Obama Administration declares war on Cheerios

Guest Post from Marcus:

I’m willing to tolerate quite a bit of stupidity from Presidential administrations. Let’s face it–for much of the last decade we’ve had no choice. But the Obama Administration’s declaring war on Cheerios is crossing the line. We’re big Cheerios fans in our home and we had no idea that, according to the FDA, we were taking drugs. I’m all for enforcing the FDCA, and even for cracking down (pardon the pun–we’ll get to the President’s recreational use in a moment) on corporations that do evil things (like lower cholesterol) if they’re making exaggerated claims about their products’ health properties. But notice that the FDA doesn’t dispute General Mills’ cholesterol-lowering claims–they just say that those claims “essentially makes [sic] Cheerios ‘a drug’ by their definition.” Now, I took D.A.R.E. classes in elementary school and I remember them teaching us that a drug is defined as “any NON-FOOD substance that affects the way your mind or body works.” Perhaps if the President had paid attention in D.A.R.E. (which he didn’t, as you can see here and here and here and here) this whole silly story could have been avoided and the Obama Administration could have focused on solving some of our non-Cheerios-related crises, such as the genocide in Darfur, or the social security ponzi scheme that my generation is funding, or homelessness, or hunger, or, you know, our entire financial structure generally crumbling around us. But I’m glad that we’re winning the war on drugs–and cereal.