An unlicensed organization like a food club is not only distributing contraband, but a controlled substance, in the view of a Minnesota prosecutor fighting to prevent dismissal of three misdemeanor food allegations against farmer Alvin Schlangen. In other words, if licenses aren’t purchased and regulators involved, food is no longer just food, it is in the same realm as oxycontin or morphine.
Schlangens lawyer, Nathan Hansen, had petitioned a court in Stearns County to dismiss three of six misdemeanor counts against Schlangen because they are very similar to the three counts a Minneapolis jury acquitted him of last September–relating to illegal sale of raw milk and selling food without a retail license. Hansen labeled the Stearns County campaign against Schlangen serialized prosecution. As evidence of the states intent to charge Schlangen repeatedly for the same alleged crimes, he included a memo from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture about Schangen that listed possible charges against the farmer and stated the violations are chargeable as misdemeanor crimes in Stearns, Hennepin [where Schlangen was acquitted], and Ramsey counties of the state of Minnesota. Hansen used as legal precedent a case in which an individual charged with several acts of reckless driving had multiple cases thrown out because they were part of the same overall incident.
In building on an allusion he made in a court hearing early last month that raw milk was a controlled substance, Stearns County prosecutor, William MacPhail, has expanded his argument, applying it to all unregulated food. He argues in a brief in opposition that the best way to examine Schlangens request is to compare it to crimes involving sex, controlled substances and thefts. MacPhails technical argument is that double jeopardy of the sort prohibited by the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions applies only when a single episode of the same crime is involved. When separate incidents occur at different times and at different places, legal precedent doesnt protect the defendant.
But repeatedly, the prosecutor makes a comparison between food and drugs, pornography, and theft. In drug cases (and situations involving similar contraband as here) generally the possession of two controlled substances at the same time and place is treated as a single incident, he states at one point.
He says later that he has found no cases in which separate controlled substance sales, even if separated by only a short period of time and place, have been held to be part of the same behavioral incident.
And then, The case now before this Court has much more in common with the controlled substance, pornography, and theft cases than the cases dealing with reckless driving.
Finally, MacPhail accuses Schlangen of seeking financial riches from his food club. The defendant had as his sole motive the desire to sell as much contraband food as possible in order to enrich his coffers. As evidence, he points to evidence that Schlangen paid $3 a gallon to his farmer-supplier and charged food club members $6 a gallon. MacPhail, of course, ignores the various expenses Schlangen incurred in obtaining, packaging, and delivering productso much so that he was on the verge of insolvency prior to his trial last fall.
Whats going on here is clearly a revving up of the food polices fear mongering and character assassination in anticipation of a new Alvin Schlangen trial. Its kind of like the Americans traveling in Europe asking directionswhen the locals dont understand whats being said, the Americans simply ask their questions in a louder and louder voice. Will a jury be any more receptive to the prosecutors efforts to turn up the loudspeakers, and start thinking about food as a controlled substance? Doesnt make a lot of sense, unless he thinks he can intimidate Schlangen into doing a plea bargain. Thus far, Schlangen has had ice running through his veins when dealing with prosecutors. I suspect the coolness will prevail, and well see yet another jury trial of the Minnesota farmer.
**
Might Maines prosecution of farmer Dan Brown, as part of an effort to invalidate Food Sovereignty ordinances passed by eight towns in the state, be settled without a trial? There have been reports over the last few weeks of settlement discussions involving the states attorney general and Brown, who milks one cow. A Maine paper that covers several of the towns with such ordinances reports that Brown thought he was close to a settlement of the casevia installation of a rubber mat over his wooden floor milking area and painting his walls white– when the state (surprise!) changed the terms.
According to the paper, Instead of painting the walls and installing a rubber mat on his wooden milking platform, as Brown said he was told in person, the [followup] letter required a cement platform, on cement blocks, cemented to the floor. The letter also stated Brown must assign lot numbers to milk and milk product containers to track which cow the milk came from. We only had one cow at that time, Brown said. Its no one thing thats insurmountable, Brown said. Its all these things [they] are asking me to do. Drip, drip, drip.
