Once again, the Ontario government will get it's nose in business that it should otherwise stay out of. In October of 2008, I blogged about the issue of Michael Schmidt selling raw milk to his neighbours and friends. The government believes that

raw milk can carry bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes, which carry serious, and sometimes deadly, health consequences.

and being the ever present guardians and protectors of ourselves, they are appealing a recent court decision that found Schmidt not guilty of violating the Health Protection and Promotion Act.

Follow up:

Now you may ask yourself, "why should I care about this"? The answer is you should, unless you have no qualms about the government micromanaging every aspect of your life. I said it before and I will say it again, the government needs to take a huge step back and let people live their lives the way they see fit. When it comes to this milk issue, these people make a conscious decision to drink it, so who are the officials to question that? Why should we as consumers, be forced to comply and drink milk that is laden with hormones and other toxins? Where is the choice in that? The health officials like to scare people and say that drinking unpasteurized milk is too dangerous and that the alternative, ie, hormone filled milk is much safer. They chose to smear Michael Schmidt and take him to court on something that didn't even happen. For example, no one got sick, not one person.So they wish to spend taxpayers money on a frivolous case based on no circumstances other than the government thinking that they know better than the very people who choose to drink the raw milk. It's insane and just another example of how out of control this liberal government is.

It should be noted that it is not illegal to consume raw milk in Ontario, it becomes illegal when one distributes it, which Schmidt does. However, the people he distributes the milk to own shares in the cows, thus making them owners as well, which should make it obvious that this case is a waste of time and money. In short, no law was broken.

Now I know the talking point about how if one chooses to drink raw milk and gets sick, should we be paying for that person to be treated in hospital? The answer is yes, you should because you are also paying for people who smoke, drink, do drugs, drive drunk, cut themselves, and the list goes on. What about those who have gotten sick from drinking pasteurized milk? Do you see my point? You can't argue this issue by saying that you shouldn't be paying for someone's choice because you always will as long as we have socialized medicine.

Schmidt said the fight is not about milk, but is about respect for the individual's right to make choices without government interference.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/02/13/ont-raw-milk-schmidt.html#socialcomments#ixzz0fSzru2Vj

So true

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