The swift rise of the Internet has provided consumers with an abundance of choices. But such an explosion of options doesn't sit well with those in positions of authority, experts suggest -- and they are beginning to fight back.

For example, President Clinton is calling for new laws to require pharmacy websites to get licenses from the Food and Drug Administration before they can go online. Those who sell prescription drugs "without a valid prescription" would face federal fines of up to $500,000 per sale.

• Critics point out that determining what's "valid" would put the federal government in the business of regulating medical practice -- while nationalizing state-level pharmacy regulations and common law standards of medical care.

• The 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act established federal requirements for drug safety and labeling -- but exempted prescriptions from the labeling rules, with the aim of making self-medication safe.

• Then, according to Peter Temin, in his 1980 book "Taking Your Medicine," the Food and Drug Administration "moved within six months of the bill's passage to curtail self-medication sharply and thereafter used a substantial and increasing proportion of its drug resources to enforce its imposed limitations.

• The agency created a new class of medicines that could be sold only by prescription and thus appointed doctors as the consumers' purchasing agents.

Critics suggest that the Internet partially restores patients' rights to choose how they buy their medications and from whom.

Source: Virginia Postrel (Reason magazine), "Sometimes the Patient Knows Best," New York Times, January 3, 2000.