Erin Allday for the San Francisco Chronicle:

Like alcohol and tobacco, sugar is a toxic, addictive substance that should be highly regulated with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised, and even age-restricted sales, says a team of UCSF scientists.

In a paper published in Nature on Wednesday, they argue that increased global consumption of sugar is primarily responsible for a whole range of chronic diseases that are reaching epidemic levels around the world.

Sugar is so heavily entrenched in the food culture in the United States and other countries that getting people to kick the habit will require much more than simple education and awareness campaigns, the UCSF scientists said.

The opposition, at least in Allday’s article, sounds just the same as the opposition to the stop smoking campaigns: “there’s no evidence, people can make other choices, blah blah blah.”

I guess it’s true in a “guns don’t kill people, I do,” kind of way.