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Comment by chmars | Hacker News Reader

Melatonin is usually not (freely) sold in Europe while it can be easily bought in the US like vitamin pills or cod liver oil.

Is there a recommendable online option with international delivery?

(I don't consider the usual 'online pharmacies' recommendable. Even when buying Melatonin in a store in the US, there's still the issue that Melatonin manufacturers and sellers mostly control themselves …)

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In the UK, it's not possible to buy over the counter, however it's legal to import from another country where it is legal. I've purchased it several times from https://www.biovea.com/uk/

The products I ordered definitely work so I think I trust them.

Thank you!

Huh. Melatonin is readily available in pharmacies and shops here in Finland.

I don't know why the parent said "Europe", unless they did a survey of all the laws. Drugs are mostly regulated at the country level.

You are right, my use of "Europe" was too broad.

Afaik, 5 years ago it was only available in the 1mg amount (which in the light of this article, would be good). I once ordered some online that was 3mg, and the customs almost fined me for illegal drug importing.

Biovea has all sorts of health supplements, including a wide variety of Melatonin (down to 1mg capsules or liquid form too).

They even have the more questionable supplements such as Phenibut.

They ship this to Denmark at least, though it's possible some products are not shippable to some countries if there are stricter local laws.

Are you sure? It’s sold in every drug store in the Netherlands. I usually buy 500 tablets of 0.1 mg each.

You make a blanket statement for Europe, but I know for a fact there are plenty of places in mainland Europe that will sell it OTC just about everywhere. In this case this is therefore not a super useful generalization.

If you want a pharmaceutical product you can try to buy products that have a licence. That would be something like Circadin - a slow release product.

I buy it from EBay UK, delivered to England (appears to be posted from England too).

It all disappeared for a while but there's sellers offering it again now.

There are sleeping tablets in the supermarket in Spain that contain it.

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