Comment · Sat, February 7, 2026 · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
The story behind the FDA raid of Nootropics Depot
What they were answering
Black_Cat_Fujita · 30 points
ND stopped selling racetams long after this raid. The raid had more to do with labelling than what was being sold. During and after Covid was when his company morphed into a proprietary blend and nutritional/sports supplement company. Don't get me wrong, they have good (sometimes amazing) products, but maybe it should be Safe Supplement Depot. Increasingly, the real nootropics are somewhere else to be found. It's really sad because highly-effective and cutting edge nootropics- that's exactly where you want the quality standards, but they bailed on us. Now it's other vendors and their customers taking the risks.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
That's incorrect. It had nothing to do with labeling at all. We did not label these compounds as supplements, didn't make disease claims, and didn't make structure function claims. We called them nootropic compounds, and were very careful about how we labeled them. This is also why we never got an enforcement letter from the FDA, while most of our competitors did. I thought that meant the government agreed with how we were doing things, but I was wrong. Everyone in this industry is wrong. They have no idea how the government thinks about these things, but I do now. I have sat down and heard it right from the horses mouth. The government maintains that these compounds are illegal to sell to consumers, period. End of story. They maintain that they are illegal to sell under any circumstances, and any one doing so is breaking multiple federal laws. Even the act of declaring them as research compounds is conspiracy to defraud the US government (18 U.S.C. § 371), entry of goods by false statements (18 U.S.C. § 542), smuggling (18 U.S.C. § 545), and making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001). All "research chem" sellers are being watched by the federal government.
The sale of the racetams ceased the day the government entered our facility, not later. The United States federal government tried to put me in prison for 15-20 years... and you think I fucking bailed on the community I helped build?!? You think I had a choice in any of this? Everyone still operating in that side of the industry is being watched by the federal government as we speak, and they are just waiting for that one trigger to be able to come in and put them in prison. There is no legal future to that side of the industry. I know that now. I had thought there was a legal middle ground that you could be compliant. I was naive, but I really did. I thought we were the shining star of the industry. More importantly, I THOUGHT THE GOVERNMENT AGREED WITH ME. What a fucking idiot I was! Little did I know that I was under active federal investigation for 5 years before they even came into our facility. Little did I know that my own government was trying to put me in prison. My stupid ass was here trying to advocate for proper lab testing and quality control, and ensure that people had a trusted source for these compounds, and thought that the government appreciated that stance. I was dead wrong, just like every single vendor still operating in this space is dead wrong. I wish someone had slapped me upside the head back then, and told me what I am telling anyone listening now: GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. There is no legal pathway for you to sell these things. What did you expect me to do, go to war with the United States government? You lose that battle 100 out of 100 times. I am not going to be a martyr here, when I can actually make positive change in the supplement industry. My mission was always the on the science and lab side of things. I can't do that from prison.
So yes, I had to pivot to the natural side of things. Sure, call us Supplement Depot if you want, but don't act like I bailed on anyone. I fought for lab testing and quality in the synthetic side of the nootropics industry for as long as I could, but forces outside of my control had other plans for me. I helped build this community and this subreddit from the early days. I called the bad actors out for years, and got SWATted and death threats constantly because of it. Do I wish the laws in the US were different, and that my original interpretation of things was correct? Sure I do! However, that's just not reality. So now my mission is to advanced the lab testing and quality control standards of the natural side of the supplement industry, and to see how far we can push innovation there. You may find that boring, and honestly I thought it was going to be as well. How do you go from novel nootropic peptides, ones that I came up with and named myself like Adamax, to natural supplements and still have fun? Well I was wrong there, too! There is so much that nature has to teach us, and connecting modern science to thousands of years of traditional uses in cultures around the world is more rewarding than I ever thought possible when I shut Ceretropic down years ago. There are so many novel compounds in nature just waiting to be discovered or optimized. It's not just some boring plant supplement I was forced to pivot to. I genuinely love what we are doing these days, and am excited to do the work we are. We are literally working on brain cancer with some of the most respected institutions in the world now. It's not just herbs and theanine. We are doing some seriously cool science. Does that mean I don't miss the old days? No, that was a special time that I will look back on fondly. It was a time where this industry and this community were a lot more rewarding and fulfilling. I suppose my naivety to the risks of the situation were a big part of that, and now that naivety is gone, but I will always remember the early days of this industry fondly. However, my mission has evolved to something with an actual future, and I am embracing that with everything I have.