The Oregon House has voted to allow schools to sell junk food in staff lounges. The bill illustrates what is wrong with our legislature: It is too meddlesome by far.

No issue or subject is too small to warrant the attention of our legislators. No part of human existence can be left to the discretion of the adults and children who populate this state.

The junk food bill was an outgrowth of legislation in 2007, when the legislature banned fatty snack foods and sugary drinks from vending machines in schools.

The legislature stepped in because it saw something it didn't like - teenagers eating stuff of which the health police disapproved. The result was a monstrosity of a law, a clear case of legislative overreach.

"A snack item," the law says, "may be sold only in a single-serving size and may not have more than 35 of the total calories from fat, ... may not contain more than 35 percent sugar by weight, ... may not contain more than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, ... may not contain more than 150 total calories if sold in a school in which the highest grade level in the school is 5 or less."

(Who writes those bills anyway? The "highest level is grade 5 or less"? Don't they mean "lower"?)

Also, snack items "may not contain more than 180 total calories if sold in a school in which the highest grade level in the school is grade 6, 7 or 6."

And in high schools, a snack item is allowed no more than 200 calories.

Did it occur to our solons in 2007 that a kid who wanted more could just buy two of the snacks, or even three if he had the money?

There are calorie limits on "entree" items, too. And of course there are strict limits on beverages as well. "If the beverage is sold in a school in which the highest grade level in the school (again that annoying duplication of needless words) is grade 5 or less, the beverages may be only: water, fruit or vegetable juice provided the beverage item is not more than eight ounces, is 100 percent juice with no added sweeteners and contains no more than 120 calories per eight ounces; milk or a nutritionally equivalent milk alternative, provided the beverage item is not more than eight ounces, is fat free or low fat and, if flavored, contains no more than 150 calories per weight ounces."

This ponderous and punctilious law-making is worth quoting verbatim because it illustrates to what lengths our elected officials will go to intrude into the smallest details of life.

And now, in HB 2419, pending in the Senate following House approval, they want to exempt "employee areas" from the strict fat and calorie limits of the law.

Instead, they should junk this entire statute. Schools don't need a law to use good sense on snack machines. And their employees should be free to buy whatever they want, and not be put in the role of food and drink police. (hh)