Amen to that one Harry!!!
CITES is international however and we can thank the Brits for that one..but not to be outdone it was taken over by Homeland security. Once you run afoul of them it's hard to get a plane ticket as you are put on a no fly list. Putting orchids on the CITES list involved some heavy politics..Read the book Orchid Fever
Here is a reference explaining how difficult it is
CITES and Orchid Exporting
Needless to say a sane person doesn't want to mess with this stuff.. The author of the above article spent 250 hours processing a permit to export orchids from the US. Not uncommon..