The Institute for Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new Florida law that bans the production, distribution, and sale of cultivated meat—a product that is grown directly from real animal cells, without raising or killing animals.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, argues that Florida’s ban violates constitutional provisions that prohibit protectionist measures favoring in-state businesses at the expense of out-of-state competitors.
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The law targets cultivated meat, which is produced outside of Florida, in an attempt to protect local meat producers from competition, undermining the principles of a national common market, according to the lawsuit.
“If some Floridians don’t like the idea of eating cultivated chicken, there’s a simple solution: Don’t eat it,” said Paul Sherman, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. “The government has no right to tell consumers who want to try cultivated meat that they’re not allowed to. This law is not about safety; it’s about stifling innovation and protecting entrenched interests at the expense of consumer choice.”
In May 2024, Florida became the first state to ban “fake meat,” as Gov. Ron DeSantis calls it.
That refers to “cultivated meats” created in labs from cell cultures — as opposed to that harvested from all those fatted calves populating green, grassy pastures across the country.
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“Take your fake, lab-grown meat elsewhere. We’re not doing that in the state of Florida,” said DeSantis in supporting a bill that actually introduces jail time and fines for those who sell or distribute lab-grown meat.
DeSantis added, “Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.”
“For the same reason that California cannot ban orange juice made from oranges grown in Florida, Florida cannot ban UPSIDE’s meat,” said IJ Attorney Suranjan Sen. “A major purpose for enacting the Constitution was to prevent exactly this kind of economic protectionism, ensuring that all Americans can benefit from a free and open national market. Florida cannot ban products that are lawful to sell throughout the rest of the country simply to protect in-state businesses from honest competition.”
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