So, it looks as though the FDA is now set to ban the small but growing market for so-called alcohol-energy drinks, such as Four Loko and Joose. CEI wrote about the issue back in May of this year and explained that the move is an arbitrary extension of FDA authority based on irrelevant science at the behest of grandstanding state attorneys general and pro-regulation activist groups.
As food and beverage law expert Baylen Linnekin wrote in a CEI OnPoint, “The agency’s campaign against alcohol energy drinks (AEDs) … is based on research unrelated to AEDs and targets products the FDA should classify as generally recognized as safe. With more than 100 years of historical evidence that consumers can safely consume caffeine and alcohol together, the FDA should not stand in the way of adults’ drink choices.” Most of the scare stories and essentially all of the research on the alleged abuse of caffeine-alcohol drinks are based, not on commercial pre-mixed AEDs, but on self-mixed or bartender-mixed drinks like vodka-and-Red Bull or JaegerBombs (see here, here, here, and here, for example). Nanny State activists are simply extrapolating the findings of this research to pre-mixed AEDs because, as commercial products, they are more susceptible to regulation.
As it turns out, the FDA’s central legal objection to AEDs, and the source of its authority to ban the products, is not merely the mixture of alcohol and caffeine, but the addition of caffeine to nearly any food or beverage at all. Currently, it is legal for the makers of commercial products to add caffeine only to “cola type beverages”, which means that the FDA could use its authority to ban countless other, much more common products, from Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper to an array of popular candies and snacks that currently contain added caffeine. Worse still, one of the lead campaigners against commercial pre-mixed AEDs has also suggested forbidding bartenders from selling their own caffeine and alcohol concoctions, which would wipe out not only vodka and Red Bull mixes but even the popular Rum-and-Coke and Irish coffee.
Of course, it’s easy to single out a small, politically incorrect product class. But it’s pretty clear that young adults aren’t going to stop getting their kicks from the combination of caffeine and alcohol as long as those other products are so freely available. So, the ban on Joose and Four Loko won’t solve any of the alleged problems associated with caffeine’s tendency to mask the intoxicating effects of the alcohol. It is not reasonable to believe that banning AEDs would have any measurable effect on drinking or drunkenness, especially given the ubiquity of self-mixed cocktails combining alcohol and energy drinks. The campaign against AEDs is therefore wasteful and misguided, and our national nanny will simply be removing one beverage option that some consumers seem to enjoy.
As my colleague Michelle Minton put it last week, “Product Bans Are More Dangerous than Four Loko.”
Russia will be banning frozen chicken imports beginning January 1. The reason for the proposed ban? The head of the Russian agency in charge of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare was quoted as saying, “It is an outdated and rough technology, which leads to a loss of many of the useful qualities of meat.”
Some domestic poultry producers in Russia are opposed to the ban, which would allow only chilled chicken to be sold in Russia. Of course, there are some, such as poultry producer and high-level Russian politician, Sergei Lisovsky, who supports the ban but wants it to go even further — to ban all imported chicken. In an interview reported by The Washington Post, Lisovsky said that the only reason imported chicken was allowed was to help Russia get admitted into the World Trade Organization. But then he was quoted as offering this seemingly contradictory argument: “Since we are not a member of WTO, why should we fulfill all these requirements?” he asked. “The quicker we stop fulfilling the WTO requirements, the quicker we’ll be allowed in.” Huh?
?? ????????????? ?? ???, ?????? “Don’t count on it, Sergei.”
Oregon Senators this week have voted down regulations that could have led consumers to less safe, glass baby bottles. Three Democrats in the Senate joined the Republicans to defeat a ban on baby bottles, sippy, cups, and other products made with the chemical Bisphenol A. CEI’s friends at the Cascade Policy Institute provided educational materials (in partnership with CEI) on the science and apparently legislators decided that reason and the facts should prevail over all the hype. And the hype has been significant, as noted here on Open Market: See here, here, and here. This is a tremendously important victory for reason and freedom. Unfortunately, most states are moving in the opposite direction.
In recent years, the San Jose City Hall has led the way in stupid environmental policies. Several years ago, they were among one of the first cities (along with San Francisco and Salt Lake City) to ban bottled water in government agencies based on questionable environmental claims. Now they are banning stores from giving away shopping bags of any kind. Plastic bags will be banned altogether and stores providing paper bags must charge a fee only provide bags made with 40 percent recycled material.
As detailed before, banning plastic bags won’t help the environment because they are more energy efficient than paper and do not pose any significant problems when properly disposed. However, this law also targets paper bags based on the assumption that people either don’t need bags or can bring canvas or other reusable bags. But there are problems with that approach as well: reusable bags can become riddled with dangerous bacteria.
Surely, every choice in life carries risks and benefits. The idea that government regulators–starting in crazy places like San Jose–should be granted the right to trump our freedoms and decide what risks are worth taking is frightening, particularly since they so often mess up. Unfortunately, lawmakers love copying bad ideas. After San Jose and San Francisco banned plastic bottles, many other places followed suit. This time, consumers in other cities would be wise to say “no way” to this silly San Jose nanny-state regulation.
Image attribution: San Jose City Hall taken from ktadeo’s photostream on Flickr.
Usually California’s cast of political characters leads the way in the passage of stupid and counterproductive consumer product regulations. Yet last week, legislative clowns in Minnesota became first in a line of fools on one issue. Minnesota is now the first state to ban baby bottles made with the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). CEI has written on this topic, here, here, here, and here, pointing out that the trace levels of BPA have never been shown to pose a human health hazard during four decades of extensive use in a wide-range of products. It replaced glass baby bottles–which if broken pose real risks.
Such symbolic, yet expensive, bans on baby products have become the modern-day equivalent of candidates kissing babies to get votes. But such bans and regulations are not as innocuous as a cheesy photo-opportunity.
BPA is a very valuable product for making all sorts of products and packaging—providing many public health and other benefits. It makes break-proof containers (such as for baby bottles) and sanitary packaging that keeps our food from becoming exposed to truly dangerous pathogens. For example, it lines many beverage cans and food containers to prevent metals from entering the food and to reduce the potential for bacterial development.
Unfortunately, bans on baby bottles are just the beginning. If regulators phase out BPA, do they know whether the replacements will create new hazards? Surely not—all these lawmakers really know is that it makes politically beneficial press.
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