The proposed ban, however, has implications that reach far past its stated purpose and is set to be a far-reaching, all-out war on the civil liberties of the American people at large.

I have never smoked a cigarette, nor will I ever choose to partake in the practice due to the health risks associated with cigarettes. However, as an avid cigar and pipe smoker for around two years, I know all too well that government hates tobacco in all its various forms.

This regulation is no exception when it comes to the government trying to destroy the hobby of cigar and pipe smokers.

According to Cigaraficionado.com, the ban would also extend to flavored cigars.

“According to the FDA, the ban on flavored cigarettes inadvertently lead to increased use of flavored cigars.”

“Flavored cigars are quite different than traditional, handmade premium cigars that Cigar Aficionado rates on a regular basis. While this FDA ruling would not affect the premium sector directly, several companies that manufacture premium, handmade smokes also produce flavored cigars. Corporations such as Swisher, for example, the parent company of Drew Estate, make the best-selling flavored cigar in America, Swisher Sweets, an inexpensive smoke sold in convenience stores, not fine cigar shops. Drew Estate makes the unflavored Liga Privada and Undercrown brands but also makes the flavored (or infused) brand Acid.

European tobacco giant Scandinavian Tobacco Group would also be affected by the proposed flavor ban. STG not only owns General Cigar Co. and its portfolio of handmade cigars, but also makes flavored cigar and cigarillo brands including Flavours by CAO, Panter and Café Crème.”

As I have pointed out on numerous occasions, the war on tobacco is a horrid example of government overreach, just like the war on drugs. The primary difference is that the war on tobacco doesn’t get a fraction of the amount of press that the war on drugs does.

The problem when it comes to legislation is that legislators lump all forms of tobacco in together when it comes to a proposed bill. What has come to be classified as a premium cigar is made up of three parts, a wrapper, binder, and filler. All three parts are made of tobacco, unlike cigarettes which contain more than 600 ingredients and more than 7,000 chemicals, according to the American Lung Association.

The guise of public health is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors game aimed at restricting the liberty of all smokers. If legislators cared about public health, they would take into consideration the fact that the FDA conducted a study in 2016 that concluded that an individual could consume two premium cigars a day and still not be at an increased risk for lung cancer when compared to non-smokers.

Legislators would also consider the fact that infused cigars such as Drew Estate’s popular “Acid” line are not chemically altered in any way but are naturally infused with botanical oils and extracts after being hung in “aroma rooms” for an extended period of time.

Where the confusion comes in for cigar smokers is the fact that infused cigars do not meet the current legal definition of what is considered a premium cigar in spite of meeting every single requirement except for “having a characterizing flavor that is not tobacco.”

According to Halfwheel.com, a premium cigar is defined as:

• is wrapped in whole tobacco leaf;
• contains a 100 percent leaf tobacco binder;
• contains at least 50 percent (of the filler by weight) long filler tobacco (i.e., whole tobacco leaves that run the length of the cigar);
• is handmade or hand rolled (i.e., no machinery was used apart from simple tools, such as scissors to cut the tobacco prior to rolling);
• has no filter, nontobacco tip, or nontobacco mouthpiece;
• does not have a characterizing flavor other than tobacco;
• contains only tobacco, water, and vegetable gum with no other ingredients or additives
• weighs more than 6 pounds per 1,000 units.

As it sits, I could also see this ban easily making it’s way into attempting to ban aromatic pipe tobaccos, which are blends with an added flavor casing intended to complement the natural flavors of the blend. Just like with infused cigars, the process does not add any extra chemicals to the tobacco.

It remains unclear what the future holds for the cigar or pipe, but I am sure there will be many lawsuits as the ban is yet another attack on the cigar industry.

The current administration should also be called out for its soft racism as it will disproportionately target black Americans, who, according to the FDA’s own statistics, consume menthol cigarettes more than any other ethnic group (85.5%). NBC.com reported that the ban would not seek to target black Americans for smoking menthols, but rather the manufacture of menthol cigarettes.

I don’t buy this. Remember, we are talking about politicians who have played an active role in passing and carrying out laws that have made black and brown people targets. Remember Eric Garner, who was killed by police simply for selling loose cigarettes? If we allow the FDA to get away with this ban, we can expect to see many more cases of innocent people killed or jailed simply for trying to enjoy a little smoke in whatever form they see fit.

