Protecting the rights of minorities

I'm very much against alternative medicine. I think it's mumbo jumbo and the people who take it are deluded. So my first take on the Adam Smith Institute's report on the EU food supplements Directive was that it was about time too. The Directive will apparently take whole swathes of these particular types of snake oil off the shelves.

But then I thought back to this post at DM Andy's that I'd read earlier.

the Conservatives only seem to be exercised about rights they care about.

And that set me to thinking. Don't people have the right to take snake oil if they want to? Of course they do. (Just so long as they pay for their foolishness themselves). And this Directive transgressing on people's rights to enjoy what is a pretty harmless pastime, which they have enjoyed (?) with little or no harm to themselves for years. They may be fools but they have rights.