I happen to like the fact that I can get hormones like melatonin and drugs like piracetam as dietary supplements without having to go through a doctor or have t

I happen to like the fact that I can get hormones like melatonin and drugs like piracetam as dietary supplements without having to go through a doctor or have them approved by the government to treat a specific disease. I don't have insomnia, but sometimes I want to go to sleep at a specific time and melatonin enables me to do it. I don't suffer from any diseases causing cognitive impairment, but sometimes piracetam helps me think more clearly. I strongly oppose any legislative efforts to make it more difficult for me to obtain these substances. That said, some companies in the supplement industry have, without a doubt behaved badly. It seems to me that there are three issues to consider. * Advertising - making false claims in product marketing is already illegal. * Purity - making false claims about what's in a product or selling a contaminated product is already illegal. * Safety - if a substance can cause dangerous effects, the packaging should say so. The first two are already the law. If there are loopholes or unreasonable barriers to enforcement, they should be patched. This doesn't require any major changes in policy - just fine-tuning to make sure existing policy can be enforced. The last one is a bit more problematic under current policy. It's my impression that dangerous supplements can be sold with no labeling even when the dangers are fairly well known. The FDA's only recourse is to remove them from the market if they're found dangerous. I think mandatory warnings on packaging when there's significant evidence a supplement may be dangerous, similar to the black-box warnings on prescription drugs would be a good middle ground.