As a lover of the leaf, I call on my brothers and sisters in the cigar and pipe communities, as well as all my fellow countrymen, to rise up and oppose this ban on menthol cigarettes and infused cigars, because once they have effectively destroyed our hobby, they will come for all of the other liberties that were supposed to be protected by our Constitution.

Whether you realize it or not, the cigar smoker is on the front lines in the battle against government overreach. If we allow the government to win this battle, you can bet our other freedoms may dissipate quicker than my cigar smoke.

The post First, They Came for the Cigarettes. Then, They Came for the Cigars. appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Over the holidays the Trump administration raised the legal age to buy tobacco and nicotine vaping products from 18 to 21. It also took the opportunity to micromanage the flavors companies like Juul can provide. Menthol is in, mango is out.

It’s laughable to think a rule meant to apply to thousands of shops nationwide that can’t all be monitored will prevent any 18-year-old from finding a coveted pack of Parliaments. Our track record of keeping banned products people want out of their hands is abysmal. But with enough enforcement, it would be hard to argue that raising the smoking age wouldn’t prevent at least some young people from picking up the habit, and ultimately save lives.

A 2015 report commissioned by the National Academy of Medicine and touted by the American Lung Association in its efforts to raise the age nationally “revealed that ‘Tobacco 21” could prevent 223,000 deaths among people born between 2000 and 2019. While empirical projections like these are notoriously sensitive to the biases and assumptions every researcher brings to the table, numbers even a fraction of this size cannot just be ignored.

This is a gut-check moment for those of us, including myself, who believe that government bans and minimum ages are virtually never the right approach to society’s ills. We can parse the above report’s methodology and likely find the number of lives saved is overstated. We can point out the inevitability that such a move will have unforeseen and unintended consequences–look no further than the current heroin epidemic fueled in part by the government’s crackdown on prescription narcotics for an even more tragic recent example. Finally, we can point to prohibition and the war on drugs as nearly unassailable proof that bans do not work.

These arguments are important and correct, but in making them all we’ve done is preserve the right of 20-year-olds to smoke. The deeper truth is that a healthy society doesn’t have questions of public health or morality dictated to it by government or other large institutions. Rather, it places trust in parents and young adults to make these decisions for themselves. From these millions of decisions emerge shared cultural and moral standards far more robust than rules that are inevitably broken.

What Would Adam Smith Do?

If that sounds a bit like the difference between a market economy and central planning, it should. As many readers will likely know, the same enlightened Scotsman both celebrated and vilified for championing an economy arising from individual freedom spent the early part of his career investigating morality in much the same way.

Adam Smith first published his Theory of Moral Sentiments seventeen years before The Wealth of Nations, at a time when few would have even thought to question that mankind was given morality from on high–God, clergy, king and aristocracy. But as is evident in both his major works, Smith was one of those rare scholars who understood that when millions of people think and act on their own, the whole is different and vastly greater than the sum of its parts.

Anyone unfamiliar with Smith’s earlier masterpiece can find ample synopses as well as the man’s own words in abundance online. For our purposes, suffice it to say that Smith identified our ability to care about both our own self-interest and the interest of others, the latter of which he called sympathy but is today closer to our concept of empathy. Smith also surmised that people could step back and view the actions of themselves and others through the lens of an imagined impartial observer. Through empathy, learning, and millions of ongoing human interactions, morality emerges and evolves.

But what happens when rules are imposed from on high? In a recent piece on a seemingly very different topic, Jeffrey Tucker identified several examples in industry where rules imposed from the top stifled the creativity and vigilance of companies which had every reason to provide safe and high-quality products and services. This is simple human psychology–if you know what you’re going to be told to do, it’s often easier to just do it and expend your limited mental bandwidth on something else.

This would appear to fit perfectly into Smith’s moral framework. Relieved of the “burden” of deciding between right and wrong by government and church, the process that requires each person thinking for themselves would grind to a halt.

Cigarettes and Sentiments

What does this digression, almost worthy of Smith himself, have to say about smoking? I believe it says we’ve been asking the wrong question all along. Rather than comparing the incremental costs and benefits of raising the smoking age, what if we consider a world with no smoking age at all?

At first this sounds unfathomable. But let’s recall Milton Friedman’s famous observation that “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” I see a corollary to Friedman’s idea here–it’s a mistake to judge government policy as an expression of society’s values rather than by its efficacy. People recoil at this suggestion because they feel somehow as though we’re endorsing a six-year old picking up a carton of Newports on the way home from school. That’s ridiculous, but let’s look at the more realistic dilemma of how striking the smoking age from the books would impact teens.

