RALEIGH – According to at least 10 members of the state house of representatives, a clear and present danger stalks the land of North Carolina. It threatens the physical and mental health of Carolinians from the mountains to the coast. And it reflects the unbridled greed of those who would misuse scientific knowledge for personal gain.

That danger, ladies and gentlemen, is the scourge of unlicensed musical therapy.

As Carolina Journal’s Sara Burrows reported last week, House Bill 429 would create a new North Carolina Board of Musical Therapy to license practitioners. The bill has 10 primary sponsors. If it becomes law, those who advertise themselves as musical therapists and engage in such practices as “music improvisation, receptive music listening, song writing, lyric discussion, music and imagery, music performance, and movement to music” without obtaining a license from the state board would be subject to misdemeanor charges and a fine of up to $1,000.

I, for one, was happy to see that at least some of the solons of Jones Street managed to turn their attention away from such distractions as tax policy, education reform, and redistricting in order to combat the scourge of music therapy abuse. After all, you don’t have to be a graduate of one of the University of North Carolina’s two official musical-therapy programs (at Appalachian State and East Carolina) to recognize the risks associated with playing the wrong music to the wrong people at the wrong time.

For example, I’ve seen what happens to my sons and their friends when they listen to Eminem “songs.” Suddenly, they all transform from polite, dutiful, and brilliant young philosopher-kings into immature, self-centered, and ravenously hungry children. And I saw what happened to my friends back in the 1970s when they chanced to hear a few bars of “Ring My Bell” or “Having My Baby.” It was a ghastly sight.

I can only imagine the horror of entering the offices of some unlicensed musical-therapy quack, expecting to hear some soothing Bach or Debussy, only to hear the telltale introduction to “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”

Of course there ought to be a law.

Now, I admit that the bill’s supporters might have ulterior motives. Those who teach musical therapy as a college-level course or degree program would obviously welcome a state law requiring prospective therapists to enroll in their courses. Just as the state’s education schools insist on rigid teacher certification and the state’s cosmetology educators insist on excluding unlicensed people from cutting other people’s hair, the state’s musical-therapy establishment (!) wants to establish a cartel of its own.

But it would be unfair to see the legislation as purely self-serving. At a public hearing on the measure, Queens University professor Rebecca Engen explained the risks involved. “It is possible to use music harmfully,” she said. “You can use music that’s the wrong tempo or … that does not have the right musical qualities and it can affect someone physiologically in a way that it can be damaging.”

Engen didn’t deny that the measure would also have the effect of protecting the jobs of those who obtain college training in musical therapy. “[It] has been documented on more than one occasion,” she said, “that people come in and they’re fantastic musicians and they have a great heart and they use music and it has some therapeutic effect, but that is not music therapy.”

House Bill 429 didn’t fare well during the 2011 legislative session. But perhaps there is still time to protect oblivious North Carolinians from musical-therapy malpractice. Please spread the word to all your friends and family: Beware of these modern-day pied pipers. They may possess an extensive mp3 library or play a mean fiddle, but that doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing.

And by all means don’t try this at home. If you’re feeling listless, don’t listen to marches by John Phillips Sousa. If you’re feeling blue, don’t listen to B.B. King. Turn your iPods and radios off. If you must listen to something, make it static.

You’ve been warned.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.