Diabetics and diet-soda drinkers need not fret that New Mexico will ban sugar-substitute products anytime soon.

In a unanimous vote Tuesday, the seven-member state Environmental Improvement Board decided to wait for Attorney General Patricia Madrid’s opinion on whether the board has the authority to outlaw or put warning labels on products that contain aspartame .

The board proclaimed in October that it had the necessary powers. Then on Nov. 9, the board asked in writing for the AG’s opinion. The board has not received an answer.

The board Tuesday postponed the five-day hearing originally scheduled for July 2006. It's now slated for January 2007.

Stephen Fox, a Santa Fe gallery owner, is leading the effort to ban this Federal Drug Administrationapproved substance, with some local medical doctors at his side. Fox says new research suggests aspartame is a toxin that can cause harm to human health.

He said the sugar substitute is found in 6,000 products, ranging from diet drinks to cough drops.

“I fear for the 70 percent of adults and 40 percent of children who consume this product, not knowing it turns to formaldehyde and other toxins ,” Fox said after Tuesday’s meeting.

After meeting with Gov. Bill Richardson last month, Fox said he feels assured the hearing will happen eventually. Fox said he will step up his mission to educate the public about aspartame, now that “New Mexico has to wait another year for this poison to be removed from the market.”

Meanwhile, Ajinomoto USA Inc., a leading manufacturer of aspartame, and the Calorie Control Council of Atlanta, a low-calorie , food-industry trade group, continued to defend the sweetener as a thoroughly tested, safe substance that benefits people worldwide . The popular sweetener is sold under the brand names of NutraSweet and Equal.

“We are pleased the board will get the AG’s opinion before proceeding,” said Albuquerque attorney Richard Minzner, a former state representative. Ajinomoto has hired him along with another law firm in Washington, D.C.

Minzner said the Environmental Improvement Board — which the New Mexico Legislature established in 1978 to handle rules on the state’s food and water supply, liquid waste, air quality and radiation control — is outside its bounds.

“The FDA has full authority in this area, and the states have been preempted ,” he said.

And even if that were not the case, Minzner said, the state Legislature has not given the EIB, or any other body, the authority to regulate products in the way proposed by Fox. As it stands, that power only lies within the Legislature , Minzner said.

If New Mexico found a way to become the first state in the country to ban aspartame, it must consider the practical effect of such a decision, Minzner told the board Tuesday. He asked if Indian reservations would be able to sell these products; whether surrounding counties in Texas, Colorado and Arizona would snap up the shoppers; and whether sales over the Internet would meet the demand.

Contact Diana Heil at 986-3066 or
dheil@sfnewmexican .com.