The U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow for common sense Wednesday with its unanimous ruling that the government's 60-year ban on the listing of a beer's alcohol content on the label violated free speech.

The ban made about as much sense as prohibiting Detroit from telling car buyers how much horsepower its products have or how fast a particular auto can go.The justification for the ban was to keep brewers from trying to outdo each other in producing the most potent beverage. But labels on wine and hard liquor state the alcohol content of these potables without triggering any such invidious competition.

With the new ruling from the Supreme Court, beer drinkers can and should use the alcohol-content statements on labels to gauge and limit their consumption.

An even better move would be for drinkers to pay closer attention to the health warnings on bottles and cans of beer, wine and liquor.

Since health warnings on tobacco packages have helped reduce smoking, maybe consumers will eventually get the message about the harmful effects of alcohol, too.

But this campaign to improve the public's health won't go as far as it should until Washington gets tougher on beer commercials. As it is now, children seen more than 100,000 TV commercials glamorizing beer before they are legally old enough to drink and drive. No wonder that twice as many young Americans die in alcohol-related accidents as adults do.

Meanwhile, the new ruling allowing alcohol-content labels on beer bottles is a small but significant gain. Now let's build on it, not rest on it.

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