[Warning: I’m not a lawyer.] As people answered it mostly for USA, I gave it a check for other countries.
For both Italian law (article 640 of the Penal Code) and Brazilian law (the famous article 171 of the Penal Code), this behaviour falls neatly into fraud laws, and leads to a few years of reclusion. I couldn’t find any law specifically for selling it as if it was a drug though.
For Portugal I actually found a paper about the topic. It claims that it isn’t a crime per se, but it’s usually filled under other crimes, and the paper proposes the creation of specific laws against it. [EDIT: as AdNecrias correctly highlights, this is a sci paper, not legislation.]
I kind of expect other countries and their legal systems to be the same in this regard. It’s simply not a pressing issue.
[Warning: I’m not a lawyer.] As people answered it mostly for USA, I gave it a check for other countries.
For both Italian law (article 640 of the Penal Code) and Brazilian law (the famous article 171 of the Penal Code), this behaviour falls neatly into fraud laws, and leads to a few years of reclusion. I couldn’t find any law specifically for selling it as if it was a drug though.
For Portugal I actually found a paper about the topic. It claims that it isn’t a crime per se, but it’s usually filled under other crimes, and the paper proposes the creation of specific laws against it. [EDIT: as AdNecrias correctly highlights, this is a sci paper, not legislation.]
I kind of expect other countries and their legal systems to be the same in this regard. It’s simply not a pressing issue.