“Ice cream 'could be as addictive as cocaine',” reported the Daily Mail. In a bid to scoop its rivals, the newspaper claimed that new research had whipped up “concerns that the dessert could be genuinely addictive”.
It’s not clear who exactly had these chilling “concerns” over the possible addictive qualities of the frozen snack, but the study in question looked at measures of brain activity in 151 teenagers while they drank an ice cream milkshake. During the scans, teenagers who had frequently eaten ice cream over the past two weeks showed less activity in the “reward areas” of the brain that give pleasurable sensations. This reduced reward sensation was reported to be similar to what is seen in drug addiction as users become desensitised to drugs.
Unsurprisingly, the study did not directly compare brain responses to or cravings for ice cream with those for illegal drugs. Therefore, while some aspects of the brain’s response may be similar, it is not correct to say that this study has found that ice cream is “as addictive” as illegal drugs.
It should be noted that the study included only healthy teenagers of normal weight, and its results may not represent overweight or older people. It also only tested one food, so the results may not apply to other foods.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from the Oregon Research Institute in the US. Sources of funding were not clear. The study was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The newspapers focused on the suggestion that ice cream is “as addictive” as drugs. However, it is not possible to conclude this from the study.
What kind of research was this?
This experimental study looked at whether regularly eating ice cream reduces the brain’s pleasurable “reward” response. When we do things that support our survival, such as eating and drinking, the brain gives us a pleasurable reward sensation, reinforcing this behaviour and encouraging it in future. A similar process is also believed to occur in drug addiction, where a person’s reward response to the drug decreases with repeated exposure, leading to a need to take more of the drug.
The researchers reported that people who are obese experience less of a response to food in the reward centres of the brain, which may contribute to over-eating. Repeatedly eating foods with high levels of calories (called “energy dense” foods has also been shown to lead to brain changes that reduce reward response in rats. The researchers wanted to see if a similar thing happens in humans, by looking at whether regularly eating ice cream reduces the brain’s pleasurable reward response to an ice cream milkshake.
What did the research involve?
The researchers recruited 151 adolescent volunteers who were not overweight. They asked them how often they ate ice cream, and carried out brain scans while they drank either a tasteless solution or an ice cream milkshake. They then looked at whether the volunteers who ate ice cream frequently showed less brain activity in the reward centres of the brain when drinking the ice cream milkshake.
The study excluded any individuals who were overweight or had reported binge eating in the past three months, as well as any who had used illegal drugs, took certain medications, had a head injury or a mental health diagnosis in the last year. The volunteers completed standard food questionnaires about their eating habits over the past two weeks, including how often they ate ice cream. They also answered questions about food cravings and how much they liked certain foods, including ice cream. The volunteers also had their weight, height and body fat measured.
Volunteers were asked to eat their meals as usual but not to eat anything for five hours before the brain scan. The researchers then gave them either a sip of chocolate ice cream milkshake or a tasteless solution, and monitored the activity in their brain. Each participant received both drinks in a randomised order. The researchers then looked at what happened in the brain during each drink, and whether this varied depending on how much ice cream the volunteer usually ate. They also looked at whether body fat or energy intake from other foods influenced the response.
What were the basic results?
The researchers found that when the volunteers drank the ice cream milkshake, it activated the parts of the brain involved in giving a pleasurable “reward” feeling. Volunteers who ate ice cream frequently showed less activity in these pleasurable reward areas in response to the milkshake. Percentage of body fat, total energy intake, percentage of energy from fat and sugar, and intake of other energy-dense foods were not related to the level of reward response to the milkshake.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded that their findings show that frequent consumption of ice cream reduces the “reward” response in the brain to eating the food. They reported that a similar process is seen in drug addiction.
The researchers also said that understanding these sorts of processes could help us understand how changes in the brain may contribute to, and help maintain, obesity.
Conclusion
This brain-scanning study suggests that the brain’s pleasurable reward response to ice cream decreases if it is eaten frequently. There are some points to note:
- The study only included healthy adolescents who were not overweight. Its results may not be representative of overweight or older individuals.
- The study only tested one food, so the results may not apply to other foods.
- Volunteers’ eating habits were only assessed for the past two weeks, and these may not be representative of their long-term eating habits.
- The study did not look at any other food with a discernable taste, only a “tasteless liquid”. It would have been interesting to see whether the reward response with tasting other foods, including less energy-dense foods, also diminished over time.
- News reports claimed that this study shows that ice cream is “as addictive” as illegal drugs, but this is not the case. While the reduced brain reward seen with frequent ice cream eating was reportedly similar to that seen in the use of addictive drugs, the study unsurprisingly did not directly compare brain responses to ice cream and illegal drugs, or their addictive potential.
Analysis by Bazian
Links To The Headlines
Ice cream 'could be as addictive as cocaine', as researchers reveal cravings for the two are similar. Daily Mail, March 5 2012
Ice cream as 'addictive as drugs' says new study. The Daily Telegraph, March 5 2012
Links To Science
Burger KS and Stice E. Frequent ice cream consumption is associated with reduced striatal response to receipt of an ice cream–based milkshake. February 15 2012
Last week, in the article, "
The Death of Privacy", I stated that I wouldn't care much about privacy if it wasn't for government. One reader wrote in and stated that I should also be worried about privacy or someone could "steal my identity".
