Oh NO!

You hear things about this Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and you think, "Well, how can that be a bad thing?" It is. It's so bad! Craftzine has posted a nice summary of the dilemma:

"We've been following the CPSIA development, and it's apparent the groundswell of protest is in full swing.

Petitions are being signed by the thousands, letters are being sent to Congress, and small business owners are mobilizing to take action against what they believe are unreasonable demands being placed on them by a law that will take effect on February 10. The new legislation will mandate that every part of a child's toy and clothing be tested for lead before it can be sold to the public.

The law was passed in response to high levels of lead being found in toys manufactured in Chinese factories, but does not take into account the thousands of small businesses who make toys and clothes in much smaller numbers, and many of them by hand in their own homes or workshops. If the law goes into effect as it's currently written, they will have to pay up to thousands of dollars to test just one set of handmade goods."

So far thousands of people have added their names to an ipetition (have YOU ever heard of this phenomena? I hadn't. Turns out you have to donate at least $2 to add your name... poo to that!) and plenty of crafty sources are keeping tabs on the developments. Yet another thing that sounds good in principle, but in practice it turns out to be utter poo.