I can confirm it s readily available in France and therefore is probably legal nowadays However I found this Pubmed article from 2001 which says why it s not legal in France The short of it is that it is produced from sarcosine which might originate from cow and the fear of the so called mad cow disease which was then very much of a concern together with that some contaminants namely dicyandiamide dihydrotriazines creatinine ions are or might be formed during the production process I haven t yet made further investigations I put that here for what it is worth