A SIMPLY CHOICE

Two days ago, the Times ran a column about upcoming bills in the California Legislature which seek to regulate the lives of teenagers. The bills relate to high-sugar-content drinks being sold at schools, helmets for skate-boarders, and the like. The column was called, “Protecting or Nannying.” I wrote the following response to the Times.

If our children are to grow into responsible adults, they cannot be “nannied,” neither by their parents nor by the state. However, if we are to expect them to survive childhood at all, they must be protected from the unprincipled forces of the “free market.” Opponents to a series of proposed state bills would have you believe that today’s teens are more than capable of making these simple, straight forward choices by themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Advertisers spend hundreds of millions of dollars persuading young consumers that this type of behavior or that brand of clothing is the coolest. Protected by the banner of “let the buyer beware,” these ethically challenged business people are concerned only with sales volume, not with your children’s safety. Having carefully woven the cost of potential law suits into their budgets, they have decided in advance exactly how many childhood obesity cases, accidental deaths and injuries they can defend against and still turn a profit.

This is not a level playing field, on which mature adolescents can reasonable be expected to make informed choices; it is a rigged game, in which unsuspecting teens are the designated victims of undetectable dangers . Moderate laws designed to protect our children from overly aggressive retailers are completely appropriate