With no smoking age on the books, Smith’s process could much more fully kick in. Instead of shopkeepers asking “will I get caught selling cigarettes to teenagers?” the relevant question becomes “should I sell cigarettes to teenagers?” On the consumer side moral responsibility also accompanies choice. Groups of kids whose default behavior may be scheming to get ahold of cigarettes now lose this rebellious endeavor and along with at least involved parents have vastly greater agency.

Many will say that this approach benefits teens with attentive parents, likely to be prosperous and educated, while leaving the poor out on a cigarette break in the cold. But bodegas in poor neighborhoods are exactly the places law enforcement are likely to ignore, at least for a petty crime like selling cigarettes to minors. Putting that moral responsibility on shopkeeper, teen, and parent could be more effective.

We see examples of nearly this exact phenomenon in history. Around the turn of the twentieth century, there were no laws against pharmacists selling products containing cocaine. This wasn’t for lack of public apprehension–the drug was already being sensationalized in the press as a substance that would whip black men into dangerous frenzies, a playbook repeated all too often.

But concerns over cocaine caused many pharmacists to simply not sell this lucrative product. One journalist claimed that of twenty pharmacists approached, only one was willing to sell the drug, the other druggists providing “the curt rejoinder, ‘No you can’t buy that rotten stuff here.’”

On the consumer side we see similar results that while at first appearing counterintuitive make sense in light of Smith’s framework. Take, for example, the often repeated idea that European countries with lower drinking ages, if any at all, seem to struggle less with binge drinking by young people. This is casual empiricism without a doubt, but one sees its plausibility. Individuals with agency over such decisions and the ability to learn from and react to each other often yield spontaneous outcomes we would initially think impossible.

There’s a telling moment in the 2015 National Academy of Medicine report when the authors argue that while more lives would be saved by further raising the smoking age from 21 to 25, the returns would diminish quickly. The mechanism proposed by the authors is plausible–it’s less the twentysomethings’ futures at stake as teens, who are far more likely to receive cigarettes bought by 18-21 year olds than those over 21. But the observation is clearly a preemptive strike against a sort of unraveling I noted on Twitter with a good bit of sarcasm and more than a little anger.

Just like any age, 21 is arbitrary. At some point, without an all-out war on tobacco, we must allow people to make potentially life-threatening choices. And that’s where Smith’s framework most importantly informs this debate. Individuals and their friends and families, older siblings and mentors all have just a little bit of knowledge about what makes sense for any given person.

The process of discovering each individual’s best balance between instant gratification and health risks down the road is messy. Smith’s critics, as they do in his economics treatise, falsely assume he ascribes super human rationality to his subjects. That only came later when future generations tried to fully mathematize the work of the classical economists.

There is no magic bullet. Whether government-mandated or left in the hands of individuals, tobacco use will lead some to tragic consequences. Kids will get cigarettes either way, and adults will try and fail to stop. In this scenario of no good choices, the course that encourages responsibility and humanity seems like something we might want to try.

Max Gulker

This article is republished with permission from the American Institute for Economic Research.

Image: Valentin Ottone

The post What If There Was No Legal Smoking Age? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

[Missouri Is Fighting Alone Against Drug Monitoring (And Why The Entire USA Should Thank Them)]

Although not a new problem in our society, drug overdose seems to have received a lot more attention since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, with state governments scrambling to come up with viable solutions to curb what is being called an opioid epidemic. Their strongest push for creating a government-related program to fix a government-related problem comes in the form of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP). These programs promise to help prevent drug-related deaths by somehow curbing drug addiction – a feat not yet achieved despite decades of government intervention.

These attempts by governments to thwart addiction will continue to fail, as they have ever since New York implemented the first PDMP in 1918. If you think I sound overly sure of myself in making this claim, rest assured there is good reason – I am a recovering addict. On December 21, 2019, I celebrated 13 years being clean. This anniversary was especially momentous because it marked more years being clean than the years I spent in active addiction.

My experience with addiction comes not from studying from afar and in textbooks, but from firsthand experience dealing with my own addiction as well as my interactions with fellow addicts. The following is what I consider to be the top four reasons PDMP can’t battle addiction.

1. Chemical Dependence Does Not Equal Addiction

Conflating chemical dependence with drug addiction is, in my opinion, the most common misstep advocates of PDMP continue to make. You can find myriad sources stating that chemical dependency is the same as substance abuse; however, I would argue that is a misunderstanding.