**
Interesting publications and postings around:
-Vermont farmer Sharon Zechinnelli, who comments on this blog, has a novel out about food rights, First They Came for the Cows: An Activists Story. Its a fictionalized account about what happens to a farmer after the National Animal Identification (NAIS) program was launched a few years back. The program ostensibly disappeared, only to be resurrected. The book has gotten great reviews at Amazon.
-More on the growing popularity of raw milk–the Carolina Journal had an intriguing article about how residents of North Carolina are seeking out raw milk from Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
-Theres a good rundown of pending state legislative initiatives affecting raw milk around the country, at Food Safety News. Most of the initiatives involve expanding availability of raw milk.
-I have an article in Food Safety News about the sharp decline in foodborne illnesses. Its good news, though, so the U.S. Centers for Disease Control chose to bury the information within a report. Note the comments of denial follwoing the articlethese public health people definitely see half-empty glasses everywhere they look.
Are there any other types of private “clubs” that aren’t required licensing, etc? What a moronic statement, inferring that food is a “controlled substance” or related to porn, or thefts. Geesh!
” seeking financial riches from his food club. ”
LMAO, is this guy for real? That poor farmer will work himself to death before it ever makes him “rich”.
“fear mongering and character assassination” is used when you have nothing else and are on the loosing end. Educate the public, and keep repeating that education, keep it short, to the point and factual.
As for, farmer Dan Brown, I’d plaster all letters on a web page along with short, to the point facts. The public will share that knowledge. Inform the public, most don’t appear to have a clue, and those who don’t care, will when it affects them personally.
later, on the frontlines of the ( so-called) Pro-Life movement, we kept waiting for the pastors of the brand-name Xian churches, to come along side us, so as to reach the conscience of the nation. That issue is as crucial as it gets = calculated genocide of the next generation of white people, by state diktat. If we couldn’t reach the pew-warmers to “educate” them how anti-christs were at the very door, then forget about reaching Ham-merica while there’s still the ‘image of food’, on the supermarket shelves …. morbidly obese idiots prefer the lie while pillory-ing the Truth-tellers
Two of OPDC’s neighbor dairies have just closed. Toste Dairy located 2 miles north of OPDC operated for 55 years and was considered one of Fresno’s best award winning dairies….all 3000 cows gone to Cargil and ground beef. Jim Boss Dairy, located four miles north of OPDC has just been put up to auction….they were Fresno’s most award winning dairy for many years. 2000 Cows being auctioned in 10 days.
Both of these farmers say….we are not stupid…dairying loses money and we can not do anything to change that fact. Plant almonds or walnuts….
Why?? how tragic. Dollar voting of consumers dollars and the false advertisement of GOT MILK? have come home to roost. Pasteurized milk is the most allergenic food in America. Consumers are no fools and after a big vote with the dollars…the election results are in. Pasteurized milk is done. So is the farmer that produced it. Cheeses and yogurts will survive….they are cultured and digestible even when pasteurized.
It will be interesting when none of the total gallons of milk produced in CA by CAFOS is made into pasteurized fluid milk….?? The massive checks that OPDC writes to the Milk Pool will have no place to go….perhaps the Milk Pool will send them back to OPDC. OPDC will be the only fluid producer in CA??
I need to take a breath now….breathe…breathe.
Last week the CDFA milk pool demanded and got $275,000 dollars from OPDC or else they refused to issue our biannual Milk Handlers License and shut us down. Not for pathogens….but because we refused to send our consumers dollars to the CAFO down the street under the archaic 45 year old communist payment system that robs organic raw milk money and gives it to dead milk CAFOS!!!!! It is a 5% tax paid every month to support low value dairy products.
Breathe…
I am working on getting this law changed. But…all the legislature is paid off by GOT MILK? and love their welfare check from OPDC. Why stop that!!!!????
Breathe….remember MLK….and Ghandi.
Mary,
Isn’t it interesting that the CDC played up an uptick in illnesses from raw milk, but nearly ignored a sharp decline in overall foodborne illnesses. Actually, Food Safety News had an article about the CDC report a couple days before mine was published, and played up the raw milk thing…so no need to beat a dead horse, I figured.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/01/government-reports-foodborne-illness-stats-for-2009-2010/#.UQ0yLfLheSc
Funny, someone else asked me if I’d have mentioned raw milk if the CDC had noted a decline in raw milk illnesses. My response was that I’d never have that opportunity, since the CDC would never, ever, acknowledge a decline in illnesses from raw milk. (The reality is that over the ten years from 2000-2010, raw milk illnesses have varied sharply from year to year, with no clear trend; I made that point at the Harvard Law School debate on raw milk, complete with graphic.)
