I guess I'm at the point of the sky isn't falling and we don't need the govt. trying to regulate every single thing we do. I get it that it's bad for raptors. I get it that we shouldn't ingest lead for our own health's sake. On the other hand, my buddies and I who grew up riding our bikes to the lake every day of the summer to fish, 3 miles, up hill both ways, we would not only close our splitshot on our lines with our teeth but chew on one of the tiny BB split shot from time to time because it was neat how soft they were, or how strong our teeth were I guess. Well, we aren't dead yet, and as one of those same buddies (who drinks and smokes plenty) still says 40 years later, "well, you're gonna die of something eventually if you live long enough" - LOL!!!
And as my Brother says, "Shut up and Fish!" - And as far as the price not being that big of a deal, try buying tungsten jigs instead of lead. We buy tungsten because it's even heavier than lead and falls faster through the water column to the fish for ice fishing, but a tiny 3-5 mm ice jig made of tungsten is $2.75, 3x the price of a lead jig.
In the end change is inevitable and we all just have to roll with it and keep doing what we love to do , even if a bunch of suits think they have the right to tell us how and where we can do it.