In Georgia, it’s an offense punishable by law.

No, it isn’t murder, rape or marijuana possession – it’s selling raw, unpasteurized milk within state borders.

“It shall be unlawful to sell, offer for sale, or otherwise dispense raw or unpasteurized milk, cream, or other milk products except raw milk cheese properly processed and aged according to Federal requirements,” proclaims the 1980 Georgia law.

Pasteurization, the process of heating milk to kill bacteria and other microorganisms, is at the center of a national debate between food safety advocates and proponents of consumers’ right to choose.

Michael Herndon, a press officer for the Food and Drug Administration, said “pasteurized milk rationally can never be considered more hazardous than raw milk, contrary to the claims of raw milk advocates.”

“In fact, it is universally agreed within the scientific community that pasteurization has made milk a much safer food for human nutrition,” he told The Red & Black Tuesday.

According to a March 2009 testimony given by John Sheehan, director of the division of plant and dairy food safety at the FDA, microbes such as E. coli, Mycobacterium and Campylobacter have been linked to illnesses caused by drinking raw milk.

Pasteurization is proven to kill these and other disease-causing microorganisms.

However, RealMilk.com, the Web site leading the raw milk movement, says pasteurization destroys enzymes, vitamins and proteins naturally present in milk, and promotes diseases such as colic, osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer.

Herndon said though the FDA does not regulate commerce of raw milk within state borders, it does regulate interstate commerce of the product.

“Pasteurization is required for all milk and milk products in final package form intended for direct human consumption, which move in interstate commerce,” he said. “FDA made a number of findings relative to raw milk, including the following: ‘Raw milk, no matter how carefully produced, may be unsafe.’”

Beth Crocker, general counsel for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, said in South Carolina there are regulations regarding the production of raw milk, including sanitation procedures, food packaging, permit requirements and sampling. Regulations also exist for pasteurized milk.

“Microbial counts are set, and they can’t sell [milk] if it goes over,” she said.

Georgia has no such regulations for unpasteurized milk because it cannot be sold in the state.

In October, 110 gallons of unpasteurized milk from the Cows R Us dairy in South Carolina were dumped after an attempt to distribute them at an Athens area farmers market – a punishment that was a direct result of Georgia’s law.

“It wasn’t done sneakily or against the law on our part,” Dale Tessier, owner of Cows R Us, said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

He said individuals purchased the milk, which was then driven to the farmers market to be distributed to those people.

Georgia’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Tommy Irvin, said otherwise.

“The recent case in Athens involving bringing raw milk from South Carolina was a case of clearly breaking the law,” he told The Red & Black Tuesday. “I would not advise anyone to break the law or find ways to get around it.”

Crocker said the issue was very emotional on both sides.

“We’re seeing a trend here to go back to natural [foods],” Crocker said. “You’re seeing people who cross the state lines from Georgia and North Carolina to get the product.”

She said food safety advocates have never been in favor of distributing raw milk. The producers, however, “believe in their product.”

“People who’ve grown up on dairy farms, they’ve drank raw milk,” she said. “People didn’t want to lose their right to purchase raw milk.”

Though Tessier said he “wouldn’t just drink raw milk from any place,” he prides his dairy on providing local milk to a target market. The Tessiers bought Cows R Us in June 2008, six years after its previous owner had begun selling unpasteurized milk.

“Many times I thought about not [selling raw milk], but there’s some people who want that milk, who don’t want pasteurized milk,” he said.

Instead, milk from the dairy is filtered twice.

“Nothing gets in the milk anyhow, but we don’t want to take any chances,” Tessier said. He added the filters are clean even after the milk runs through them.

Tessier said despite the food safety problems associated with raw milk, he has never heard of anyone becoming ill after drinking milk from Cows R Us.

“We did have one person come and tell us he didn’t like the taste of one [gallon] but winter grass and frost change the flavor,” he said.

“It’s not for everybody,” he said, adding his main concern was consumers having the right to make that decision for themselves. “Smoking could kill you too.”