Tag: nanny state

Drunks WON’T be able to get into driverless cars after a boozy evening: Ministers dash hopes of the futuristic vehicles acting as chauffeurs following a heavy night

Driverless cars promise motorists hands-off journeys, which many have hoped might allow for a couple more pints at the pub before travelling home.

But those planning to use their autonomous vehicle as a personal taxi service should beware, with the government announcing legislation to make sure it is treated like drink driving.

Being over the limit, going on your phone or having a nap behind the wheel of the futuristic cars will be illegal, according to documents published alongside the Automated Vehicles Bill which was announced in this week’s King’s Speech.

The Law Commission has already drawn up a draft proposal for legislation around the legal use of driverless cars and vehicles on Britain’s roads. 

Motorists must ‘remain in a fit state to drive’ while their car is on the road, and there must be a ‘user in charge’ who is able to take control if the self-driving system requests for them to do so.

Drivers will still need to be sat in the front seat and have a driving licence to operate their vehicles, and failing to do so could open them up to prosecution.

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Rishi Sunak unveils crackdown on ‘worrying’ child vaping epidemic and announces kids aged 14 and under will NEVER be able to buy cigarettes under new ban

Rishi Sunak today unveiled bold plans to stamp out the child vaping epidemic and ban kids aged 14 and under from ever legally being able to buy cigarettes. 

The proposed law will annually raise the age of legal purchase of tobacco from the current 18 by one additional year every 12 months.

It will see England follow in the footsteps of New Zealand, which last year adopted the same policy for everyone born after 2009. Under the Prime Minister’s proposed plan, the Government will stick to the same age threshold.

Thinktanks and smoking rights groups reacted with anger to the ban, labelling it as ‘hideously illiberal and unconservative’.

However, health groups and cancer charities lauded the announcement and said it would save thousands of lives from cancer.  

The PM also announced a crackdown on vaping amongst children promising to look at banning child-friendly flavours and packaging that encourage kids to pick up the habit. Disposable devices are also in the firing line.

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Sales Data Indicate That Restrictions on Flavored Vaping Products Encourage Smoking

Legal restrictions on the flavors of nicotine vaping products are associated with increased cigarette purchases, according to a new paper that analyzes retail sales data from 44 states. For each fewer 0.7-milliliter nicotine pod sold in jurisdictions with such policies, the analysis found, consumers bought 15 more cigarettes. “That tradeoff,” the authors note, “equates to over a pack more cigarettes per pod for the size of current leading products” such as the Vuse Alto, which uses 1.8-milliliter pods.

The substitution effect identified by this study underlines the folly of trying to protect public health by deterring the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), which are far less hazardous than combustible cigarettes. “We find that ENDS flavor policies reduce flavored ENDS sales as intended, but also increase cigarette sales across age groups,” Yale public health researcher Abigail Friedman and her collaborators report. “As cigarettes are much more lethal than ENDS, the high rate of substitution estimated here suggests that, on net, any population health benefits of ENDS flavor policies are likely small or even negative.”

Friedman et al. identified 15 state and 279 local flavor restrictions that took effect during the study period—January 7, 2018, through March 26, 2023. Those policies included both outright bans on ENDS flavors other than tobacco and laws that limited sales of such products to specialty stores such as vape shops and tobacconists. The study’s sales data came from Information Resources Incorporated, which collects checkout numbers from convenience stores, supermarkets, drug stores, discount stores, and gas stations.

“ENDS sales fall and cigarette sales rise as a greater percentage of state residents is subject to policies restricting flavored ENDS sales,” Friedman et al. report. “Effects are in the same direction for policies prohibiting all ENDS sales (i.e., flavored and unflavored), consistent with substitution.” These effects are “larger in the long-run; that is, for policies in effect a year or longer,” the researchers note. They add that “separating ENDS flavor prohibitions from less restrictive policies limiting flavored ENDS sales to particular types of retailers reveals that both policies yield reductions in ENDS sales and increases in cigarette sales once in effect for at least a year.”

