FREE SPEECH MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

In olden times, kings and emperors trampled on the rights of their
people simply because they had the power to do so. In modern
democracies, governments often encroach on liberties, but they always
do it with the comforting assurance that it's for our own good.
Increasingly, the only freedoms entrusted to ordinary people are the
ones that have been certified as harmless.

The public-health school of thought believes that we have a duty to
take good care of our bodies and that enforcing this duty is
government's noblest purpose. The result is an assortment of assaults
on tobacco--banning smoking in office buildings and restaurants,
raising cigarette taxes to onerous levels, bringing tobacco under the
formidable regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration,
and suing the pants off cigarette-makers for having the nerve to
supply willing consumers with a legal product.

With tobacco virtually vanquished, the next inviting target for the
nanny state is alcohol, which has not been so besieged since Carry
Nation was doing the Lord's work by busting up saloons. Drinking has
been on a steady decline for a decade and a half, but anti-alcohol
forces aren't content to see individual adults cheerfully electing to
reduce their consumption. They insist on enlisting government power to
push more people into making the approved choice.

For years, the wine industry has asked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms to let it discreetly publicize research on moderate
drinking. On Feb. 5, the agency grudgingly agreed to permit wine
labels advising consumers to consult their physicians or the
government's official dietary guidelines to learn more about "the
health effects of wine consumption."

Winemakers have some interest in this matter because scientific
studies show that drinking can be good for your health. The federal
guidelines note that "moderate drinking is associated with a lower
risk for coronary heart disease in some individuals." The American
Heart Association goes further: "The incidence of heart disease in
those who consume moderate amounts of alcohol (an average of one to
two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women) is lower
than in non-drinkers."

Note that the labels don't mention "health benefits," though bottles
are already required to carry a stern warning that alcohol "may cause
health problems." But even the neutral language was enough to send the
industry's critics screaming from the room.

"Some consumers may interpret `health effect' as `health benefit' and
end up drinking more than they should," lamented the Center for
Science in the Public Interest, which possesses the wisdom to know
exactly how much each of us "should" drink. The new labels, warned
journalist Michael Massing in The New York Times, will "simply
encourage more people to drink" and "drive moderate drinkers to drink
more heavily, with potentially steep medical and social costs."

This warning conjures up the bizarre image of whip-cracking vintners

"driving" modest tipplers to chug those wine bottles or else. In fact,
all the wine industry is permitted to do is invite consumers to
acquire reliable data about alcohol, something truth-seeking
journalists should not find inherently alarming.

Accurate, non-deceptive information is supposed to be good for
consumers. But anti-drinking forces want to ban any communications
that could possibly be good for sales of alcoholic beverages. Even
more alarming than the new wine labels is the expansion of broadcast
and cable advertising by makers of distilled spirits.
Neo-Prohibitionists would dearly love to outlaw wine and beer
commercials, and their aversion to bourbon and Scotch ads is more
intense still.

The industry used to voluntarily refrain from this sort of marketing,
only to see liquor consumption drop by 40 percent in the last two
decades. Acting on the impeccable logic that alcohol is alcohol,
whether it comes in a beer can or a highball glass, booze makers have
decided it's only fair they should be able to air radio and TV ads the
same as Budweiser and Fetzer. But CSPI insists the campaign "flies in
the face of a national policy designed to decrease alcohol consumption
as part of a broad national-health initiative."

Bureaucratic words, those, but translated into English, they have a
clear meaning: Regardless of our preferences, people who hate alcohol
have decided we should drink less. If they have to suppress honest
communications between competent adults to achieve that goal, then
censor they will.

Those of us with an atavistic desire to be left alone to make our own
choices really ought to get over it. When all is said and done, we'll
still have the one freedom worth having: the freedom to do what others
think is good for us.