I responded, please, steal it! You think it is fun being handcuffed every time I go to the US? If anyone wants to be Jeff Berwick, please, go right ahead!
It is crucial, however, to retort the reasons government say they need to invade and attack financial privacy of individuals. Because none of the purported reasons have any basis on which to stand.
In the year 2000, Ron Paul said, sarcastically:
"Financial privacy must be sacrificed, it is argued, in order to catch money launderers, drug dealers, mobsters and tax cheats."
So, these are the scourges that we must divest all privacy and turn the world into a massive police state? Let's look at each of them individually although they are all actually one in the same thing.
Money Launderers. This, perhaps, is the funniest one. Governments make victimless crimes illegal and then, because no law has ever stopped anyone from doing anything they want to do, people continue to do those things... but they are then forced to send the money on a world tour in an attempt to not get robbed by the real criminals, governments, on the pretense that they did something "illegal". Of course, if victimless crimes weren't crimes, money laundering wouldn't be necessary. So, government can stop money laundering today if they want to. Of course, most of the major US banks are actually government sanctioned money laundering centers for the CIA who runs most of the cocaine into the US and who now controls the world opium supply since their criminal occupation of Afghanistan.
Drug Dealers. The most dangerous drug dealers on Earth all have mothers who are so proud of them. They are called doctors. And they are shill-men for the pharmaceutical industry who doles out drugs FAR more dangerous than cannabis and the leaves of the coca plant. In 2009, 37,485 people died from prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. Regularly, celebrities die from these drugs, such as Whitney Houston recently. Where is the outcry to ban them? Most people are actually now on these drugs and can't actually think anymore, that's why. The War on Drugs is a genocidal farce that has put millions of Americans in prison camps in the US and has killed millions worldwide. Even today, a meth lab blew up killing some people in a nursing home. CNN screamed about how this is more reason to fight the War on Drugs. It is, of course, the exact opposite. By pushing drugs underground the US Government was responsible for this explosion... without it, most drug production companies would be legal and operate safe facilities.
Mobsters. Mobsters would not exist without government. Mobsters get their money from supplying the market with things it wants which the government has declared illegal. In terms of supplying the market with things it desires, mobsters and drug traffickers are entrepreneurial heroes. They should be exhalted for taking so much risk to get people what they want. Some may say that mobsters also do other bad things like extortion. The worst extorters on Earth are governments. In most countries they extort you for 50%+ of your income. Mobsters rarely go that high, so they are preferable. And, besides, it is only because of gun regulation laws and the threat of going to jail if you defend yourself from a mobster's extortion that keeps people from just killing them and ending any further extortion.
Tax Cheats. How is trying to avoid extortion by any possible means, "cheating"? It's not. Governments just indoctrinate us with propaganda to make us feel like it is. The most heroic act one can make is to defend themselves from government theft and to not contribute to an enterprise that is violent, murderous and thieving.
All four of these groups listed above are heroes of freedom.
And, in short, it's time we as a human race wake up and see government for what it is. The internet has been around now for over 15 years so there is no excuse for ignorance.
At the PDAC conference in Toronto recently, after a speech I gave which was very well received, a typical brainwashed Canadian approached me. He was an older man, in his 60s... he still buys into the old paradigm. He shouted, "How would we have traffic lights without government! How!"
These types embarrass themselves with their lack of knowledge. I told him to go home and read some ebooks. These questions have all been answered.
The world's changing. It's changing at a mind-numbing rate. And it will only accelerate from here. Even the statist, Keynesian rag, The Economist, featured an article recently called "
In Praise of a Second or Third Passport". They espoused views that citizenship is an anachronism. I never thought I'd hear that from The Economist.
Governments, and the US Government in particular, is in its death throes. It won't exist in its current form even five years from now. It is going the way of the Soviet Union for many of the same reasons (central planning, and a fascist form of communism . And all of these things they are doing, trying to enslave the world financially is just a last ditch attempt at staying alive a little longer.
It won't work... not as long as we can keep the internet semi-free. That's why they spend most of their time trying to figure out a way to shut it down.
In the end, however, they'll be gone... just like every government in history. But in the meantime we have to continue to protect ourselves from their depredations. This includes investments in hard assets, precious metals and internationalizing your life if possible. And if you have no assets, still look to expatriate. Your ancestors came to the US with empty pockets... now it is up to you to go to a more free country even if it means doing the same.
Or, stay and try to get through the transition... even this has major possibilities. In fact, once the US Government collapses you will have a place with over 300 million people who have intricate knowledge of how a semi-capitalist system (real capitalism, not corporatism works and unsaddled from massive debts and government regulation they could rebuild bigger and better than ever in a matter of years. It could be the buying/investing opportunity of all-time.
Fortunes will be made in the next few years as they always are during a major paradigm shift. At the same time, however, millions will lose everything. Keep in the loop here at The Dollar Vigilante to stay on the winning side.
Once we can identify the real criminals and the real heroes properly we can more easily move on to a better world. That time is coming.