There are many medical reasons why a person may develop a chemical dependence to a regimen of drugs. A common example is management of chronic pain which cannot be treated with a medical procedure. Many of these people don’t like their choices for pain management, and are always searching for alternative courses of action to take other than being chemically dependent on a substance. I would not call an individual in this situation an addict. After all, an addict would justify their drug use with medical necessity (among other reasons) rather than search for alternatives to substance use.

Another medical reason is a circumstance one of my own family members went through: treatable physical injury. Suffering from multiple degree burns in a house fire, this family member underwent several stages of treatment in the hospital – skin grafts to repair areas of their body too damaged to heal, followed with inpatient monitoring while the healing process ran its course. They were in severe pain the entire time, and pain management was required for the months they remained in the hospital.

This family member developed a chemical dependence on demerol, the drug chosen for pain management as they healed. A final stage of weaning off the drug was needed before treatment was complete, which was also done in the hospital under supervision. Sadly, this weaning process is more often not done in an inpatient setting, and this lack of medical supervision is where this form of chemical dependency can progress to substance abuse.

Herein lies a key difference, in my experience, between chemical dependence and addiction. Chemical dependence to drugs like Doxycycline 100mg seems to largely stem from medical necessity, whereas drug abuse and addiction, for the most part, does not have its origins with a physical medical purpose. PDMP laws are unable to acknowledge this distinction. They can only view all individuals in the same light. This is a disservice to medical patients and addicts alike, and it can push both away from safe medical treatment.

2. Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Dual diagnosis is a term describing a person with both a mental illness and a drug abuse problem. A preexisting mental illness, if left untreated, can lead to drug and alcohol addiction, and addiction can manifest a mental illness. In these situations, an addict needs to overcome their addiction and may need to be prescribed medication to treat the symptoms of their mental illness, which is a conundrum in itself without being exacerbated by government controls.

In a recent paper, researchers shed some light on how these individuals fall through the cracks of the US healthcare system, due in large part to drug policy and programs focusing on criminalization and incarceration rather than treatment. PDMP  is one such program which enables law enforcement in this endeavor, leaving these people untreated for both their addiction and their mental illness.

3. The Drug Of Choice Fallacy

Proponents of PDMP  also fall prey to another misunderstanding of addiction when advocating for these laws; the fallacy that addicts are addicts because of the drugs they use. Nearly every argument favoring PDMP I’ve encountered asserts that drug monitoring is effective in fighting addiction because it can be used to limit or restrict access to an abuser’s “drug of choice.” I can assure you, when in active addiction, I had no “drug of choice.” There were certain drugs I preferred, but I would have settled for whatever I could acquire soonest or easiest.

For an addict, the substance used is not as important as the craving to appease our addiction. I have known plenty of recovering drug like Accutane addicts who relapsed on alcohol, and even substances that aren’t considered drugs. I can relapse with what I can find in a grocery store, hardware store, gas station, or on the street corner. PDMP can’t do anything to address that. In fact, the very nature of this law will drive an addict to riskier, more dangerous substances.

4. Addiction Recovery Is Voluntary

This is going to be the hardest pill for drug control advocates to swallow. Seeking recovery from addiction is a voluntary choice. An addict cannot be compelled to quit. This renders legislators’ attempts to force addicts clean through required treatment and drug restriction by PDMP ineffective.

Nothing exemplifies this truth more plainly than the success of voluntary recovery programs. For more than half a century, a smattering of anonymous 12-step support groups have aided more people in recovery from addiction than all the government funded programs to date. Countless millions worldwide find solace from private community organizations, churches, and institutions that don’t even actively recruit. Just letting people know they are there is enough to attract those in need on a voluntary basis.

Perhaps that is part of the reason legislators think they need to compel individuals – so they can legitimize an ever-encroaching government co-opting what society can handle on its own when given the chance. Addicts don’t need government programs to hinder them. They need government out of the way so they can succeed.

The post Why Prescription Drug Monitoring Can’t Battle Addiction: An Addict’s Perspective appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed a bill on Friday that now makes it illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to buy or use tobacco products and electronic cigarettes.

The new state law dictates that violations would be a Class C misdemeanor and could impose a fine up to $500.00. The law does not apply to individuals serving in the U.S military as long as they provide the proper military ID. If the proper identification is not provided, a fine of $100.00 can be imposed on the intended buyer.

