In a few short years, anti-sugar hysteria has metastasized from a heated debate in nutritional science to a global network of fanatical campaigners banging the drum for taxes, marketing restrictions, and interventions in the food supply.

The plan of these campaigners is clear, to frame sugar and particularly the soda industry as the new “Big Tobacco.” Soda is the new smoking and the tobacco control playbook should be used to clamp down on the industry that sells it, according to these activists.