it didn't take long

[globular-toast]

Why is it illegal? Are drugs illegal by default or has it been specifically controlled/scheduled?

I looked up which drugs are scheduled in the UK and found the list is about 100x longer than I thought it was and in fact the government don't even publish a definitive and exhaustive list of all substances.

[ifwinterco]

At least in the UK, drugs are legal by default in the sense that a specific chemical has to be classified under the misuse of drugs act to be a "drug".

However, specific classes of drugs (synthetic cannabinoids and substituted phenylethylamines etc.) are banned in their entirety by designer drug legislation. This is to stop people producing stuff like mephedrone etc., because there's an almost endless potential for minor chemical substitutions while still retaining the effects.

AFAIK peptides are not covered by any of that legislation, so they are a grey area, hence why they get sold as "research chemicals" "not for human use" etc. Separately it's probably illegal to produce patented drugs like semaglutide through non-official channels, but that would be a civil/commercial matter, not a drugs offence per se

[glp1guide]

Well for one they're flying in the face of the patent protection in place for Retatrutide -- that said the legalities around distributing prescription drugs or unknown chemical substances is murky (hence "gray" market).