The passing of this bill makes Texas the 15th state to raise their minimum smoking age to 21, joining 14 other states including California, New Jersey, and Vermont, according to Texasscorecard.com.

The bill passed the Texas House of Representatives with bipartisan support, receiving 111 yeas and only 37 nays. In the state senate, the bill had the support of all but one lone Democrat, and was opposed by all but seven Republican state senators according to Texasscorecard.com.

The supporters of SB 21 say they are in favor of the bill because they claim it will save lives, saying that 95% of smokers start before age 21, and three-fourths of adult smokers try their first cigarette before their 18th birthday, according to CBSAusin.com.

“I want to thank Sen. Huffman for passing this important legislation for the children of Texas. Senate Bill 21 will save lives and is an investment in Texas’ future. Increasing the age to purchase tobacco products in Texas to 21 will not only improve public health and save countless lives, it will save Texans billions of dollars in health care costs.”, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Pat Fallon, a Republican state senator who voted against the bill, offered a dissenting opinion to Lt. Gov. Patrick as he told Texasscorecard.com in a statement criticizing the bill for being inconsistent with the rule of law.

“Nearly 50 years ago, we decided as a society that the age of consent was 18. A young person is a legal adult upon their 18th birthday. To now say that it will be unlawful for adults in Texas to make a choice to use a legal product seems terribly inconsistent. I personally don’t use tobacco products in any form and never have. I do not encourage tobacco use and I personally abhor it. But it’s not for me to decide and make life choices for other legally recognized adults.”

The law will take effect on September 1, 2019.

If we can learn two things here, it’s that big government is quick to infringe upon individual liberty in the name of safety, and big government has declared a very real war on tobacco products.

The post Nanny State: Texas Raises Smoking Age to 21 [VIDEO] appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

As it happens on most every Memorial Day, the beaches are sure to soon be filled with families covered in sunscreen and lying under umbrellas—that is, unless federal regulators have their way. Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Warner (D-VA) are calling on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to recall umbrellas they feel are… dangerous. And the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering broadening regulations of sunscreen that would propel prices even higher than they are now. It seems politicians really don’t know how to relax.

Of Umbrella-Related Injuries

As families load up their cars to head to the beach, parents will inevitably remind children of the hazards that come along with the sand and sea. Kids should be careful not to step on broken glass or a family of crabs. Swimmers should be especially cautious about getting carried out in a riptide and unwittingly playing out the plot of Jaws.

For some reason, however, the prospect of a beach umbrella being untethered from the sand and impaling beachgoers is something that keeps lawmakers up at night. Sens. Menendez and Warner wrote to the CPSC that

a burst of wind can make these summer accessories harmful to those around them…Over the last several years, reports of horrific injuries resulting from beach umbrellas have splashed across the media.

They cite CPSC data showing around 3,000 injuries a year from umbrellas, though, they admit, there’s no way of telling what kind of umbrellas these are: patio or beach.

Regardless of where they occur, these umbrella-related injuries are negligible when considering the sheer number of people who use beach umbrellas every year. Even assuming that all of these injuries were at the beach, the chance of getting impaled by a flying umbrella is still probably lower than getting injured on the drive to the shore.

Even if the CPSC listened to these dull lawmakers pushing for duller regulations, it doesn’t mean the “problem” would go away. To rid umbrellas of their pointed ends would be to make them even more likely to become untethered, battering into unsuspecting guests.

If beach umbrellas become less reliable, at least loungers can rely on a strong grade of sunscreen to protect them against harmful rays—FDA permitting.

But even that could soon be limited. The agency proposed a rule in February that would update labeling requirements, including a notification “for sunscreens that have not been shown to help prevent skin cancer.” The FDA is also examining the safety of ingredients that go into products, requesting piles of data from the companies that produce sunscreen.

The Real Danger: Needless Red Tape

While examining safety is an integral part of the FDA’s mission, wading into effectiveness testing and labeling would repeat what the market already does but with significant added costs. Consumer Reports, for instance, has investigated dozens of sunscreens and loudly called out those that fail to live up to their SPF claims.

No company wants to be embarrassed by a Consumer Reports exposé, which is why the majority of sunscreens meet the claims on their labels. Every year, more sunscreens vie for the attention of reporters and popular magazines, leading to an increased pile of resources that inform consumers about which products are the most effective.