GIVEN the recent calls by several Latin American presidents for a debate on legalising drugs, would the United States show any flexibility in its stance on prohibition? “None,” was the answer of Joe Biden, America’s vice-president, who was in Mexico City on March 5th to meet the three main contenders in July’s presidential race.
Mr Biden arrived under unprecedented
pressure from regional presidents for the United States to give way on prohibition, which many in the region blame for generating appalling violence. Honduras, which Mr Biden visits on March 6th, currently has the highest murder rate in the world.
Echoing Barack Obama, Mr Biden said that legalisation was a “totally legitimate debate”. But the reason to debate it, he said, was “to lay to rest some of the myths that are associated with the notion of legalisation.” Mr Biden’s arguments were well-worn: cocaine is bad for one’s health and creates social problems; legalising might remove the taboo and increase consumption; in any case illegal markets would remain to serve those who could not get the drug legally (underage users, for instance ; and so on. In short: “It’s worth discussing. But there is no possibility that the Obama-Biden administration will change its policy on legalisation.”
Not especially surprising stuff. Here are few more drug-related nuggets from what was not a revolutionary press conference. It looks unlikely that Central America will get the answer it is looking for on drug reform, at least anytime soon.
1. Mr Biden said that Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s president, did not use their meeting on March 5th to raise the question of legalisation, which he has hinted at in the past. Mr Calderon repeatedly
called for “market alternatives” last year, but never fully explained what he meant. You can see in this
video that he beat around the bush somewhat when we asked him about the phrase last year. The fact that he didn’t bring it up with Mr Biden, at a time when it is more on the agenda than ever, adds weight to the argument of those who say that Mr Calderon’s stance on “market alternatives” is more political opportunism than conviction.
2. The unintended consequences of the drug war are now recognised even by those who back it. For a long time, critics of prohibition have argued that tackling the drugs business in one place merely serves to push it elsewhere, thus rendering the exercise futile. On Monday Mr Biden admitted, unprompted: “We did such a good job in shutting down the Caribbean and [with] Plan Colombia that it was like squeezing a water balloon. It came up through Central America and up through Mexico.” It is encouraging that the authors of the drug war admit this. But the realisation doesn’t seem to be affecting policy: the United States and its allies continue to squeeze the balloon, pushing down on Mexico and Central America, and watching violence pop up elsewhere, now in Venezuela and (again the Caribbean.
3. Mexico’s strategy of taking out
capos
, or bosses of cartels, does not have much backing from the United States. This has been rumoured for a while, but on Monday Mr Biden made a pretty direct criticism of the idea that cartels can be shut down by arresting or killing their bosses, as Mr Calderon has tried to do over the past five years. “You can go out and decapitate an organisation and it’s like a hydra-headed monster: it’ll grow another head.” This is exactly
what has happened: the capture of high-profile villains has not generally diminished the violence, and in some cases seems to have stoked it. Mr Biden’s solution: “Follow the money…You go and follow the money and the monster withers.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has a message for everyone who thinks the drug war is bad: you're wrong, it's awesome.
(Reuters - Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano defended Washington's drug war strategy on Monday despite calls by some Latin American leaders to consider decriminalizing narcotics.
...
TRENTON, N.J. — Eight drugmakers are being sued by a consumer advocacy group that alleges their programs offering coupons that lower the cost of copayments for brand-name medicines are illegal.
Community Catalyst alleges that the couponing programs violate federal bribery laws because they’re meant to conceal information about the payments from health insurance plans.
Such coupons generally reduce patient copayments for brand-name drugs to what they would pay for a generic drug. The group says that drives up health insurance premiums and can cause patients to reach benefit caps quicker.
The companies sued are Abbott Laboratories, Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Merck & Co. Inc., Novartis AG and Pfizer Inc. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Identical lawsuits, but with different defendants, were being filed Wednesday in federal courts in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J.
Continue reading "Biden Gives Flimsy Defense Of Drug Prohibition To Latin America" >
The execution of an American white supremacist convicted of murder in Nebraska has been put on hold, because of a dispute as to whether one of the Indian-produced drugs that will be used to administer death has been legally obtained.
The manufacturer of a batch of sodium thiopental, one of three substances that make up the lethal "cocktail", claims the drug had been intended for use as an anaesthetic in hospitals in Africa.
The company said that without its knowledge, a pharmaceutical salesman instead sold the substance to the prison authorities in Nebraska, where the execution is due to take place.
In a letter to the state's Supreme Court, asking that the drugs be returned, Prithi Kochhar, CEO of Naari, an Indian-Swiss pharmaceutical company, said he was "shocked and appalled". "Naari did not supply these medicines directly to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (NDCS and is deeply opposed to the use of the medicines in executions," he added.
Amid the controversy, Nebraska's Supreme Court ordered a stay on the execution of Michael Ryan, a former cult leader who was sentenced to death for two murders committed in 1985.
The Kolkata-based salesman who sold the drugs to the NDCS, Chris Harris, said he obtained the substance legally from Naari. He forwarded copies of cheques and emails that he has sent to Nebraska that appeared to show a payment to a company he said was a subsidiary of Naari. "I'm not doing anything illegal," he said.
