Dumping mercury should not be permitted & should be heavily persecuted.
(And basically researched out of industries.)
But you adding sugar to your diet (I’ll be overreaching & exaggerating with this to keep your example) can affect or stem from more than your own person.
Individually looking it’s your health & your health does affect people around you long-term, including healthcare (again, exaggerating - if everyone is fat we now have to redesign hospitals … + the long term effect of this being normalised, but this is more related to the next point actually).
However there is also a an economic view - sugar is biologically speaking very precious & rare, so humans having it available at next to no cost is fucking with our evolution-moulded minds (our mind tell us when we had enough of just about anything of strategic nutritional importance other than carbs, especially sugars - there is no limit for sugar bcs “you never know when the supply will run out”, no limit apart from the speed of begin able to process it I mean).
\But it’s also insanely profitable in the industries that use it (sugar beverages, spreads, cereals) so it’s everywhere & caused serious health issues.
And there is a bunch of other harmful & easy to produce chemicals that we regulate in various ways (“drugs”).
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to add sugar to your own water (and we are far from that point anyway), just that regulation is such a live & cultural thing that lawmakers & agencies (regulatory or law-advisers) just have to live with the people & adjust on the fly bcs culture & people change significantly over just a few years.
In this sense I’m proud of the actual way of how EU lawmakers are doing things for the vast majority of time - all is very live, open/transparent, & hands on (and ofc “costly”, bcs complex problems require adequate solutions, otherwise it is just senseless cost).
First is the research (year/s), then live market consolations & current practices (year/s), then the draft proposal & a new round of even broader market consolations (sometimes literally mandatory, eg in financial industries, to cover like 3/4 of the market) of all stakeholders (year/s), then the regulation frame adoption (EU, country levels, responsible agencies, market leaders, etc), then after it’s all live years of market consultations again to get where the problems are (or where there arent & they can scrap/simplify the approach), what new problems & adaptations emerged, then the proposal for legal framework update, then consultations again (anyone can & must be heard), then the adoption of the v2 laws, and after that the cycle repeats for v3 etc.
This is in contrast with things done on a local level that are hastily done & require quick adoption by the industry (as a consumer I think even this is far better than nothing effective being done - if it’s stupid I’ll just try to vote them out).
I mostly know about EU regulations that are about to affect me (personally or professionally) years in advance and with about 12 month precision (some complex laws get delayed - or even just the live date if the market couldn’t get ready by due date with effort to do so).
Telling me I can’t add sugar to my own water is bad.
I’m not sure what real world thing you made this analogy for? But this is a straw man, because nowhere are you told you can’t add sugar to your food.
You may be told you shouldn’t, because it’s unhealthy. But you can still add sugar even to commercially sold food in amounts that by European standards make it actually illegal to call it food. Making it either cake or candy.
American Fruity loops is an example that is illegal to call food in EU because of too much sugar. Apart from a number of additives that are illegal too in EU. You could still sell it in EU, but not as a breakfast cereal.
You should not be unhappy if sugar is regulated in food you purchase. And you definitely can put more on it at home if you really want candy instead of food. Sweetener is a cheap way for the industry to make something taste batter, despite having extremely low quality.
Regulation isn’t bad, corruption and over reach are.
Example, dumping mercury in the public water supply is bad.
Telling me I can’t add sugar to my own water is bad.
Big difference, and the current government will do both
Edit: guys, this isn’t a real world analogy , just a simple example to illustrate a stance
Dumping mercury should not be permitted & should be heavily persecuted.
(And basically researched out of industries.)
But you adding sugar to your diet (I’ll be overreaching & exaggerating with this to keep your example) can affect or stem from more than your own person.
Individually looking it’s your health & your health does affect people around you long-term, including healthcare (again, exaggerating - if everyone is fat we now have to redesign hospitals … + the long term effect of this being normalised, but this is more related to the next point actually).
However there is also a an economic view - sugar is biologically speaking very precious & rare, so humans having it available at next to no cost is fucking with our evolution-moulded minds (our mind tell us when we had enough of just about anything of strategic nutritional importance other than carbs, especially sugars - there is no limit for sugar bcs “you never know when the supply will run out”, no limit apart from the speed of begin able to process it I mean). \But it’s also insanely profitable in the industries that use it (sugar beverages, spreads, cereals) so it’s everywhere & caused serious health issues.
And there is a bunch of other harmful & easy to produce chemicals that we regulate in various ways (“drugs”).
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to add sugar to your own water (and we are far from that point anyway), just that regulation is such a live & cultural thing that lawmakers & agencies (regulatory or law-advisers) just have to live with the people & adjust on the fly bcs culture & people change significantly over just a few years.
In this sense I’m proud of the actual way of how EU lawmakers are doing things for the vast majority of time - all is very live, open/transparent, & hands on (and ofc “costly”, bcs complex problems require adequate solutions, otherwise it is just senseless cost).
First is the research (year/s), then live market consolations & current practices (year/s), then the draft proposal & a new round of even broader market consolations (sometimes literally mandatory, eg in financial industries, to cover like 3/4 of the market) of all stakeholders (year/s), then the regulation frame adoption (EU, country levels, responsible agencies, market leaders, etc), then after it’s all live years of market consultations again to get where the problems are (or where there arent & they can scrap/simplify the approach), what new problems & adaptations emerged, then the proposal for legal framework update, then consultations again (anyone can & must be heard), then the adoption of the v2 laws, and after that the cycle repeats for v3 etc.
This is in contrast with things done on a local level that are hastily done & require quick adoption by the industry (as a consumer I think even this is far better than nothing effective being done - if it’s stupid I’ll just try to vote them out).
I mostly know about EU regulations that are about to affect me (personally or professionally) years in advance and with about 12 month precision (some complex laws get delayed - or even just the live date if the market couldn’t get ready by due date with effort to do so).
I’m not sure what real world thing you made this analogy for? But this is a straw man, because nowhere are you told you can’t add sugar to your food.
You may be told you shouldn’t, because it’s unhealthy. But you can still add sugar even to commercially sold food in amounts that by European standards make it actually illegal to call it food. Making it either cake or candy.
American Fruity loops is an example that is illegal to call food in EU because of too much sugar. Apart from a number of additives that are illegal too in EU. You could still sell it in EU, but not as a breakfast cereal.
You should not be unhappy if sugar is regulated in food you purchase. And you definitely can put more on it at home if you really want candy instead of food. Sweetener is a cheap way for the industry to make something taste batter, despite having extremely low quality.
It was a simple analogy for when it would be overreach. Not a real world thing.