Health Conditions and Treatments

If you are in the market for hoodia diet pills, you have probably heard about CITES certificates. CITES certificates can help you locate pure hoodia gordonii products and steer you away from products that don’t use pure hoodia. I often wonder how many consumers really understand what CITES certificates are all about and what they represent in the hoodia market. I hope this article will shed some light on the topic for you.

As you probably already know, the hoodia gordonii plant is in high demand. But, did you know that it is a protected species and it’s in limited supply? Until recent years the cactus like plant only grew in the wild in South Africa. But, due to the increased demand for the plants weight loss effects, many people have taken to farming the plant. In order to protect the plant and the San people who have an interest in their native plant, the South African government has put regulations on the hoodia gordonii plant. This means there are licenses, regulations and controls for the growing, harvesting and exportation of the plant.

As a consumer, one of the regulations that you should know about is the CITES certificate. While there are other documents involved in the hoodia gordonii trade market, I am going to limit this article to the discussion of the CITES certificate. CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The certificate serves as an international agreement between countries that, in essence, protects the plant from being threatened due to trade.

For hoodia gordonii to be exported from South Africa by a company, they must first obtain an export permit from CITES. There is no getting around it. Any shipments of hoodia gordonii out of South Africa must have these CITES permits. These permits are valid for six months. This means someone who has obtained a CITES permit has six months to get their shipment of hoodia gordonii exported. If they fail to get their shipment out within six months, they must reapply and ask for a new permit.

This is important to understand because there is some confusion in the hoodia industry about the dates shown on CITES permits. People are led to believe that CITES permits must be “current” in order to be valid, otherwise they don’t mean anything. They mistakenly believe that if the CITES certificate is older than six months the company must be lying or must be trying to pull a fast one on the consumer. In some instances an “old” CITES certificate may be just that, but it is not necessarily the rule.

When someone exports hoodia gordonii from South Africa, the original CITES permit stays with the inventory until it is gone. If a supplier exports thousands of kilograms of hoodia on one permit, they may not sell out of it for months and months. Yes, the date on the CITES permit will be expired, but the permit itself is still valid and proves the hoodia gordonii is legal and authentic. Just because a CITES permit may have expired doesn’t mean the plant that is being used is a fake, or that shady practices are involved in the business.

Another point to keep in mind is that the company or supplier shown on a CITES certificate doesn’t always match the name of the company selling the actual end product. For example, you may be interested in buying a hoodia supplement from “Helen’s Health Company” so you go to their website and you view their CITES certificate. Everything checks out except you notice the supplier shown on the permit is a company called, “Supplier Incorporated.” Shouldn’t the company listed on the permit be Helen’s Health Company? Not always.

There are only a few suppliers who are issued CITES permits. Supplement companies then buy their hoodia gordonii from these few suppliers. In the example above, Supplier Incorporated is listed on the permit so that means they were the actual supplier that exported the hoodia gorodnii. Helen’s Health Company is displaying a CITES certificate issued to Supplier Incorporated so that means Helen’s Health purchased the hoodia gordonii they use in their products from Supplier Incorporated.

It’s important that you understand that just because a website display a CITES certificate isn’t a guarantee that the company is packaging pure hoodia gordonii into their products. As you probably know, there are no regulations on supplements, so companies can make claims about their products, even if they may not be true.

That is not always true. Keep in mind that the only thing a CITES permit proves is that a supplier was given the right to export “X amount” of hoodia gordonii from South Africa. Once the supply is exported, the supplier and any company purchasing hoodia from the supplier can do what they want with the hoodia gordonii. A company may claim they are selling a hoodia diet pill that contains 500mg of authentic hoodia gordonii, and while they may have a CITES certificate for the supply they purchased, they may not use a full 500mg in each capsule! They may only use 250mg or 150mg or whatever may be the case.

I hope you now see what the CITES certificate is, and what it isn’t. Now that you know the role of the CITES certificate in helping you identify pure hoodia gordonii, you can find the hoodia products that are authentic.