All this stuff about CDC’s hidden agendas is especially noteworthy since the CDC is supposed to be a scientific, and non-political, agency. Sad.
Yes, they definitely don’t want to lose an opportunity for fear mongering.
If someone wants the facts they can find them, or there are people like you who are more than willing to help. I just hope people are aware of the fact that the CDC and all gubment agencies are not to be trusted. I convert people to raw milk every day. We each have our side of the street to work.
It’s great that you convert people to raw milk. I’ve been working on it. Perhaps you’d like to read these draft notes for a raw milk presentation.
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/draft-notes-for-a-raw-milk-presentation/
Anyone who wants to use any of that, be my guest. A friend of mine’s planning to give such a presentation in March.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/the-boy-with-a-thorn-in-his-joints.html?pagewanted=5&_r=0
I only WISH I had time for formal presentations, but I don’t. I talk to clients every day and they talk to relatives and so on. I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me saying they want to start to drink raw milk and they want their children to experience the flavor of real milk. The problem around here is getting it. And yes, people are afraid to milk their cows and either sell the milk or give it away, not because it’s “dangerous” but because of fear of reprisal. Now if that’s not a crying shame, I don’t know what is. Gotta hand it to grubworms like marler and his ilk – they certainly do scare the living daylights out of people. So when I talk to people about raw milk, I ask them how they think I look (health wise, age wise, etc). When I tell them my age they are surprised, and when I tell them that I”ve basically been drinking raw milk my whole life, save a few years when I lived elsewhere and had no access, they are really surprised. They ask “have you ever gotten sick because we heard it can make you deathly ill”. That’s when I ask how much research they’ve done. Almost 99% of the time I hear the phrase about how the CDC and the fdUH are warning people off it. So, I do my best to set them straight, I dole out a few suggestions for web sites they can visit (for both pro and con slants – I don’t provide them with statistics because those are BOGUS) and some reading material, which they are always more than happy to receive. I would have to say that at least 75 to 85% of these people contact me with further questions and interest.
It almost never fails. I direct some to goat milk, some to cow milk. Ultimately the decision is theirs, of course.
When people start spewing that garbage, I ask them what they eat on a regular basis. What products are they using. The majority of the time they are eating mass produced processed phoods. I ask them what are the ingredients. They always neglect to state the chemicals added to the dead food. I ask them to look up those chemicals, because most haven’t a clue what the chemicals are. They will state that it is only a tiny bit of chemicals. I respond with how long have they been consuming those chemicals, etc etc.
We all know the govt won’t allow anything that was not good for us. NOT.
I’d trust Mark long before I’d trust the govt.
Better late than never.
“And yet, if you look hard enough, evidence that diet and supplements can work does exist”
Wouldn’t want the word on this to get out, may cause people to change their diet and pop supplements instead of buying RX.
Message
1
Milky Way Farm Important update regarding SC raw milk issue!þ
Fri Feb 1, 2013 12:36 pm (PST) . Posted by:
“CLRose” zularad
Crossposted from Milky Way Farm mailing list:
———————————————————-
Please take a moment to read the following statement from Milky Way Farms, and to thank President David Winkles for his decision to NOT oppose raw milk in SC:
Raw milk continues to be a safely regulated agricultural product in the state of South Carolina. Seventeen other states have regulations in place to keep raw milk pure and available to their citizens. We can be thankful for those regulations and to the progressive thought and research that has increased raw milk consumption.
In a recent meeting to discuss policy regarding raw milk, South Carolina Farm Bureau (SCFB) under the leadership of President David Winkles has made decisions that SCFB will continue their historic position of not opposing current SC Law that allows the sale of regulated raw milk for human consumption. Please send your thanks to David Winkles for this bold decision.