Both Naari and its purported subsidiary, Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals, which has its headquarters in Delhi, failed to respond to repeated requests for comment.
On February 29, a federal district court judge issued an
Order requiring that Cardinal Health, Inc. comply with an Immediate Suspension Order ("ISO" issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA" . The court previously granted a temporary restraining order delaying Cardinal's compliance with the ISO, pending a decision on a preliminary injunction requested by Cardinal. However, the Court denied this preliminary injunction in its Order. Cardinal
appealed this decision on the same day as the court's Order.
Partially at issue in this dispute is the question of who is responsible for stopping diversion, a form of illegal sales of controlled drug substances. Diversion is distributing controlled drug substances to an entity without a valid DEA registration. In this case, diversion of the prescription pain killer oxycodone allegedly took place at pharmacies supplied by Cardinal's Lakeland, Florida distribution facility. Cardinal states that it has a system in place to stop diversion and that it is ready and willing to suspend shipments to any pharmacy that the DEA identifies as likely to be engaged in diversion. The DEA, however, states that the Lakeland facility has a continuing, affirmative obligation to police its retail customers to ensure that the controlled drug substances it provides are not being unlawfully diverted--and the Lakeland facility fell short of its legal and contractual obligations.
According to a
Complaint filed by Cardinal, the ISO requires the Lakeland facility to immediately halt shipments of all controlled drug substances to about 2,700 pharmacies, hospitals, and other customers to prevent alleged imminent danger to the public health or safety. Notably, only Cardinal's Lakeland facility is subject to the ISO. The DEA, however, does not allege that Cardinal itself distributed controlled drug substances to any entity not permitted to purchase them. Instead, the ISO was issued because four pharmacies that were supplied by the Lakeland facility have allegedly distributed oxycodone for illegitimate uses.
WASHINGTON – The nation's largest drugmakers have paid at least $8 billion in fines for repeatedly defrauding Medicare and Medicaid over the past decade, but they remain in business with the federal government because they are often the sole suppliers of critical products, records show.
"We're seeing some of the big companies a second and third time," said Gregory Demske, assistant inspector general for legal affairs for Health and Human Services. "The corporate integrity agreement is not sufficient to deter further misconduct."
In addition, the cases are labor- and cost-intensive as the companies fight often for years to avoid an exclusion, Demske said.
To try to change that trend, the government announced in 2010 that, rather than exclude an entire company, investigators would go after individuals within a company. Demske said his organization, the Justice Department and the Food and Drug Administration have come up with some ideas to use within the scope of the rules — such as taking away a company's patent rights as a condition of a settlement. That could begin with cases being investigated now, he said.
New York Times, Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said “Taking advantage of his special access as a chemist at the F.D.A., Mr. Liang used sensitive inside information to reap illegal profits in the pharmaceutical securities market. “For years, he exploited his position in the agency to make easy money on the stock market. But today’s sentence shows that easy money has consequences. Investors engage in insider trading at their peril.” According to court documents, Mr. Liang told the judge, "I'm terribly sorry for what I've done.” --- On the Net:
"That's not even a quarter of their profits," said Copeland, a law professor at
Pennsylvania State University. "I was up in arms."
Government officials say they are, too, and they've talked about incorporating some of Copeland's ideas.
"That's a question we've been struggling with for the last couple of years," said Gregory Demske, assistant inspector general for legal affairs at Health and Human Services. "We recognize there's a problem."
If a company is excluded from doing business with the government, then medications that only those companies produce will not be available to beneficiaries. But, Copeland said, the fees associated with corporate integrity agreements haven't been enough to keep companies from bilking the government again.
"It's still in the company's interest to promote off-label marketing because they're still going to make more in profits than they lose in fines," she said.
HHS officials are talking with those at the
Justice Department and Food and Drug Administration to fix the problem, Demske said.
Most of the cases come from off-label marketing of prescription medications. For example, Pfizer was accused of marketing Bextra, a painkiller, for uses other than what the
FDA had approved. Such uses constitute fraud because they take government money for purposes the FDA has not approved.
Instead of excluding an entire company from doing business with the government, Copeland said, the drug being marketed off-label could be excluded.
HHS officials considered that, Demske said, but they needed to ensure that beneficiaries could get their medications. The agency is considering taking away a company's patent rights as part of a settlement with the government.
That, he said, would allow other companies to make and sell the drugs to the government. Such a deal could be negotiated with companies as part of a fraud settlement and would not require congressional approval.
"We could require other things if the defendant will agree to it," he said. "If not, there might not be a settlement."
And if there's no settlement, there may be an exclusion.
Copeland suggested requiring companies to conduct clinical trials for the off-label uses they were accused of, requiring that they license a product to other manufacturers and holding high-level individuals criminally liable. Demske said that investigators began going after individuals in companies in 2010 and that they have focused resources on that idea.
Pfizer,
Bristol-Myers Squibb and
Abbott Laboratories did not respond to questions from USA TODAY.