The relationship between reduced ENDS sales and increased cigarette sales, the study found, “holds across cigarette product age profiles, including for brands disproportionately used by underage youth.” Menthol brands accounted for 29 percent of the increase in cigarette sales, while standard cigarettes accounted for 71 percent, which “indicates that the observed substitution response to ENDS flavor policies cannot be attributed to menthol cigarettes’ availability” or “fully counteracted by menthol cigarette sales prohibitions.”

These findings, Friedman et al. note, are consistent with “results from 16 of 18 other studies assessing cigarette use following adoptions of minimum legal sales age laws for ENDS, ENDS tax rate increases, and advertising restrictions.” They are also consistent with prior studies suggesting that ENDS flavor restrictions boost smoking rates. “In other words,” the authors say, “policies making ENDS more expensive, less accessible, or less appealing appear to incentivize substitution towards cigarettes.”

Who could have predicted that? Lots of people, starting with all the ex-smokers who have switched to vaping and overwhelmingly prefer the flavors that politicians portray as an intolerable threat to the youth of America. Savvy tobacco control experts likewise have been warning legislators and regulators for years that policies aimed at discouraging underage vaping could inadvertently lead to more smoking-related diseases and deaths.

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The New Abnormal: Authoritarian Control Freaks Want to Micromanage Our Lives

Authoritarian control freaks out to micromanage our lives have become the new normal or, to be more accurate, the new abnormal when it comes to how the government relates to the citizenry.

This overbearing despotism, which pre-dates the COVID-19 hysteria, is the very definition of a Nanny State, where government representatives (those elected and appointed to work for us) adopt the authoritarian notion that the government knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenry’s public, private and professional lives.

Indeed, it’s a dangerous time for anyone who still clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment.

This tug-of-war for control and sovereignty over our selves impacts almost every aspect of our lives, whether you’re talking about decisions relating to our health, our homes, how we raise our children, what we consume, what we drive, what we wear, how we spend our money, how we protect ourselves and our loved ones, and even who we associate with and what we think.

As Liz Wolfe writes for Reason, “Little things that make people’s lives better, tastier, and less tedious are being cracked down on by big government types in federal and state governments.”

You can’t even buy a stove, a dishwasher, a showerhead, a leaf blower, or a lightbulb anymore without running afoul of the Nanny State.

In this way, under the guise of pseudo-benevolence, the government has meted out this bureaucratic tyranny in such a way as to nullify the inalienable rights of the individual and limit our choices to those few that the government deems safe enough.

Yet limited choice is no choice at all. Likewise, regulated freedom is no freedom at all.

Indeed, as a study by the Cato Institute concludes, for the average American, freedom has declined generally over the past 20 years. As researchers William Ruger and Jason Sorens explain, “We ground our conception of freedom on an individual rights framework. In our view, individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.”

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Tamale Police Lose Their Excuse To Restrict Homemade Meals

Neighbors can host backyard barbecues. Churches and schools can organize potlucks. And sports fans can have tailgate parties. But if anyone tries to sell homemade meals, code enforcers in most states will shut them down. 

Hypothetical worst-case scenarios scare lawmakers, so they block home chefs from using their own kitchens to make money selling anything that requires refrigeration. Homemade pizzas, puddings, and pumpkin pies are off-limits. Even lemonade stands are illegal in some jurisdictions. 

The rationale is simple: Better safe than sorry. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs used this excuse on April 18, 2023, when she vetoed a so-called “tamale bill” that would have created a new source of income for immigrants and other home-based chefs. “This bill would significantly increase the risk of food-borne illness,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter.

It sounds scary. Yet new data from our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, dismantles the narrative. States that allow home chefs to sell perishable foods report no confirmed cases of relevant foodborne illness. Zero. Zilch. Nada. 