We hope there will always be reasonable discussion on the topic of raw milk, no matter what side of the issue one is on. As too often opinions are expressed strongly, let’s keep the tone regarding raw milk positive and informative, so that we may all move forward together rather than let rhetoric hold us back. Support for raw milk and the South Carolina Farm Bureau will keep us united in both our support for South Carolina farms and foods that can keep our nation healthy.
President David Winkles contact information is:
dwinkles@scfb.com
803-936-4211
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/For-40-Years-This-Russian-Family-Was-Cut-Off-From-Human-Contact-Unaware-of-World-War-II-188843001.html
Please consider, as you think about this amazing story, the complexity and uniqueness of micro- and macro-biological environments, and their relationship to health.
Dave
One of the ladies who attends our church is a State Rep and she was instrumental in helping with the raw milk legislation in past years. She and I worked together for the raw goat milk legislation, too, as well as cow milk (although we failed with the cream, but you can’t have everything). We have both commented to each other recently about how many of the church members are beginning to ask questions about local foods, raw foods and milks, fermented foods, starting a garden with organic seeds – – there are a lot of questions out there, and seeing as how some of our congregation are older folks, they either don’t want to or don’t have the access to learning to use a computer, so we try to take the time to help them get their questions answered, or direct them to people who can.
We had a big group discussion last week about bigPHrma drugs. We’ll see where that lands. It’s amazing the stuff people will believe. They are still under the illusion that if it’s on tv it must be the truth because of truth in advertising. Ha. We’ve been having lots of fun with that. It’s absolutely appalling how many people believe dr oz has their best interests at heart.
“From Kturner’s link: “But now some scientists think it is more about the balance of a bacterial community. ”
Better late than never.
[end quote]
Heh heh! Cute.
It is amazing what people are willing to do and endure in order to escape their fear of persecution, suffering, pain and sorrow. Their fortitude is equally impressive and inspiring when they choose to humbly confront those same fears and are able to overcome them.
Ken
Two big mistakes were made. No fishing and they forgot to take their solar food grass converters with them… Cows, goats or sheep would have changed this story. They barely survived….but they failed to thrive. Nearly All primitive people’s had a mammal enslaved, or fish in their diets.
Loved this story of love, survival, and ultimate sacrifice at the outer edges of modern humanity in a vacuum. What a test plot.
I usually direct people to certain sites and at the top of the conversation I say “I don’t agree with their stances on supporting the gubment controls” or something to that effect. So I ask them only to read what pertains to nutrition, and to skip the “political” crap. Even Weston A. Price and Cornucopia and some of my other favorites are in support of legislated/regulated/castrated farming bills. It’s obscene to think of these informed people going down a road of total misinformation, passing it on, and playing with gubment rulings because they feel they must in order to operate at all. Why don’t they just lift up their skirts while they dance to WADC’s tune? Honestly, they talk out both sides of their faces when they kiss butt like that. Organic Consumers Association cowtows to the global warming nonsense – they all have a certain agenda, it seems. We all believe in different things, that’s true, but where food is concerned there should be no line of demarcation – whether it’s small gardens or huge operations.
As for global warming, I don’t understand people who are bigoted against such a good weapon. Since the #1 emitter of greenhouse gases is industrial ag, it should be a no-brainer that real farmers and anyone who supports them would make this a key point of our publicity: If you’re worried about climate change, then that’s yet another reason we need to abolish industrial ag.
I can well understand why Big Ag and its flunkeys deny global warming. Why anyone who otherwise opposes Big Ag would support them on this is a mystery to me.
(Needless to say, we reject all top-down system “solutions” like cap-and-trade, which is merely a scam meant to help Wall Street blow up a carbon bubble, ladle out tons of other corporate welfare, and not actually mitigate emissions at all.)
Your local TV meteorologist is probably a closet skeptic regarding mankinds influence on climate Climate change it happens, with or without our help.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
Ken
I’m not opposed to working with gubment policies when they are for the overall good of everyone, but when they have an agenda towards corporate business or widdling away our freedoms, I’m outta there. This newest farm bill is not in the best interests of the small farmer, or the people in general. But that’s just my opinion and I’m sure others feel all those regulations are “for our own good”.