This Memorial Day, regulators across the federal government must resist calls to cordon off the beach in a thicket of needless red tape. Beach umbrellas and sunscreen give millions of vacationers peace of mind when venturing out onto the sand, and needless rules would just get in the way of a fun, safe time. Bureaucrats need to resist the riptide of ridiculous regulations and focus on some of the things that could actually use their attention.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Photo by Ralph Daily

The post This Memorial Day, Lawmakers Seek to Protect Americans from Beach Umbrellas appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

by Aya Katz

What is the law for? Is it to help us against outsiders who intrude on our property, interfere with our rights, molest our children and threaten our bodily safety? Or is the law there to see to it that we are good parents, take good care of our property and feed our animals? Today, it’s much more about babysitting us as parents of our own children and owners of own our animals than it is about protecting us from strangers who seek to do us harm.

Last night, a prisoner escaped from a local county jail. A door was left ajar, and he went out barefoot. The man stands accused of first-degree murder. He stole a truck, and there was a rifle in it. He was spotted about five miles from my house. My daughter was working late, and she had to drive home through a swarm of police cars.

My cell phone went off that night with an annoying buzz. You would think it would have been about the escaped accused murderer, to warn us all to arm ourselves and be on the alert. But no; it was an Amber alert about how in some other county, a mother picked up her own children in what was described as a “parental abduction.”

This morning, the accused murderer is still on the loose, but you can rest assured that the mother of the seven and nine year old was apprehended and her children are “safe.”

I have long since stopped paying attention to Amber alerts, because more often than not, they represent domestic disputes, and nobody is really in danger, except from the authorities, who might escalate what is a fight between co-parents about custody into something really dangerous.

Yes, I know, some parents do harm their children. And all parents at one point or another make mistakes, mistakes that can impact their children’s lives. That, however, is not what the State is for. It is not to stand between a mother and her child, and to pass judgment on exactly what sorts of decisions she makes about how to raise her children. An abduction of a child is a terrible thing when done by a complete stranger who has no bond with the child. But by sounding these Amber alerts for every domestic dispute, we end up dulling our sense of real danger.

The State is not there to protect us from our own family. The State should not undertake to determine whether the treatment we dole out to our animals is sufficiently humane. If we make a mistake in these matters, it is we ourselves who suffer, because we are hurting what belongs to us and what is dear to us. The only place where the State should step in is where one individual threatens the rights of another.

Why was there no alert to let me know an armed prisoner was loose in my area? Why was it so important that I be aware about that unfortunate mother who picked up her children much further away? Is it because the nanny state has no sense of proportion? Is it because we are expected to root for the removal of children from their parents’ custody while looking the other way when violent prisoners escape? Or is it because it is easier to go after a mother than a murderer?

The post There’s One Serious Problem with Amber Alerts as they Work Now appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

A “Back To The Future” sequel likely won’t be coming out of New York City, after the perennial nanny state moved to make hover boards illegal Wednesday.

Police in New York City now consider the self-balancing scooters, which aren’t exactly hover boards but have taken on the popular name, as motor vehicles, the Daily Mail reports.

A spokesman for the New York City Police Department told the Mail that since the hoverboards cannot be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles, they are already prohibited by law.

According to CNN, the first hover board violation will come with just a warning, but the second violation will cost a rider $50. After that, fines can reach $500.

Hover boards became a popular novelty item over the past year, after several celebrities were seen riding them at events and on social media.

The hover boards can cost anywhere from $200 to $2,000 and come in a variety of colors and styles. Currently, a hover board is the number one seller on Amazon.com’s Sports and Outdoors section.

In October, British authorities banned the hover boards, too, citing a similar traffic law. British police said the boards could only be used on private land because they do not meet the requirements for use on roads.

Follow Josh on Twitter

The post Nanny State New York BANS Hover Boards appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

For the people of Montgomery County, their home might soon not be their castle.

Council President George L. Leventhal (D-At Large) is sponsoring a bill that would ban the use of cosmetic pesticides used to keep lawns looking their best. He’s being backed by a coalition of environmental activists, public health experts, and parents.

They claim that pesticide exposure to young people places them at higher risk for cancer and other diseases.

From the Washington Post:

Health and environmental issues have been a legislative touchstone for the council in recent years. It has banned trans fats andpolystyrene containers from county restaurants and has imposed a nickel tax on plastic shopping bags that can clog streams. Last week, Montgomery became the region’s first locality to outlaw e-cigaretteswherever traditional tobacco smoking is also prohibited.

