Raw milk, and where it is allowed
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The range of state positions
Retail sale in shops, sale only at the farm where it was produced, herd-share or cow-share arrangements where the buyer owns part of the animal, sale permitted only for animal consumption, and prohibition of sale for human consumption altogether. All of those exist simultaneously in different states.
Which means nothing transfers
A maker in a neighboring state doing something openly is telling you about their state and nothing about yours. This is the single worst craft in the library for reasoning by analogy from what somebody else is doing.
The line is the state border, not the sale
Even where intrastate sale is permitted, moving the product across a state line puts it squarely inside the federal prohibition. That catches makers near a border, makers at a market that draws from two states, and anybody thinking about mail order.
It is a different safety conversation, not a lighter one
Where raw sale is permitted it usually comes with testing requirements, labeling requirements, herd health requirements and inspection, and those are frequently more demanding than what a pasteurizing operation faces. Permitted does not mean unregulated.
The cheese exception is real and narrow
Cheese made from unpasteurized milk is provided for separately, and the soft ripened cheese standard states the condition plainly: if the milk used is not pasteurized, the cheese is cured at not less than 35 degrees F for not less than 60 days. That is a specific carve-out with a specific number, not a general permission.
Be careful what you imply as well as what you say
Marketing that gestures at the virtues of unpasteurized milk while selling a pasteurized product, or that describes a herd-share in terms that look like a sale, attracts attention this craft does not need. Say plainly what the product is and how it was made.