by Jacob Sullum

About the author: Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and author of For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health.

Like you, I've seen innumerable Calvin Klein ads featuring sallow, sullen, scrawny youths. Not once have I had an overwhelming urge to rush out and buy some heroin, and probably neither have you. Yet the death of Davide Sorrenti, a 20-year-old fashion photographer who overdosed on heroin in February 1997, is now being held up as proof that such images have the power to turn people into junkies.

In May 1997, President Clinton accused the fashion industry of "increasing the allure of heroin among young people" and urged it not to "glamorize addiction" to sell clothes. "We now see on college campuses and in neighborhoods...