I like clean water and nonlethal drugs too much to want the government totally off everyone’s back. But the more the short-term bosses of us muck with diet regulations for our own good, the more nervous I get. I used to live on Coca-Cola but now have one maybe every couple of years, so a tax on the stuff would not be a biggie. But letting Tab off the hook is the bureaucratic equivalent of empty calories. I always thought there was something to the studies that found people who drink diet sodas tend to eat far more because their appestats never get the “full-up” signal. Given that coffee and tea would not be covered by this silliness even though they can rival Pepsi when sweetened, it’s a slippery slope to taxing french fries and letting the 8,000-calorie taco “salad” slide. Where there’s a law, there’s a loophole.