The Criminalization of Maple Syrup

Thinking about producing your grandmother’s homemade maple syrup recipe?

Well you better make sure it’s actually maple syrup or the federal government may come after you.

Three months ago, the Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement Act of 2011 (MAPLE Act) was introduced in the Senate. The bill would make it a federal crime, punishable with prison time, for anyone to knowingly and willfully distribute in interstate commerce a product that is falsely labeled as maple syrup.

Are maple syrup felons sufficiently heinous that they should be imprisoned for perhaps as long as 45 years? Some members of the U.S. Senate seem to believe the answer is yes: How else to explain the provisions of the Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement Act of 2011? This bill, known as the MAPLE Act, would make it a “federal crime…for anyone knowingly and willfully to distribute into interstate commerce a product that is falsely labeled as maple syrup.” While falsely labeling a product should not go unpunished, there are ample criminal laws on the books to deal with the false labeling of maple syrup. The real threat raised by the MAPLE Act is not that of a shadowy syrup syndicate, but a U.S. Congress determined to expand the federal criminal law well beyond its intended limitations—the phenomenon known as overcriminalization.

Sound a little extreme? It is.

No one will argue that fraudulent behavior should go unpunished. But, Heritage Foundation legal scholar Fellow Paul Larkin argues the new law “amounts to piling on.”

The two most widely used federal antifraud laws are the mail and wire fraud acts, Larkin explains. These acts already cover anyone who uses any large-scale marketing of fraudulent material in the mail or via telecommunications services. That means the MAPLE Act is redundant.

With ample criminal laws on the books to deal with fraud, the MAPLE Act is overkill.

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