WE MUST NOT ALLOW CAFTA TO BE PASSED! BRIEFLY, HERE’S WHY…
CAFTA stands for Central American Free Trade Agreement. If this “treaty” is signed, the United States (a member of the international World Trade Organization) will be forced to revise our food and nutritional supplement laws according to international standards.
Are these “international standards” beneficial? NO!! Right now, the United States has a fairly liberal law called the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, or DSHEA. Thanks to the DSHEA, you have available to you a plentiful array and potency of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, herbs, and other nutritional supplements.
However, if CAFTA is signed, international law will supersede the sovereign law of the United States. It is almost unbelievable that this could occur, but it’s true.
To give you an idea of what this will look like in terms of supplement access: The highest amount of Vitamin C allowed will be 200 mg. (This is not a therapeutic dose.) For higher amounts, you will need a doctor’s prescription -- and pay much more than you do now. Amino acids will not be available, nor will enzymes. You won’t be able to get chromium, either. Only those substances specifically allowed by international law will be available. Significantly, the international law bureaucrats, “guided” by the pharmaceutical industry, have “forgotten” about quite a lot of nutrients that help keep us healthy.
The international standards masquerade as “free trade” and “economic union.” But in reality, CAFTA is designed to also “manage” (a euphemism for control) what a country can manufacture, use, and sell to its own people. Part of what a CAFTA signer will “agree” to is this (from the WTO text): "To harmonize sanitary and phytosanitary measures on as wide a basis as possible, Members shall base their food safety measures on international standards, guidelines or recommendations."
But the “international standards” are not only for food. They also include vitamins and minerals!
(People who don’t mind slogging through legalese can read more at
http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/CAFTA/CAFTA-DR_Final_Texts/Section_Index.html
Jenny Hatch
Very good analysis.....it should be easy for anyone with half a brain to see that CAFTA, FTAA, or the North American Union or whatever will be designed and function like the EU with an almost total loss of sovereignty. Also, it looks like they'll start with an issue like this to get the camel's nose in the tent then down the road rest assured they'll go after our legal system, Constitution, etc.
NAFTA was bad for U.S. jobs. CAFTA will be as big a mistake. We cannot allow it to be passed.