While the dysfunctional House was hyperventilating over a patients’ bill of rights last week, a committee in the genteel Senate was seeking a solution for a “national problem” whose existence seems as shaky as Jell-O.
Folks, hold on to your Philadelphia cream cheese, Oscar Mayer bologna, Alpha-Bits, Tombstone frozen pizza, Jell-O or other Kraft Foods Inc. favorites. Good intentions may now inspire a dubious law.
My latest journey to the obscure brought me to the Senate Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition Subcommittee, headed by placid zillionaire Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), who tends to amble about Capitol Hill with neither entourage nor fear of gawking tourists. Even in a charisma-challenged body, the department-store-mogul-turned-sports-owner (Milwaukee Bucks) verges on the invisible, known chiefly for, well, ah, owning the Bucks.
But a bright, quiet man is prime sponsor of the “Product Packing Protection Act of 2001,” the subject of a hearing with all the classic, choreographed elements of most proceedings here: prescreened witness testimony, a “real person” to play the role of victim, less-than-Perry Mason interrogations and nary a hint of an opposing view.
As I sat back and pined for other Kraft products–a cup of Sanka, or perhaps a glass of Crystal Light, along with a slice of DiGiorno pizza, a Louis Rich hot dog, a wedge of Cracker Barrel sharp cheddar and a Jenny Craig energy bar–I listened as Kohl welcomed a small assemblage and announced a need to respond to “a disturbing trend in product tampering–the placement of hate-filled literature into the boxes of food that Americans bring home from the grocery store every day.”
Kohl, a former grocery owner himself, said, “Too many Americans have recently opened groceries and found offensive, racist, anti-Semitic, pornographic and hateful leaflets.”
Consumers who buy such products are victims, he said, but so are the stores selling them, threatened with a loss of trust with customers.
What is needed is a law to close an existing loophole, according to Kohl and the panel’s top Republican, Mike DeWine of Ohio. Yes, there is a prohibition on tampering with a product itself, prompted by the Tylenol scare of 1982, but nothing for fiddling with the packaging.
The result is S. 1233, a bill to insert the following into the existing law:
“(f)(1) Whoever, without the consent of the manufacturer, retailer, or authorized distributor, intentionally tampers with a consumer product that is sold in interstate or foreign commerce by knowingly placing or inserting any writing in the consumer product, or the container for the consumer product, before the sale of the consumer product to any consumer shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
So, stick anything with letters, words or pictures inside the packaging and, bam, you could get socked with a fine of $250,000 and three years in the Crossbar Motel.
Now the real intent is not to crack down on Post-it notes declaring, “Go Cubbies!” or “I Love Mountain Biking” and placed inside the packaging of Velveeta, Light n’ Lively, Knudsen cottage cheese, Claussen sauerkraut or Grape-Nuts cereal, even though such cases could be prosecuted.
It’s to respond to racist and pornographic messages that might somehow surface in the wrappers of Honey Maid pie crusts, Dream Whip, Cream of Wheat or Bull’s-Eye barbecue sauce.
And how many incidents have there been?
Well, that was far from clear. But that did not prevent Kohl and others from using use that favorite Capitol Hill gambit, the supposedly wrenching anecdote. His was all too typical.
“These incidents can be especially harmful to children,” he said. “Take for example the story of 8-year-old Mario Alexander, who discovered offensive literature in his favorite cereal box. Mario was very capable of reading the handbill he found, and as a result he was forced to deal with a hateful issue long before he was mature enough to understand it.”
What story of 8-year-old Mario Alexander? Have I missed something on “60 Minutes”? Forget about the fact that there was no hint of who the heck little Mario is, where he lives, what exactly was the offensive literature or how it was so “traumatic,” as Kohl would later put it. Is this the convincing case for a new law?
DeWine was up next, referring to “Kraft Foods Co. and others” who have “received and documented numerous complaints.” Fine. But how many? “We have no clear indication of how many victims have suffered from this type of product tampering,” he said.
Well, I waited to see what the witnesses, who all just happened to be supportive of the proposed law, would say.
First up was Alice Fisher, a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department criminal division. After referring to “this nationwide problem,” she said: “We do not have fully comprehensive statistics available.”
The other experts were not much more informative, though the most relevant testimony came from Paul Petrucelli, chief counsel for Kraft North American Inc. in Northfield, Ill.
The company has received approximately 80 consumer reports of such incidents since 1997, he said. Thus far in 2001, it has received 15, putting it on a pace to receive about 25 this year. The complaints have included a porn drawing stuck into a box of Jell-O pudding, a “swastika and related literature of a racist nature” in a box of Minute Rice, racist comments on a box of Alpha-Bits cereal and a “health-related warning” handwritten on a Handi-Snacks crackers box in Vermont.
If one considers the millions and millions of packages produced by Kraft, this does not seem to rise to the level of a national problem. Imagine: 80 reported incidents in four years amid all that Maxwell House coffee, Mr. Freeze frozen treats, Kool-Aid Slushies, Stove Top Oven Classics, Harvest Moon cheese, Kraft macaroni-and-cheese dinners, Grey Poupon mustard, Parkay margarine, Frosted Shredded Wheat, Seven Seas salad dressing, Miracle Whip, Breyers yogurt, Chips Ahoy! and Ritz crackers, among dozens of other products.
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Such incidents, Petrucelli told Kohl (the only other senator to surface, DeWine having split 15 minutes into the hearing), amount to “product hijacking and cause significant injury to consumers, manufacturers and stores alike.”
When I asked him later whether any states had ever taken any action against such cases, he said no, noting that only a few have even moved to pass related legislation.
Leslie Sarasin, president of the American Frozen Food Institute, wasn’t much more detailed, referring to “a number of reports” of complaints.
Then there was the frequent prop of the legislator, the Real Person, in this case David Burris, owner of a small pet supply company in Baker City, Ore., which he said has received recognition for its restoration of gold-mining-era buildings. Burris said that he went to his local Safeway last Thanksgiving and purchased a Jell-O No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake mix. Inside was a coupon which, when unfolded, revealed a Nazi swastika and the phrase, “deport the [`N’ word].”
He figured it had to do with the Aryan Nation group in Idaho, showed it to his Thanksgiving guests and worried that the cake itself might be contaminated. As a result, he is now “very insecure with packaged food products I buy. I doubt I will ever feel secure again in this regard. It has also changed the way my friends shop too.”
Kohl followed the quartet’s testimony with less-than-searing questions such as, “Do you believe statutes like these will help deter people from placing offensive materials in packages?” and, “Were you surprised to learn there is no existing law” on the topic?
What a surprise to learn that they agreed his proposal would help! And that they hadn’t realized there was no law.
He then asked Mr. Everyman, Burris, where he shopped for food, apparently having dozed off when Burris earlier said he goes to Safeway.
“Safeway!?!” said Kohl when Burris repeated his preference
“Yes,” Burris repeated anew.
After his initial round of questioning, and with no colleague around, the chairman asked whether the witnesses had anything to add. They didn’t, which also was no surprise.
So after preaching to the choir, Kohl bid farewell after what in these environs is a mercifully rapid-fire 45 minutes. There was no need to tamper with brevity.