Leventhal, serving his fourth term with an eye on the 2018 county executive’s race, has come to embody the council’s regulatory zeal. Also winning passage last week was his bill banning pet stores from selling kittens or puppies from “mills” — even though there are no such stores in the county’s jurisdiction.

The proposal has irked homeowners associations because the ban can potentially affect property values.

Paul Jarosinski, president of the Cherrywood Homeowners Association in Olney, “We don’t want any more bad-looking properties in the neighborhood.”

Dean Graves, one of the residents of Darnestown, told the council that if the bill passed as it was written, that there would essentially no longer be any private property in Montgomery County.

The story in the Washington Post goes on to say:

Similar laws are more broadly used in Canada, where the province of Ontario adopted a cosmetic pesticide ban several years ago. But a British Columbia government panel concluded in 2012 that the scientific evidence did not warrant such a change in regulations.

The bill, opponents argue, would add a superfluous layer of regulation to products already carefully tested by the Environmental Protection Agency and overseen by the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Carol Holko, assistant secretary of agriculture, said the state’s program “is active and it is effective.”

“Clearly it’s an overreach,” said Jarosinski. “Are you trying to tell me these people [council members] have expertise that the state and federal government don’t have?”

Pesticide regulation is supposed to be State and Federal domain. Maryland however, allows localities to pass laws of their own.

Mr. Jarosinski however, is absolutely correct, this is clearly nothing more than government overreach. Another attempt by progressives and environmentalists to shape human behavior and opinion through government mandate. Another council member Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) said just as much. She said: “We can’t enforce a lot of these laws, but if they help change human behavior…”

These pesticides are heavily scrutinized by scientists and health officials, and they must pass rigorous testing before being allowed on the market. Cathy Milbourn, an EPA spokesperson, said that hundreds of different scientific studies must be presented before they approve a pesticide.

So if the vast majority of the scientific data shows there is no health or environmental concerns associated with cosmetic pesticides, why the push for the ban?

In my estimation the answer is simple, conformity.

This isn’t about health concerns, this is about a group of legislators and environmentalists that don’t approve of individuals having the option to make their own decisions.

The Nanny State tries to control what we eat, what and where we can smoke, whether we can feed the homeless, whether we can collect rain water, how we handle our trash, and now they want to get their hands on our lawns.

They would prefer everyone think as they do, but if you can’t convince people, well, then force them.

The post Local Tyranny: City Council Trying To Stop Homeowner From Beautifying Lawn appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Nevada Assembly Bill 123 “prohibits certain pedestrians from manually typing or entering text into a cellular telephone or other handheld wireless communications device while crossing a highway.”

Obviously the bill, proposed by Assemblyman Harvey Munford D-Las Vegas, is rooted in good intentions. But is it really the government’s job to “save us” from ourselves? Politicians do boneheaded things all the time, and they would balk at the notion of voters trying to pass a law to keep them in line.

Also, a ban on texting while crossing the street would be like a the government’s version of a gateway drug. First it’s the highway, then it’s no texting while walking in your own neighborhood, and eventually it’s no texting while checking the mailbox.

And just when you start to believe that saying, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” be warned that this nanny state mentality could spread nationwide. In fact, the Nevada bill was inspired by a similar one in Fort Lee, N.J.

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Another victim of this ban? Pitchers of soda. That means for kids, big and small, no soda pitchers at your upcoming birthday bash. But if it means that much to you, you could always look for a venue that’s BYOS since large sodas are still available for purchase in grocery stores. Or you could have your birthday outside of New York City, right? Maybe not. Bloomberg is urging that the entire state of New York adopt his approach to outlawing large sodas. Why? Because the state regulates grocery stores and Bloomberg wants all facilities (restaurants and stores) to have the inability to sell oversized sugary drinks.

What’s ironic about the ban, though, is that alcohol and diet drinks aren’t included. Not that I’m calling for more regulation, but haven’t there been studies that show diet drinks and alcohol can have negative health affects, too?

Bloomberg told the New York Post that the soda ban’s purpose is to “save the lives of these kids.” But isn’t that a parent’s job? Why should the state become the paternal role in a child’s nutritional choices? Forgive the nostalgia for a moment, but what if I want my kid to have the same, fond memories I did of having a birthday at a skating rink or a bowling alley with yummy slice and some soda? Shouldn’t that be my choice?

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