The State-by-State Supplement Crackdown — And the Bill That Would Stop It
In 2024, the FDA moved to reclassify NMN as a drug. We filed alongside the NPA. We published every blog. We rallied the tribe. And it worked.
Now the same playbook is running at the state level. Not one federal agency targeting one molecule. Twenty state legislatures targeting the entire category.
If they can override the FDA on creatine, they can do it with anything you take.
This is what's happening, why the science doesn't support it, and what's being done to stop it.
What's Actually Happening — State by State
This didn't start in 2026. It started quietly over a decade ago.
In 2015, Massachusetts introduced the first bill to restrict the sale of certain performance and weight-management products. It was tabled. In 2016, New York introduced a bill specifically targeting creatine. It didn't pass.
For years, these proposals came and went. Then, in October 2023, New York became the first state to sign one into law. Governor Hochul signed S5823C, which restricts the sale of products marketed for weight loss and muscle building. Creatine is named in the statute.
The law took effect in April 2024. The Council for Responsible Nutrition filed a lawsuit challenging it on First Amendment grounds. A federal court denied the injunction. The law stands.
That ruling changed everything. What was an unproven legal theory in 2015 became an enforceable precedent in 2024. And since then, the floodgates have opened.
New Jersey advanced A.1848 through its Assembly. Washington State introduced SB 5622. California brought its version back after a previous governor's veto. Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Colorado, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Alaska, and Connecticut have all introduced their own bills.
Twenty states. And the count is still growing.
The language in these bills is the real threat. They don't list every product they'll restrict. They target two categories: "muscle building" and "weight loss."
Any product with the words "strength," "performance," "muscle," or "metabolism" on the label is in scope. That doesn't just mean creatine. It means Tongkat Ali. It means sports nutrition formulas. It means metabolic health compounds. It means basic protein. If it helps your body perform, these bills can reach it.
A product that is legal under federal law, sold in every gym and grocery store in the country, and backed by decades of clinical research can now be restricted in one state and unrestricted in the next — depending entirely on which politicians wrote the rules.
What the Science Actually Says
Creatine is the compound these bills name first. It's also the single most studied performance compound in human nutrition research. Over 500 peer-reviewed studies across more than three decades have confirmed its safety and efficacy.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition issued a public position statement: creatine is safe, beneficial, and should not be restricted. Their conclusion is not ambiguous.
Here is what the research confirms:
- Creatine monohydrate supports ATP regeneration, the primary energy system for high-intensity performance
- A 2024 meta-analysis confirmed it increases upper-body strength by 4.4kg and lower-body strength by 11.3kg over training alone (Nutrients, 2024)
- A separate 2024 meta-analysis found it significantly improves memory and processing speed (Frontiers in Nutrition, 2024)
- Not a single adverse event in the FDA's reporting system supports the claims driving these bills
That's the science on the one ingredient they named.
Now consider: these same bills apply to every product marketed for "muscle building" or "weight loss." Compounds with decades of research behind them — Tongkat Ali for cortisol and hormonal balance, berberine for metabolic health, magnesium for sleep and recovery — all fall under the same two-word umbrella if the label says the wrong thing. The bills don't distinguish between a clinically dosed formula and a gas station diet pill. The language treats them the same.
The legislators writing these bills did not consult the ISSN. They did not review the clinical literature. They responded to headlines and advocacy campaigns built on correlation, not causation.
If the science can't protect creatine, it can't protect anything on your shelf.
The Patchwork Problem
Before these bills, dietary supplements were regulated under one federal framework — the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, enforced by the FDA. One set of rules. One standard. Consistent across all 50 states.
That framework is now fracturing.
You can buy it in Florida. You can't in New York. Same formula. Same dosing. Same research. Different rules depending on your zip code.
Each state that follows New York introduces its own version with its own definitions, its own restricted ingredients, and its own enforcement mechanisms. None of them are required to align with the FDA's scientific standards. For the entire industry, it sets a precedent that any state legislature can override federal scientific authority on any product at any time, for any politically motivated reason.
NPA CEO Daniel Fabricant has called this wave of state overreach "a defining threat to consumers and the future of the dietary supplement industry."
He's right.
The Federal Response: H.R. 7366
On February 4, 2026, the Dietary Supplement Regulatory Uniformity Act was introduced as H.R. 7366.
The bill does one clear thing:
it reaffirms the FDA as the sole authority for supplement regulation nationwide. States would not be permitted to establish requirements that are different from, or in addition to, federal law.
Let's be clear: the FDA is not our ally. We've fought them before. They tried to reclassify NMN. They've let the GRAS loophole run unchecked for decades. They spent 35 years ignoring a citizen petition to ban a confirmed carcinogen from your cereal. We know exactly who they are.
But right now, 20 state legislatures are doing something worse. They're writing their own rules with zero scientific review, zero clinical evidence, and zero accountability to the research. The FDA, for all its failures, at least operates under a framework that can be challenged, petitioned, and held to a standard. State politicians answer to headlines and election cycles.
The concern behind some of these bills is understandable. Nobody wants harmful products in the wrong hands. But the answer isn't 20 different laws written by people who've never opened a clinical trial. The answer is one federal standard that can be fought, reformed, and held accountable by the people it's supposed to protect.
That's what H.R. 7366 does. If a state has a legitimate, evidence-based concern, it can petition the FDA for an exemption. The mechanism for accountability remains. What changes is who holds the authority: a federal body bound by scientific standards that we can challenge directly, or politicians in 20 state capitals that we can't.
The bill is endorsed by every major industry organization: the Natural Products Association, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the American Herbal Products Association, and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.
The position is straightforward: consolidate the fight. One opponent we know how to challenge. Not 20 we can't even track.
What We're Doing — And What We Need You to Do
We fought for NMN. Some of you were there. We filed alongside the NPA. We published every update. We gave the tribe every tool to push back. And we won.
Now we're doing it again.
Black Forest publicly endorses H.R. 7366. We've fought the FDA before and we'll fight them again. But 20 state legislatures writing their own rules with zero scientific review is a faster path to losing access than anything the FDA has done.
On May 12, the NPA will be on Capitol Hill for Fly-In Day, meeting with lawmakers to advocate for this bill and for your access. We support their fight fully, and we're working on ways to stand beside them.
Below is every state that has enacted or introduced legislation to restrict what you can buy. Look at the map. Find yours.
Now here's what we need from you:
Drop a comment below. Tell us what you take, why it matters, and what state you're in. We're compiling every response. The more voices on record, the harder we are to ignore.
Contact your representative. Go to congress.gov/members/find-your-member, enter your zip code, and tell them to support H.R. 7366. Your words. Your name. On their record.
Share this post. Send it to anyone who trains, supplements, or cares about what they put in their body. Every person who reads this and acts is one more voice they can't ignore.
The NMN fight proved something: when this tribe shows up, the system listens. That wasn't luck. That was volume.
This time the stakes are bigger. This time it's not one molecule. It's the whole shelf.
Don't sit this one out.
— Antonio Colmenares, Founder, Black Forest Supplements