I would love to meet you some time. I find your grasp of humanity truly and wholistically grounded. We need more human being like you on this planet. I can not stop pondering the story and the plight of the Russian family that starved but were free. Food for serious thought. Keep the enlightenment coming we all need it.
The Farm Bill certainly is against the small farmer. Here’s one way to look at the dual legislative/bureaucratic assault. Industrial ag and community food are two completely different sectors. The former is artificially generated by the corporate state. It’s a planned economy, 100% dependent on corporate welfare and forcibly generated supply-driven markets. The latter is a resurgence of natural ways of producing food. It’s part of rebuilding a natural economy, demand-driven from the bottom up, the work only of food workers and eaters.
So the Farm Bill is the main direct corporate welfare vehicle (corporate food growers are economically unviable than old-time sharecroppers; today they’re partially subsidized by the government instead of completely indentured to the furnishing merchant; but this is really corporate welfare for commodity buyers; the #1 goal of US farm policy is to artificially depress prices for commodity buyers, along with generating forced markets for input suppliers like Monsanto).
Meanwhile, the Food Control Act is intended to be the main repression vehicle against the rising challenger, community food.
That’s why I think the main point of contact for us will have to be resistance to the food police, rather than trying to modify the Farm Bill. The food police regime will have to serve as the main education vehicle to convince farmers that the corporate system is the enemy, and that freedom and prosperity lie beyond the struggle to break free of this system.
Meanwhile the affirmative lesson for producers still struggling as customers of and suppliers to the industrial system is that they need to make the switch to direct retail, local ag (including building a local/regional input and processing infrastructure). All the time we read more and more testimonials from farmers who made this switch and immediately found their business and their whole quality of life greatly improved.
Obese moms have less biodiversity in their breast milk than fit moms.
Breast milk bacterial biometrics are very much related to whether the baby was born c-section or vaginal at delivery. Sounds like the baby colonizes the breast and the cylce of baby-mother symbiosis is complete.
Much much more….even a statement that breast bacteria are directly related to childhood immunity and the ability to digest food. Nothing we did not already know…but know said by scientists.
I guess Dr. Beam was wrong when he testified under sworn oath in the CDFA lawsuit in 2007 that raw milk is sterile in the udder or breast. Breast milk has all sorts of bacteria in it and for good reason. Breast milk from vaginal delivery babies has fecal bacteria that colonizes the inside of the breast by design and not by mistake. The cow is not the filthy creature she has been accused of being. The location of the teats directly below the udder is intention and a critical part of evolution. Calves would die if they did not get the innoculum from the dirty teat. It appears that human babies get the same thing….if they are healthy at least.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-human-breast-microbiome.html
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-breast-bacteria-microbes-infant.html
And this is why injecting antibiotics into a cows udder can be so catastrophic.
Ken
So Mr. Schlangen cannot gain ANY profit from his business, while industrial ag can pay dairy farmers nothing and charge consumers $4/ gallon? That seems like “seeking financial riches”.
Industrial ag.? Perhaps it would be more appropriate to refer to them as, The Industrial Ag Crime Syndicate.
Ken
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBvJmCPjAek
miguel
That is a viral classic…..love it!!
Your statement is very true. Ecclesiastes 3 states, For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Ken
Weird. I guess all those raw milk drinkers (and my milk farmers) I know who don’t fit into the bigoted, religious-right, etc. category must be anomalies. I’m really lucky! All those Gordon Watsons raging around, and I’ve never met a single one personally. It’s like homeschooling. All those intelligent, loving parents I know and hear about are the exception; it’s the vague, nameless brutes starving little kids and locking them in closets who make up the majority. Yes, I know we’re not supposed to trust the evidence of our own observation and experience. That’s a great way of making us swallow all kinds of claptrap that goes against our better judgment.
‘
I know your type = you’re the ones who gave me the most trouble in the so-called “Pro-Life Movement” = people ostensibly on my side, who never failed to chant “you catch more flied with honey than with vinegar” … yeah, well, I’m not in the fly-catching business. Some people are called to be the “sharp end of the stick” when it comes to war-faring. I’ve found out what you have yet to learn ; one cannot grovel low enough to please the tyrant. But people in your mentality don’t know that because you’ve never heard a shot fired in anger.