We've talked about the new health regulations coming out of California government lately--the state government has banned the use of trans fats in restaurant and baked goods, south LA has put a one-year moratorium on the construction of new fast-food joints, and now San Francisco has banned drug-store chains such as Walgreen's from selling cigarettes. But what effect will all these new liberal we-know-what's-good-for-you regulations have? Reason magazine today points out a few:
"Not that anyone's taking the trans fat ban too hard; even the California Restaurant Association didn't put up much of a fight. Apparently, donuts fried in canola oil are just as tasty as their slightly more lethal counterparts fried in partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, customers seem to like the idea of trans fat-free food, and making the transition to non-hydrogenated alternatives provides a great excuse to jack up prices. One Southern California hamburger joint told The New York Times it will have to increase the price of its fries from $1.75 to at least $2.75 because of the change. Similarly, the fact that there are already 400 or so fast-food outlets in the area of Los Angeles where the one-year moratorium will be enforced means a Happy Meal should still be easy to come by. Finally, banishing cigarettes from San Francisco pharmacies just means that smokers will be more likely to patronize liquor stores to get their nicotine fix—and anything that encourages addictive personalities to impulse-buy a quart of Jim Beam over an Odwalla Mo'Beta Smoothie can't be all bad for society, can it? Or to put it another way: These laws are getting passed not because they promise to radically change things, but rather because they aren't going to change things enough to truly inconvenience anyone. Which also suggests they won't have much impact on California's eating and smoking habits. Trans fats will still be available in packaged foods. In burger-plagued South Los Angeles, sit-down restaurants already outnumber fast-food outlets by more than 100, but the ready availability of slowly delivered fare has apparently done little to curb local appetites for fries and shakes."
Read the whole thing. Again, I point you all to an outstanding, classic conservative read--Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. It was he who pointed out that government regulation, especially of the economy, was bound to fail; planners could never gather all of the information they would need, they could never know enough about the economy and all of the economic actors involved, to understand all of the consequences their blueprints would have. Hence there would be all of these unintended (read: bad!) consequences...like we will surely see here. Again.
Maybe down the line Governor Ah-nuld will realize his mistakes. But don't count on it.
