Two months after Floridaโs ban on cultivated meat came into effect, and a month before one goes live in Alabama, Illinois has joined a number of other states to try and outlaw these proteins.
House Representative Chris Miller, a third-generation cattle farmer, has introduced HB 5872, a bill to make the sale, manufacture or distribution of cultivated meat a Class C misdemeanour.
It means that if you sell cultivated meat, youโll be treated the same way as you would if you possessed less than 2.5g of marijuana, assaulted someone, or left a firearm in your house that could easily be accessed by a minor. The penalty can result in 30 days of jail time, and/or $1,500 in fines.
A press release on the Representativeโs website explains that HB 5872 was introduced as a response to โgrowing concerns from the notion of replacing real meat with laboratoriesโ, and argued that it would protect โindividualโs health, farmland, and agricultural productsโ.
…
First, cultivated meat poses no health risks.
Share this article
…
Next, to make cultivated meat, you need sugars, minerals, and other inputs, which are agricultural products.
…
And finally, the claim that this is a threat to farmland is laughable at best โ research has shown that if produced by renewable energy, cultivated meat uses 90% less land than conventional beef. It has also been found to be three times more efficient at turning crops into meat than even the โmost efficientโ livestock.
