How sweet it would be if researchers would stop coming up with zany proposals like banning children under age 17 from buying pop, and focus on something that has a modicum of sense instead. Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California and two colleagues argue in a report in the journal Nature that sugar is such poison, it should be legislated like alcohol.

Their report blames sugar for many of humankind's mortal ills, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. To which we would add, yes, sugar can be a factor in disease, but like everything else, only when it's overdone. Lustig and his colleagues have fallen into the trap of proposing extremist measures for a problem that can be regulated with a little common sense. If you guzzle endless cans of pop, or wolf down cookies, cakes and other sugary treats as your main course daily, then you're setting yourself up for falling sick over time.

However, if you follow the adage of eating everything in moderation, then having some sugar in your diet is not going to be detrimental. And it's up to parents - not the state - to supervise what children are consuming.

A spoonful of sugar does indeed make the medicine go down, but following Lustig's advice and banning pop simply makes for a bitter and unnecessary pill to swallow.