"Imposing such a severe penatly on a person who had no knowledge of the wrongdoing at issue is manifestly unfair and unjust," said
Matthew Bennett, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
The Supreme Court ruled in the 1970s that the government may go after officials who should have knowledge that fraudulent behavior is happening under their management. However, the law applies only to individuals holding a position at a company.
"If they leave, we can't reach them," Demske said. "The law is written in present tense."
The government has to send a note notifying the person that it is considering excluding them, which leaves the person plenty of time to leave the company.
"They would be free to work elsewhere," Demske said.
A bill to address the problem passed the House last year but hit the Senate too late in the session to make it to a vote. A new bill, HR 675, has been introduced.
Officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are looking for answers, said Ted Doolittle, deputy director of CMS' Center for Program Integrity. Instead of excluding a company, the CMS can revoke payment, which the government plans to do more aggressively, he said.
Last month, 78 home health care agencies in Texas were suspended in connection with a fraud case, and Doolittle said the CMS will not pay them for services until they are cleared of wrongdoing. First, he said, the CMS had to make sure beneficiaries would be able to get the services they need if those centers were out of business.
Congress members have suggested mandatory exclusions for crimes, but Copeland said the cases often don't reach that point because the parties settle before a proclamation and because the government has to worry about patient access.
If the government targeted individuals more aggressively, that could send a powerful message to drug companies, said Stan Twardy, leader of law firm Day Pitney's health care compliance group.
"Something called a jail is going to send a lot stronger signal than a fine," he said. "The regulations can change, but individuals and companies will take advantage of any loopholes they may find. It's part of that game of maximizing profits."
Under a system of agreements and fines, he said, the corporate culture will remain the same.
Copeland said she doesn't think that's enough.
"If you go after the sales manager because the sales manager could have prevented the fraud, it doesn't change the corporate culture," she said. "The more prescriptions, the more money you make, so the incentive remains."
Patrick Burns, spokesman for the non-profit Taxpayers Against Fraud, said although there may be differences of opinion, there is a greater sense or urgency about fighting the problem.
"We're all thinking the same thing," Burns said of investigators and Congress members. "The good news is they're pushing to actually do it."
|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=250]Pat Robertson created a firestorm when he first
called for the decriminalization of marijuana in December 2010, causing even his Christian Broadcasting Network's own publicist to
deny that that's what he actually meant.
Dana Jackson and Curtis Mitchell sold guns in Monmouth County illegally, State Police said
Three people accused of gun running for convicted criminals face felony charges themselves following a two-month investigation and their arrests last week, the State Police said today.
MONMOUTH COUNTY — Three people accused of gun running for convicted criminals face felony charges themselves following a two-month investigation and their arrests last week, State Police said today.
Dana "Real" Jackson, 40, of Aberdeen; Curtis Mitchell, 39, of Cliffwood; and Damien Coleman, 32, of Newark, all face firearms possession charges and multiple other counts.
The trio was arrested after the investigation by the State Police’s weapons trafficking unit showed that Jackson took orders for firearms from people barred from having them because of prior felony convictions. Jackson would get the guns from Coleman and bring them back to Monmouth County for resale, a release from the State Police said. Once in Monmouth County, Jackson and Mitchell sold the firearms, illegally, for a profit.
Jackson, taken into custody at his home, was also charged with three counts of unlawful sale of a firearm, four counts of prohibited possession of firearms, possession of stolen property, possession of hollow point ammunition, and possession and distribution of heroin.
Mitchell, also arrested at his home, faces single counts of unlawful sale of a firearm, prohibited possession of firearms and conspiracy.
Coleman, arrested after a short pursuit at his Newark home, was charged with two counts of prohibited possession of firearms, possession of hollow point ammunition, possession of heroin and crack and related distribution counts, and resisting arrest.
The investigation turned up eight firearms — seven handguns and one shotgun — numerous rounds of ammunition, about 300 decks of heroin, 15 grams of crack cocaine, and $8,000 in cash.
Additional arrests are pending, said Trooper Christopher Kay, a State Police spokesman.
Related coverage:
•
Newark police searches, anonymous tips yield dozen arrests
•
Newark police arrest at least 8 in 2-day stretch on drug, gun charges
Joshua Thompson, a Michigan resident, is taking his local AMC theatre to court over charges for sweets and soft drinks
A filmgoer in Detroit is
suing his local cinema over the excessive prices he says it charges for snacks.
Security technician Joshua Thompson hopes to convince a judge that his local AMC theatre in Livonia, a city within the Detroit metropolitan area, is breaking state consumer protection laws. He has filed a class-action suit at the Wayne County circuit court in southern Michigan asking for affected filmgoers to be refunded and calls for the cinema to be hit with a civil penalty.
"He got tired of being taken advantage of," Kerry Morgan, Thompson's lawyer, told the Detroit Free Press. "It's hard to justify prices that are three and four times higher than anywhere else."
Thompson says he paid $8 for a Coke and a packet of Goobers chocolate-covered peanuts at the Livonia AMC cinema on Boxing Day last year, nearly three times the $2.73 he would have been charged for the same snacks at a nearby fast-food restaurant and drug store. He said he used to take his own snacks into the cinema to avoid paying high prices, but was forced to stop when staff put up a notice stating that the practice was banned.
