New California bill will require ID for health supplement purchases

New this morning, come January 1st, a whole new set of bills are set to become law. Okay, so one of them is over fitness supplements and minors. Assembly Bill 2030 will prohibit retailers and delivery services from selling weight loss pills and muscle building supplements to anybody who's under 18 years old. This has drawn some criticism online. Many people are asking, is this what the state should be prioritizing right now? Here to explain, the man who introduced the bill himself, Assembly Member Josh Lowenthal. of Long Beach, Assemblymember, thanks for joining us this morning. Good morning, guys. How you doing? So why did you decide to introduce this bill? So, um, Creatine right now, as we know, it's like all the rage out there. So why did you decide to do this? Well, nothing in this bill directly prohibits the sale of creatine. Let's make sure that the misinformation on this bill is out of the way. Under this law, children can continue to purchase it as long as it's not labeled for fat loss or muscle building as a supplement. And, you know, let's talk about a couple of things here. First of all, the supplement industry is an untested, unregulated industry. It is not subject to the FDA. And studies show that so many of the supplements that are out there right now are Are cut with stimulants and other things that are causing damage. Young people are struggling right now. In this era of social media and looksmaxing, kids are being pressured to look a certain way. Younger and younger, they're being advertised diet pills, muscle building supplements to look a certain way. And here are the results. We have organ damage, liver failure, 23,000 emergency room visits a year. And women, young women who are Six times more likely to start with an eating disorder within one to two years. Youth who use supplements experience severe medical injuries at triple the rate of those who are using ordinary vitamins. So there is a problem with this young generation. We have 122% higher eating disorders than we did 10 years ago. 100% higher youth suicide than we did 10 years ago, depression, anxiety off the charts. We have to do something about this. This is a crisis. I mean, this problem, I'm a dinosaur, but back when I was in high school, right? I do remember this also being a problem. For example, a lot of my girlfriends would get ready for prom by taking stackers, which were loaded with ephedra. That's a stacker. Yeah. Like yellow jacket pills, loaded with ephedra would speed up your metabolism and it's like a crash diet. So this is a problem. How prevalent though is it an issue is this among young people right now? Well, different than when you were growing up and when I was growing up, imagine those stackers being pushed in front of you in social media all the time. And the more and more that you look at bodies, which young women are doing, body dysmorphia and so forth, then the algorithms push those products right in front of you. And we just learned in the election right now that consumers are fed up with corporate interests being put upon them that are leading to really poor outcomes. And there are awful outcomes for this anxious generation right now. It's our responsibility to step in. And I'm a dad. I'm a dad of three daughters. I see what this internet world, this looksmaxing world can do. And we have to do something about it. When you say fit, we said fitness supplements. And there's a little confusion here because you just listed like a long laundry list of products, right? And those products can, each product can contain. Various different kinds of ingredients. So what specifically are you talking about? Because you said, no, it's not exactly creatine. What exactly here are you saying it's going to be included in? This is what this bill does. This bill prohibits the sale of all supplements that are marketed for weight loss and muscle building to minors. If it's not stated weight loss or muscle building, minors can absolutely buy it. Including creatine, if parents want to buy it for their kids, they still have that ability. If pediatricians prescribed it to children, they still have the ability to do it. This really isn't about kids, it's about the products themselves marketing these harmful Untested, unregulated products to kids because we're seeing what the outcomes can be. Kids need to be healthy. This is supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics. We need to listen to the pediatricians. They're telling us precisely what we need to do in this situation. So how would this law actually be enforced? Somebody would go and they would have to show ID to prove that they're at least 18 years old Well, we do that with many things. We do that if you're trying to walk into a casino, we do that obviously with the purchase of cigarettes, alcohol and so forth. I don't have a problem with that. If it's gonna yield, far safer, far healthier children in the state of California, I personally have no problem with that whatsoever. In terms of enforcement, that will be up to the Attorney General, local prosecutors, and so forth. And the penalties are not very severe. This is not about being punitive. This is about all of us caring about this generation, the alarming rate of eating disorders, the alarming rate. Of emergency room visits, we have two to three times the amount of emergency room visits for eating disorders than we did just a few years ago. We have all the data right in front of us. So this is really about marketing to children. It's not about prohibiting them from having these