'Evil' has religious overtones but it's not a bad word to sum up such a situation.
Americans couldn't travel to Cuba. During the cold war, USSR. Americans couldn't freely express socialist ideas never mind communist ones. This in a democracy. I don't really see a big difference. The peculiarities of Cuba can be understood in its geopolitical context.
There is a general case to be made for regulating toxic substances and the examples given are of people arguing over if particular substances really are toxic enough.
> we're forced to do what someone
> tells us to do
You are confusing a lack of suffrage for effective slavery.