American Multi Cinema, which operates the AMC in Livonia, have not yet responded, but legal experts told the Press they did not expect Thompson's suit to succeed because licensed venues are exempt from consumer laws in Michigan.
His case is just the latest bizarre attempt by a US filmgoer to secure compensation through the courts in the wake of a bad cinema experience. In October 2011,
Sarah Deming sued the distributor of critically acclaimed Ryan Gosling thriller
Drive – as well as the cinema where she saw it – claiming the film was publicised as a
Fast and Furious-style action piece but turned out to be nothing of the sort.
In her suit, which was filed at the sixth judicial circuit court in Oakland, Michigan, Deming said the Nicolas Winding Refn film "bore very little similarity to a chase, or race action film ... having very little driving in the motion picture".
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District Judge Richard Leon found that the attempt by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA to force cigarette makers to display graphic pictures of blackened lungs, rotten teeth and sickly patients on their products was unconstitutional. Carefully pointing out that the burden of proof lay on the side of the federal regulatory body, Leon stated that: “The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech.” Leon also noted that the proposed warning labels, which aim to deter tobacco use, were exaggeratedly large. He also pointed out that the government already has a variety of more effective and targeted weapons for reducing smoking in its arsenal such as cigarette taxes and labels that contain factual medical information rather than macabre images. The Obama administration announced Monday that it would challenge the court’s decision, filing an appeal Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. According to legislation passed in 2009, the FDA is charged with the task of making sure that cigarette packaging is equipped with color warning labels in addition to the well-known written warnings from the Surgeon General. The label must cover 50 percent of both the front and back of the cigarette pack as well as 20 percent of advertisements in magazines. A handful of major tobacco companies challenged the law, which was scheduled to go into effect in September of this year. Tobacco giants R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Commonwealth Brands have alleged that the legislation would essentially force them to advertise against the purchase of their own entirely legal products. --- On the Net:
Derek Soberal has had his share of run-ins with police as a documentarian and protestor, but he’s still fighting
Features
Eric Mark Do — The Eyeopener (Ryerson University
TORONTO (CUP — Derek Soberal stands along a police barrier with a crowd in Nathan Phillips Square. It's a part of a January protest against Toronto budget cuts. Holding a small camera, he films the scene as tension grows between the protestors and police.
The situation erupts as a protestor attempts to break through the line. In the ensuing chaos, a police officer knocks Soberal’s camera down and punches him in the face before stomping on the camera.
However, when Soberal crosses the police barrier attempting to retrieve his camera, he is arrested and charged with unlawful assembly, mischief and two counts of obstructing a police officer.
A photo in the
Toronto Sun
shows Soberal in handcuffs, bruised and bloody. He quotes Martin Luther King in rationalizing why he went over the police barrier to retrieve his camera, containing potential evidence of the alleged assault: “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
Snowballing
Soberal has gone from being unable to recite his phone number without stuttering to being a prominent voice of the Toronto protest scene, featured on the CBC’s
Lang and O’Leary Exchange
and credited in a G20 edition of
The Fifth Estate
. He also created an activist-based YouTube channel, TheSecretStore, with over 5,000 subscribers and 3.5 million upload views, as well as the 35,000-member Occupy Canada Facebook page.
But January’s budget protest was not Soberal’s first run-in with Toronto police. His life as an activist and citizen journalist started with the 2010 G20 protests and Ryerson’s now-defunct CKLN radio station’s Word of Mouth Wednesday program.
“Basically, I got involved because of the G20 summit,” says Soberal. “That was my first protest … and I exercised my rights at that time. I got invited onto the show by [host] Daniel Libby to talk about the experience.”
He would become a regular on Libby’s show, eventually earning the title of CKLN programmer.
“Derek is attracted to media attention,” says Libby. “He’s not afraid to talk to reporters when they’re around.”
His ability to speak on the radio and communicate with the media is a hard-earned skill — from the time he was a toddler until his teens, Soberal underwent speech therapy. Today, he speaks with near-perfect clarity, pausing occasionally if his stutter starts to creep back in.
He says this ability to speak publicly is inspired by Libby.
“[Libby] was confident on the radio, and my voice was cracking the first time,” Soberal says. “I learned from him.”
Exposure
Through the radio show, the pair promoted
Toronto G20 Exposed
, a documentary produced by Soberal. The film highlights questionable police actions during the G20 weekend, and premiered at the Student Campus Centre on Gould Street as part of the Ryerson Student Union’s Xpressions Against Oppression week.
One scene in the documentary shows security footage from Soberal’s condominium, a block away from Ryerson, about two months after the G20 protests. As he tells it, Soberal noticed a police car across the street with its lights off, so he approached the officer and asked a few questions.
After saying goodbye, the police officer then drove away and came back, accusing him of loitering and forcefully pushing him. After running from the officer who pushed him, Soberal was detained by as many as 12 officers who seem to come out of nowhere. He also claims that while they searched him, they were calling him a drug addict, an alcoholic and mentally unstable.
“My cell phone and iPad were getting searched,” he recalls. Though he was eventually released without charge, he felt it was a message. “I felt like I was being targeted … I felt like it was a threat; I felt intimidated.”
