California Restricts Sales of Weight-Loss and Muscle-Building Products to Minors
A new California law (AB 2030) prohibits the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and dietary supplements marketed for weight loss or muscle building to consumers under 18. Each violation is punishable by a civil penalty of up to $500, and courts may issue injunctions.
Age-Verification Requirements for Retail & Online Sales
Like a similar New York law that went into effect in 2024, AB 2030 applies to both brick-and-mortar stores and online sales, and retailers must verify a purchaser’s age before completing a sale. For online sales, this may be done either upon delivery or through the use of a commercially available database (or an aggregate of databases), so long as the database(s) consist primarily of data from government sources, are regularly used by government and businesses for the purpose of age and identity verification and authentication and are not controlled by or subject to changes by the seller. Notably, unlike the New York law, the law does not exempt certain protein products.
Scope of Covered Products
Importantly, products that do not expressly claim “weight loss” or “muscle building” in labeling may still fall within the scope of the law. In determining whether a supplement is “labeled, marketed, or otherwise represented for the purpose of achieving weight loss or muscle building”—and therefore subject to the law’s age restrictions—courts may consider: (1) whether the product contains creatine, green tea extract, raspberry ketone, garcinia cambogia, green coffee bean extract, steroids, or ingredients approved by the FDA for weight loss or muscle building; (2) images and other claims that imply or express that the product affects body weight, fat, appetite, metabolism, or the process by which nutrients are metabolized; and (3) whether the retailer has categorized the product for weight loss or muscle building through signs, tags, or other means in a display, ad, or on a website, among other factors.
Prepare for Compliance
Companies selling these products in California should review their product labeling, marketing, merchandising, and age-verification procedures to assess whether changes are needed prior to the anticipated effective date of January 1, 2027.
Please do not hesitate to contact Rend Al-Mondhiry with any questions or concerns.
