The U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of New York dismissed the Natural Product Association (NPA)’s lawsuit seeking a primary injunction against the New York supplements ban.
The law, which went into effect in April 2024, was signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul in October 2023, and prevents the sale of weight loss and muscle building dietary supplements to consumers under the age of 18. NPA filed a complaint in December 2023, arguing the bill was “unconstitutional.”
“At least until the statute causes one of the plaintiff’s members to 1) implement or invest in company-wide age verification procedures, 2) loses sales or 3) incur higher delivery costs, plaintiff’s alleged future losses will remain purely ‘conjectural or hypothetical,’ rather than ‘imminent’ as the Constitution requires,” Judge Joan M. Azrack wrote.
NPA issued a statement responding to Azrack’s decision.
“We are disappointed in this ruling but believe there is still an opportunity to block the damaging effects of this misguided law,” said Daniel Fabricant, PhD, president and CEO of NPA. “We are weighing all of our options because we are determined to protect consumers and our industry from these baseless attempts to limit the sale of these natural products to people who want to purchase them.”
NPA previously succeeded in securing a veto from Hochul on similar legislation in 2022. For more information, visit www.npanational.org.