Toronto G20 Exposed
was used as a source for
The Fifth Estate’s
episode "You Should Have Stayed At Home", with Soberal given special thanks in the credits. When the Occupy Wall Street movement was happening, Soberal created the Facebook page “Occupy Canada.”
That prompted a producer from the CBC to contact him to be interviewed on the
Lang and O’Leary Exchange
. Soberal appeared on the show on Oct. 14: the eve of mass demonstrations worldwide, including Occupy Toronto. Day three of those protests was also day one of Social Justice Week at Ryerson, and Occupy Toronto was invited to join the campus for a rally. However, some Ryerson students wondered what message that sends.
“Occupy Toronto was an illegal activity — I don’t think Ryerson or the students’ union should get involved in that,” says Mark Single, a fourth-year student in industrial engineering. Single has run for RSU president multiple times against the activism-heavy Students United platform in an attempt to focus Ryerson’s finances on education.
Academic Activism
But Ryerson does have institutionalized connections to activism. The university’s Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy is mandated to “create a hub of interaction between social justice activists and academics at Ryerson University.” Current chairholder Winnie Ng acknowledges the divide between the law and the protests, but says social justice is still important.
“I think the message is quite clear that Ryerson as a campus is supportive in increasingly diverse strategies of organizing,” she says. “It was most appropriate for us to kick off Social Justice Week with Occupy Toronto on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.”
Single says he’s against any university promoting activism on campus, because an educational institution shouldn’t have political values. “Ryerson is a university; Ryerson’s role is to teach students,” he says.
“Ryerson has zero interest. It’s not part of the student’s contract with the university to have students engaging [in activism].”
Sandy Hudson, Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, says otherwise. “Our whole purpose is education and innovation, essentially changing our world and making it better — everything that we do is moving forward our society,” says Hudson.
“Why wouldn’t we, as students, use that time to use what we’re learning to practically change our world? I actually think it’s integral to the learning process.”
Divide
The divide among students’ views of campus activism is highly visible right now in Montreal, where students staged a sit-in at the McGill University administration building. Another group of students, upset with the demonstration, created an event on Facebook called "The James 6th Floor occupiers do NOT represent me." More than 2,100 students have signed up so far.
The McGill sit-in was the subject of a recent episode of CBC Radio’s
The Current
, in which Single talks about his distaste for student sit-ins, protests and marches. He says he has a problem with it when it infringes on others’ rights and takes up extra costs in order to accommodate the protest. But Soberal sees it as a necessary cost to incur.
“Everybody has the right to freely think what they want, but at the end of the day we are all individuals, and sometimes traffic is stopped because it’s not business as usual,” says Soberal. “There’s something that needs to be brought to the public attention. It creates spark, awareness … sometimes you have to create attention to make it an issue.”
But Single doesn’t buy into the idea that activism, like Occupy Toronto or the G20 protest, actually gets anything done. “If you want to make a difference in this world, go to school, become successful, become wealthy, and then use your wealth as a philanthropist, like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett,” says Single. “They’re billionaires and making significant change in the world … because they’re successful academically. Marching and protesting isn’t really making a difference.”
Ng says students should look beyond their texts and assignments to bring their educational process into broader political, ecological, and social contexts to become more critical thinkers. “For example, I could just hit my books and be the best that I can be in my field, but how does that relate and transcend to the rest of society?” asks Ng. “How does excelling in what I’m doing having an impact in the larger community?"
She sees the post-secondary community as essential to social change. “To me, that’s the essence of learning, critical reflection, something that’s down deep in your core, there’s some sense of core values,” she says. “So for me building a society that’s more caring and more just, we need more people to act when those core values are violated.”
Risk
Though he never actually attended Ryerson, Soberal continues to be involved with many of the same causes as student activists.
“We are all a part of the change that we want to see,” says Soberal. “I think university activism and community activism are all connected. What a great way to start, in university, to stand behind something you believe in, to create networks and communities and make a difference.”
He says he may be taking action against the Toronto police, but not until his trial for the camera incident is over. Soberal’s father Richard found out about the arrest from a friend. “I was pretty disturbed … I turned on the TV and they kept replaying it,” he says. “They showed him in handcuffs and bringing him into city hall. That upset me.” Four people were arrested at the rally, but only Soberal was detained overnight. Richard says he thinks they purposefully kept Soberal because he had been in the public eye as part of protest movements.
Soberal was raised near the intersections of Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, an area with an unsavoury reputation.
“I mean, when we were living there, you had to stick up for yourself,” recalls Richard. “You couldn’t run away from anything because the kids would be on your back. [Derek] got in some fights and that, but you know, it was just normal stuff.”
Soberal says the experience was formative and helped make him who he is. “Growing up in Jane and Finch was a great place — it creates adversity, but it creates character,” he says. “And that’s my home.”
“Moving down here now, down here is just the center of everything, ‘the big city.’ If he was living outside the city, I don’t think he would be involved like he is,” says Soberal’s father. Arguably, he’s more concerned for his son now than when they lived at Jane and Finch.
