Molport Policy on Controlled Substances
Molport has a well-defined and clear policy on handling controlled substances, as described below.
Application of this policy may result in some compounds that have been ordered having the order cancelled by Molport.
This document explains the policy and how it is implemented.
1. What Is a Controlled Substance?
According to Wikipedia, a controlled
substance
is generally a drug or chemical whose manufacture, possession, or use is regulated by a government,
such
as
illicitly used drugs or prescription medications that are designated by law. Some treaties provide
internationally agreed-upon schedules of controlled substances, which have been incorporated into
national
laws;
however, national laws usually significantly expand on these international conventions.
Some precursor chemicals used to produce illegal drugs are also controlled substances in many
countries,
even
though they may lack the pharmacological effects of the drugs themselves. Substances are classified
according to
schedules and consist primarily of potentially psychoactive substances.
2. How Does Molport Check Compound
Orders for Controlled Substances?
Once an order is placed with Molport, all the compounds in the order are checked via the ChemAxon Compliance Checker which
flags
any
controlled substances. Legislation covering controlled substances exists at local, national, and
international
levels, and varies widely in form and frequency of update, and the Compliance Checker ensures
compliance
in
this
rapidly changing legislation environment.
3. What Is the ChemAxon Compliance Checker?
The Compliance Checker relies on an updated, extensive controlled substances knowledge base derived
from
relevant published legislation (e.g. US Controlled Substance Act, UK Misuse of Drugs Act, United
Nations
Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, The Rotterdam
Convention
on
the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International
Trade
[PIC], and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer). ChemAxon continuously
monitors
the
legislative sources, and extracts new regulations and makes them available in the system as soon as
possible.
The controlled substance regulations are represented as chemical query structures, and the
structures in
all
Molport orders are passed to the Compliance Checker as SMILES strings and are checked against the
controlled
substance structures using ChemAxon's JChem chemical search engine. Compliance is checked against
the
controlled
substance legislation in Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland,
Italy,
Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States.
Any matches are deemed to be controlled substances and are flagged accordingly. The Compliance
Checker
lists
for
each country where the compound was checked, its CAS Registry Number, DEA numbers, the law by which
it
is
restricted, and legislative links. If a null flag is returned, it means that the compound is not
restricted.
The information from the Compliance Checker presented to the end-user shows each compound's
restriction
status,
and for each restricted compound provides a list of countries where it is restricted and the laws by
which
it is
restricted.
4. What Are Molport's Rules on Orders
for
Controlled Substances?
Molport assesses all flagged compounds output from the Compliance Checker and applies the following
rules
to
decide whether an ordered compound must be cancelled.
a. Any compound that is a controlled substance in the delivery country is cancelled.
b. Any compound that is a controlled substance in any country involved in the customer's compound
supply
process is cancelled.
5. Why Have Some of My
Compounds
Been Cancelled after I Placed my Order?
Molport does not submit compounds to the Compliance Checker until the order has been placed, so any
notification
of a cancellation because a compound is flagged as a controlled substance has to occur after order
placement.
Molport informs customers of any such cancellations with details of the reasons for the
cancellation.