To make sure, we inspected public records from states with the fewest restrictions on “cottage food,” which refers to homemade food prepared for sale. The list includes California, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. Most other states and Washington, D.C., limit the cottage food menu to shelf-stable items like cookies and jams. But these seven states go further.  

As champions of food freedom—the right to buy, sell, grow, and advertise locally sourced and prepared foods—they allow home cooks to sell perishable foods that require refrigeration. 

Critics gasp at the boldness, but doomsday predictions about foodborne illness have never materialized. Across the seven states, public records show only two instances of suspected foodborne illness from homemade meals sold under those states’ laws, and neither case was confirmed nor serious. 

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American Lung Association Demands the FDA Mislead the Public About Vaping

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should abandon any efforts to inform the public that vaping is safer than smoking, says the American Lung Association (ALA).  

Numerous public surveys show a consistent, widespread misperception that vaping nicotine is just as or more dangerous than smoking cigarettes. The problem is so extensive that correcting these false beliefs forms part of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) 5-year strategic plan. 

Writing in the journal Addiction, Brian King, the head of CTP, stated: “Opportunities exist to educate adults who smoke cigarettes about the relative risks of tobacco products.” To that end, among the five goals listed as part of CTP’s plan is a commitment to inform the public that not all tobacco products are created equally, with cigarettes being the most dangerous and others, such as e-cigarettes, being far less harmful. 

The pledge to provide accurate information about the risks of different nicotine products is long overdue and in line with the public health communications of peer countries such as Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K. (The U.K. even has vape shops in hospitals, and some smokers are offered free vapes to help them quit.)

But in their comments on CTP’s strategic plan, the ALA, which proclaims its commitment to a world free of lung disease, demands the FDA “remove language from the description for this goal that references informing adults about the relative risk of tobacco products” and that “CTP should have no part in the industry’s efforts to sustain addiction through the failed and flawed notion that adult smokers should switch to e-cigarettes.”

Despite ALA’s protestations, the idea that e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation is not a tobacco industry notion. According to the prestigious Cochrane Review, e-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine patches or gums in helping smokers quit. In essence, the ALA is asking the FDA to withhold accurate information from the public that could save lives. The recommendations sparked strong reactions from those who believe safer alternatives to cigarettes are a no-brainer from a public health perspective.

“This is highly ironic, given the extent to which the Lung Association and other tobacco control organizations went to punish the tobacco industry for lying to the public and hiding critical health information,” writes Michael Siegel, a visiting professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. “It is also unethical because it violates the public health code of ethics, which calls for honesty and transparency in public health communications. We do not hide critical health information from the public.”

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Biden Alcohol Czar Says US May Change Recommendations For How Much Beer Americans Should Drink

A U.S. federal official suggested in a recent interview that Americans may be told by officials that they are recommended to have no more than two alcoholic drinks, or beers, per week.

Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) George Koob told the Daily Mail on Thursday that the United States could follow how Canada handles its alcohol guidelines.

The NIAAA’s guidelines currently recommend males up to age 65 limit themselves to two drinks per day, while women up to age 65 should limit themselves to one. Recommendations published under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans (pdf), which are not mandates or requirements, are slated to be reviewed in 2025.

For the NIAAA’s “heavy” drinking limits, it says that men should drink no more than four per day, and no more than 14 beverages per week. For women, according to the guidelines, they should drink no more than three drinks per day and seven per week.

Meanwhile, Canada’s current guidelines recommend people have only two drinks per week. A drink is defined as containing 0.6 fluid ounces of alcohol, or equivalent to one beer, one glass of wine with 12 percent alcohol, or one shot of hard alcohol.

“If there’s health benefits, I think people will start to re-evaluate where we’re at [in the U.S.],” Mr. Koob told the Daily Mail.

When asked about whether the guidelines would change in 2025, he said that it’s likely officials will not recommend that people drink more per day or week, as compared with the current guidelines.

