Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/14/alabama-bans-lab-grown-meat-following-floridas-example.html
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Of course. Everyone knows that lab-grown meat causes zombies. /s
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If you’re trying to evaluate if your course of action is ill-advised, think: can it be described as “following Florida’s example”? If so, stop, and do the opposite.
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The party of the “Free Market” 
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This law would permit research and development in Alabama. It just wouldn’t allow the manufacture or sale. Since, as you said, these products are many years away from commercial viability, this law does nothing. It’s just more grist for the culture war mill.
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This, exactly. Banning something that does not exist on the basis of “woke,” “trigger the libs,” “trash the environment” bullshit is just low-hanging fruit for the MAGAt culture warriors. Means nothing, does nothing, gets likes from the know-nothing base.
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It might be splitting hairs a bit, but there has been some lab-grown meat approved for sale already by the USDA and the FDA but… it only covers the sale of lab-grown chicken by two companies at a handful of restaurants (not direct to consumer or retail). Still, it seems like it could become a thing, especially once companies figure out how to manufacture at a large scale.
Aside from that though, it’s another intrusion by states into federal jurisdiction, isn’t it? Is there even precedent for states being able to regulate food products?
And beyond that, there seems to be a pretty basic attack on personal freedoms here. IANAL, but the very act of banning something that has been deemed safe seems unconstitutional.
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Between this and the various Attorneys-General falling over themselves to fight Elon Musk’s legal battles for him on the taxpayer dime, it seems as if the overt capture of state governments by corporate interests is even further along than we thought.
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what exactly is the issue with lab grown meat? Do they just wish they could outlaw meat alternatives like veggie patties? but it’s too late for that already?
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Near as I can tell it is just trying to impose protections on the cattle/livestock industries instead of letting them go the way of buggy whip manufacturers.
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For now. But if they’ve shown a willingness to take this first step, why would you risk them taking that next step to ban R&D as well after you spent the money to set up an R&D lab in Alabama? There are other places that haven’t taken that first step that would be more than willing to take your R&D money.
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Basically this, from what my searching has found. Just like you will hear in a few months all the support to not have coal miners losing their jobs, despite there only being about 26,000 in the US. And all the farming and oil subsidies.
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I hope some rancher decides to rename his ranch “The Meat Lab.”
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Sure, but that wasn’t my point. My point was just that this law doesn’t actually do anything other than feed the culture wars.
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I was reading an investigation into the current state of the technology that came out very recently, and it really poured cold water on the whole thing. Apparently the companies jumping into this have promised the moon, but really aren’t anywhere close to being ready (and might never be) - turns out the further into it they get, they realize how hard a problem it is to crack. They’ve gotten a lot of investments, but the money’s running out now, with nothing to show for it. There have specifically been a number of companies rolling out “limited” restaurant production, but they have either just been empty hype that never materialized, and/or the actual product is 90-something percent soy and other vegetable product with a scattering of cultured tissue slurry mixed in that tastes just like other plant-based meat substitutes. It’s not going to go commercial any time soon, and in fact it’s looking like, without some huge breakthrough, it might never happen.
So all these laws banning it are like outlawing unicorns.
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here’s an unpopular take:
alabama bans “lab grown meat” to protect the frozen embrionic “persons” that they have also disingenuously created with similarly unsupported arguments.
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Legally is there a difference between producing meat on a small scale as part of R&D and “manufacturing” meat? Research couldn’t get anywhere without producing meat, so surely research is effectively forbidden.
Courts usually interpret such language pretty literally, based on common usage. I don’t think research and development would be the same thing as manufacturing.
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Kinda like commercially viable nuclear fusion, but meat.
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