[rsynnott]

> and they appear more addictive

_Massive_ citation needed, tbh. Sugar is highly addictive.

(Also, I mean, even if aspartame _was_ very addictive, to some extent, well, so what? To be clear, soft drinks ~never contain the sugar alcohols that people are talking about above; the sheer volumes would have, well, undesirable digestive impact. They use aspartame, which is pretty well-understood at this point.)