Josh Blackman » “Too often, those who are willing to endanger our livelihoods in pursuit of their profits see fines as just a cost of doing business. We need to make sure that those who intentionally deceive consumers get a trip to jail, not a slap on the wrist.”

“Too often, those who are willing to endanger our livelihoods in pursuit of their profits see fines as just a cost of doing business. We need to make sure that those who intentionally deceive consumers get a trip to jail, not a slap on the wrist.”

October 29th, 2011

And what crime is this Senator talking about? Insider trading? Environmental Pollution? No. Making counterfeit maple syrup. Yes, just what we need. Creating a felony for mislabeling maple syrup

Leahy, who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is well positioned to advance the legislation, introduced it in the wake of a recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation that found a Rhode Island man had been selling cane sugar-based syrup as maple syrup.

Under existing law, fraudulently representing something as maple syrup is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year behind bars.

“Too often, those who are willing to endanger our livelihoods in pursuit of their profits see fines as just a cost of doing business,” Leahy said in the statement. “We need to make sure that those who intentionally deceive consumers get a trip to jail, not a slap on the wrist.”

“Schemers should not easily be able to sully the seal of quality that is associated with genuine Vermont maple syrup,” he added.