“Personally, I told him to back off [the activism] for a while and that’s the way I feel now,” he says. "I’m proud of him for what he’s doing, he’s putting in a lot of effort and he knows what he’s talking about, but I’m just scared that something bad is going to happen to him.”
Richard is especially concerned because Derek’s brother Shawn passed away in 2009 at the age of 33. The family has not disclosed the circumstances involved in Shawn’s death. “I lost one son and I don’t want to lose another,” Richard says. “As a father, I’m just worried.”
But Soberal has no plans on stopping. He’s still filming and editing videos, and still strongly believes in activism and citizen journalism. He wears his brother’s jacket when he attends protests, saying he feels protected by it. “I think everyone has to recognize that we have the freedom of assembly and the freedom of speech and we must exercise all of it,” says Soberal.
“We have voices, we gotta speak out; we have bodies, we gotta stand up," he says. “It’s about being there for something that you stand behind. We have a climate in Canada where it’s winter and a lot of people can’t get out. We’re hoping for a Canadian Spring.”
-30-
That the libertarian movement is
full of dudes can probably be explained by a number of
sociological factors, but there might be a deeper reason that libertarianism doesn't have more women in the movement.
Here I want to address one worry about libertarianism that I've heard from some of my feminist friends, the idea that feminism and libertarianism are
structurally incompatible
. I think that this worry succeeds to some extent, but that on balance libertarianism is still good for women.
The thought is that libertarianism structurally builds in a kind of status quo bias that favours men. As a theory that objects to interference with peoples' voluntary choices, it therefore objects to interference with the current system patriarchy or male privilege insofar as the current system is a result of voluntary choices. Feminism calls for an end to patriarchy and male privilege, so the two are incompatible.
Consider the following feminist argument against libertarianism:
- Libertarianism instructs states and individuals not to interfere with people's free choices.
- We currently live in a sexist culture where patterns of free choice continue to disadvantage women (e.g. employment discrimination, the
gender wage gap
and
troubling
patterns of socialisation .
- Libertarianism instructs states and individuals not to interfere with the perpetuation of sexism.
I think this argument is successful, so libertarians who are concerned with women's interests (let's call ourselves libertarian feminists are seemingly faced with a dilemma. Either:
- States and individuals must interfere with sexist people's free choices (e.g. states should violate freedom of contract and association to promote
equal pay and fair employment procedures .
Or,
- States ought to respect people's free choices and thereby tolerate sexism.
What's a BHL feminist to do? I think that feminists ought to favour the second point over the first for several reasons.
First, gender equality isn't the
only thing
we ought to care about. While sexism is wrong, it's
more wrong
to violate a person's negative liberties (like freedom of association or contract than to accept a society that fails to provide certain benefits (like equal pay even if both negative liberties and equal treatment were required by fairness. Like
John Tomasi, I believe economic liberties take priority over other public goals, so even though discrimination is wrong, limits on freedom of contract and association are
more wrong
.
Second, libertarianism only affirms a sexist status quo insofar as limits on liberty are
required
to combat sexism. But limits on liberty are not required. There are plenty of other ways to further women's interests without excessively violating liberties. Bleeding heart libertarianism doesn't rule out public policies that help women with families succeed in the workforce, like affordable public childcare, subsidised family leave, elder care, or a universal basic income. But even if society did provide a generous social safety net,
women's
voluntary choices could also perpetuate male-dominated corporate cultures, because women are more likely to
favour part-time work.
Even bleeding-heartless libertarians can (and should!
discourage
sexism, though no-one should be
forced
to refrain from sexism. And of course libertarians should never tolerate any kind of violence against women or coercive sexual harassment.
Third and most importantly,
even though
libertarianism does structurally tolerate institutional sexism in some ways, libertarianism isn't necessarily bad for women
on balance.
As you may have guessed, I think that
feminist libertarianism has a lot going for it, and I am wary of any policy that limits citizen's negative rights 'for the sake' of women, especially in light of the
sexist history of wage regulation.
Though fair employment legislation may advance women's interests in the short-run, policy proposals that require companies to hire or promote women or give equal pay
also
strike me as sexist. These policies require public officials and employers to treat women differently in the market. In this April's
Reason, Veronique de Rugy reviews how the tax system, welfare reforms, maternity leave policy, workplace regulations, and the drug war all disproportionately disadvantage women's economic prospects. Even feminists should get behind tax reform and deregulation.
I also worry that any legal requirements that aim to correct problems associated with sexism will fail to treat the underlying systemic problems. For example, if a coercive policy corrects for the fact that women don't negotiate for salary or ask for promotions, it may prevent women from learning to effectively advance their own interests in competitive environments.
The labour market is
changing to include more women, but troubling inequalities persist. Many government interventions, like mandatory maternity leave policies, which are seemingly 'on behalf' of women backfire to
work against us.
But
even if
government intervention was the most effective way to shatter the glass ceiling; it would be much better
for women
if we could do it without state intervention and ensure economic equality for good.
This article was first published on
Bleeding Heart Libertarians.
Jessica Flanigan is an ABD at the Princeton University Program in Political Philosophy and a visiting scholar at Brown University. View her full
profile.
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