products. So I have to say, Assemblyman, we're just kind of hearing about this right now. So the learning curve here is gonna be pretty big, right? And so retailers have to start to get knowledgeable about this, even the businesses that make these products. Consumer out there is going to be knowledgeable about this. But also, so when you say that marketed specifically toward children, like what does that actually look like? Because we've seen this, right, with certain products like vaping or, right, things that you could potentially, like flavored e-cigarettes. You know that that's very clearly marketed toward children based on the flavor and the packaging alone. But what would that look like as far as health supplements go? Yeah, the problem with the law going into place is actually the misinformation. So if you read the law, it's very clear if it states that it is marketed for Losing weight or for muscle building, that's the problem. If you look at the photo that you have on there, creatine powder, children would still be able to buy that, as it's stated there. There's nothing prohibiting creatine in and of itself under this law. It is simply about a marketing tool in this looks-maxing era, pushing children into potentially dramatically harmful... Stimulants and products that they shouldn't be ingesting under any circumstances. I get it, but it is- Or if they are, that should be under the care of a pediatrician, but doctors should do that. And if kids need something, or if they wanna grow their weight or so forth, go talk to your doctor. Make sure that your doctor is on board with that. And is this confusing though, for let's say the ones that are selling this? Because if we show that bottle and it just says creatine and they're like, well... This is, even though it is a something to looks max or improve your looks, it doesn't say it. It does, there's no advertising on it. So they're not actually violating the policy there or this new law. They can just sell whatever they want as long as it just doesn't say weight loss or muscle building. Correct. That's absolutely correct. That's what we're going for in this law. We're trying to stop this cycle of marketing to children where they're buying supplements so they can feel better about themselves. Mind you, these are, you know, physiologically, children don't have the prefrontal cortex to assess consequences. If they take a muscle building supplement. And that muscle building supplement is yielding some results. They may take four times, five times, ten times the amount that they're suggested to, which is yielding these awful outcomes in emergency rooms, because they're not assessing the consequences of that. And that's why we limit children from doing certain things, like voting, like gambling, like ingesting alcohol and cigarettes and so forth. All of these things have to do with what's developmentally appropriate at that age. Okay, so just so I'm clear, that big bottle of creatine that was shown on camera, it just says creatine. There's no other packaging on it that says built for muscle building or anything like that. That is okay for a retailer to sell to somebody who's under the age of 18 under this bill? Yes, it is. Okay, but then what would be the problem with somebody... I mean, a minor coming in and just buying something like that versus something that's specifically marketed toward a child, I guess my question is, what would that look like? Would it have to have certain packaging on it? Yes, the packaging, the marketing itself saying, you know, lose weight, build your muscles. If you take this, you're going to look a certain way. That is precisely the type of thing that we're concerned about with young people right now. And we're just trying to get our arms around this. I mean, the data speaks for itself. We should all be dramatically alarmed. I also want to say, you know, this is costing the state of California a tremendous amount of money. California families spend $2.8 billion every year, the ones that are going through eating disorders, and the rest of us are spending $7.8 billion. It's costing the state this amount of money. We're all bearing the cost for a rogue industry, again, that is not regulated, that is not tested whatsoever, with awful outcomes in the emergency room. So where do you see this going from here, Assemblyman? Obviously, this is a brave new world, right? Right, so we really, Don't know enough about a lot of these supplements that are being marketed out there. I mean, right now you're just targeting the marketing component of it, but I assume, I mean, this could expand as we learn more and more and there's more and more research that's done on all of these products. Well, that is the question, that's the best question you could ask. Where do we all go from here? We need to regulate this sector. That's done on a federal level, that's not done in the state of California. But absolutely, if you think about what a massive multi-billion dollar sector this has become, how it's pumped into us on social media on a daily basis, algorithmically, that preys on anxieties. And we need to be considering our most vulnerable first, our children. What is best for children? Physiologically, we know that these things are not good for growing. That is why the American Academy of Pediatrics is effusive in being against these things for children, and that is why you should be under a pediatrician's care when ingesting these supplements. It's a whole new world that we're living in. All right, Assemblymember, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Appreciate the interest. Thank you.