“I mean, they’re not going to go up, I’m pretty sure,” Mr. Koob said. “So, if [alcohol consumption guidelines] go in any direction, it would be toward Canada.”

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Playground Sign Outlaws ‘Loitering at Slide Entry or Exit’

“Welcome! Play Safe,” reads the sign at a Fairfax County Public School playground in Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The sign also lists a few simple rules—21 of them, by my count.

First off, the playground should never be used when it is frozen. Or wet.

There can be no climbing on things like the safety rails (which are basically just fences). Kids must not wear any clothing with drawstrings, hoods, or toggles while they are playing, because these items could get caught on something. (Ponytails seem grandmothered in.)

On the slide, children must “take turns,” “sit in an upright position,” and “not climb.” There also must be “no loitering at slide entry or exit.”

Loiter not, little ones!

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A Ham-Handed Bill Attacks the First Amendment in the Name of Protecting Minors From Online Harm

Late last month, a Senate committee considered a 50-page bill with a name that includes the word kids and approved it unanimously. Those two facts alone are enough to raise the suspicion that legislators are heading down a winding road toward a destination they only dimly perceive.

That suspicion is amply supported by the text of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which ham-handedly aims to shield children and teenagers from vaguely defined dangers lurking on the internet. The unintended but foreseeable results are apt to include invasions of privacy that compromise First Amendment rights and a chilling impact on constitutionally protected speech, both of which will harm adults as well as the “kids” whom the bill is supposed to protect.

KOSA imposes an amorphous “duty of care” on platforms, online games, messaging applications, and streaming services, demanding “reasonable measures” to “protect” against and “mitigate” various “harms” to users younger than 17. The targeted dangers include anxiety, depression, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, “addiction-like behaviors,” physical violence, online bullying, harassment, sexual exploitation and abuse, “financial harms,” and promotion of “narcotic drugs,” tobacco products, alcohol, or gambling.

That’s a tall order, and it is not at all clear what meeting this obligation would entail. Nor is it clear when the duty of care applies.

As amended by the Senate Commerce Committee, KOSA applies to any “covered platform” that “knows” its users include minors. But no one knows what “knows” means.

In addition to “actual knowledge,” that condition can be satisfied by “knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances.” KOSA directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), within 18 months of the bill’s passage, to issue “guidance” about how to understand the latter phrase.

That guidance, however, would not bind the FTC, which is charged with investigating and penalizing platforms that it thinks have violated KOSA. Nor would it constrain state attorneys general, who would be authorized to independently enforce KOSA through “civil actions.”

An earlier version of KOSA provoked criticism from civil libertarians who warned that it would effectively require platforms to verify users’ ages, which would entail collecting personal information. That was a clear threat to internet users of all ages who want to engage in speech without revealing their identities, a well-established First Amendment right.

In response to that concern, the latest version of KOSA revises the duty-of-care test and explicitly says it does not require “age gating or age verification.” But given the burdens the bill imposes and the uncertainty about what counts as “knowledge fairly implied,” platforms still would have a strong incentive to exclude minors or minimize the number of users who are younger than 17.

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Cigarettes in Canada to be individually labeled with health warnings

Cigarettes will be individually labeled in Canada. The messages, in English and French, include warnings such as “poison in every puff” and “cigarettes cause cancer.”

By July 2024 manufacturers will have to ensure the warnings are on all king-size cigarettes sold, and by April 2025 all regular-size cigarettes and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes must include the warnings. …In May, Health Canada said the new regulations “will make it virtually impossible to avoid health warnings” on tobacco products. …The move is part of Canada’s effort to reduce tobacco use to less than 5% by 2035 and follows a 75-day public consultation period that was launched last year.

Though the prevalence of smoking is vastly reduced since the middle of the 20th Century, about 10% of teens regularly smoke cigarettes, according to the American Lung Association. Canadian cigarette packets already have spectacularly unpleasant warnings featuring photos of diseases caused by smoking.

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