Yes, I agree the tax on diet soda is unfair. My bigger issue is that cigarettes are insanely taxed and it doesn't deter smokers from buying cigarettes. Why would a soda tax be any different? A diet soda addict like me will buy it anyway. Just like smokers and alcoholics (booze is also heavily taxed I believe).
Yes, I know there's supposed data out there to support that more people are drinking water. Where is this data? I always see it referred to, but never is a specific source cited. I question the data until I see cold numbers from an unbiased source.
Another issue I have that, in some ways, is more troubling to me than either of the above and that is the idea that governments have a say about what we do in terms of buying these items. Yes, the items are harmful, I get that. But when is government interference appropriate and when does it approach "Big Brother" territory? Would well-being people be able to see when the line is crossed? I'm not so sure about that. People in the U.S. have the right to bear arms, the right to exercise free speech, freedom of religion, etc. Shouldn't we have the right to make choices about how we treat our own bodies for better or worse? Please know I don't condone addiction. My concern here is about privacy rights. Is this any different from having more security cams everywhere than ever before? I agree some are needed, but should the cams watch everyone?
"Big Soda" seriously? LOL. Nothing more than nanny state machinations. What are we going to tax next in the name of the public good. Ice Cream?
6
Don't tax sugary drinks. Tax sugar. Sugar is far too prevalent in all sorts of foods from soda to pasta sauce. Tax it at the wholesale level. And stop with the subsidies for the sugar industry. We'll all be better off, and we'll have better tasting food.
7
The soda tax was poor public policy from its inception to its rightful repeal. The message on its supposed benefits was muddled and, in some communities, downright didactic and offensive. On the one hand, you have the County Board President saying it was for health costs, while sweetheart contracts were simultaneously doled out to the teamsters union at the county jail, and county government and its budget have ballooned since Preckwinkle took office in 2010. Then, you had meddlesome interloper, Michael Bloomberg, running ads on Black Talk radio, starring an evangelist prattling on about how soda was the societal scourge that led to “babies so obese they can’t even run” and how we should just “see all the dialysis clinics around ‘the church,’” as though all African Americans see the church as the center of our existences, and the tax was to be the cure all for a seemingly defenseless subset of the population. Nonsense. Add in the recent 32% income tax increase, the $1 billion in property tax increases in the city of Chicago, the bottled water tax, cell phone and landline tax increases, the grocery bag tax, and the existing 3% tax on soft drinks, and it was too much to bear for a populace propping up a bloated, patronage-ridden government, lacking innovation and sound financial stewardship. When the tax was implemented, I went to IN for my soda just as I’ve always done for my gas, although groceries were added to the list. The tax savings are always worth the travel.
8
What's next? Big cookies? Big fries? Higher taxes for anyone who doesn't exercise at least 3 hours a week?
4
While I agree that soda consumption is bad for one's health, unless all carbohydrates are taxed, sugar consumption is not going to decrease. One carb will be replaced with another. The fact is that sugared soda contains exactly the same amount of calories (15 per ounce) and carbohydrates as fruit juice. Are we also taxing fruit juice? Bread, potatoes and most processed foods are also high in carbs, all of which can lead to diabetes.
And although diet soda has its own problems, why was it being taxed if it contains no sugar?
Most Starbucks drinks are packed with sugar, calories and carbs. Are we taxing those? Are we taxing fancy desserts at fine restaurants? Ice-cream stores?
I don't like nanny taxes. It disrespects the people it's supposedly trying to help.
10
How to win against Big Soda? Simple. Don't buy any!
8
Aside from endless anti-soda tax ads here in Philadelphia, the industry also seems to have our local newspaper of record in their hip pocket with weekly articles against the tax appearing under the bylines of the paper’s staff writers. In fact, a few weeks ago, two of the paper’s writers chose to write negative soda tax articles on the same day.
Naturally, every “reader” comment is also negative and no doubt inflated by industry shills. Make a positive and reasonable argument for the tax in a comment (as I and a handful of others have done) and you can be sure to receive multiple and vicious responses. You’d think their mothers had been insulted.
The primary argument for killing the law seems to be centered on the fact that surrounding counties have not followed suit and these destructive drinks can be bought in neighboring counties at the expense of Philadelphia’s retail vendors. There’s a fundamental problem with this argument since the newspaper wouldn’t dare suggest an end to the tax if we were talking about cigarettes just because they were far cheaper just across the city line. Rather, they’d more likely join the campaign to encoourage those adjoining counties to help end the physical damage done to our citizens and financial damage to our healthcare costs. To not take that stand would be irresponsible of the newspaper. It’s even more irresponsible (and sleazy) to enable the soda industry in their effort to keep the addiction rolling.
2
I knew this tax was going to fail when I saw Michael Bloomberg’s TV ad calling pop, “soda pop.” Every single Chicagoan who saw that ad was thinking to themselves, "since when is it called soda pop?" I guess someone forgot to tell Bloomberg it's just called "pop" in Chicago. His ad killed any chance for the tax to succeed.
3
It's fair to everyone to tax something that clearly causes a disease (diabetes) that everyone has to pay for thru higher taxes to cover higher Medicare and Medicaid costs.
For anyone who doubts how pernicious sodas and other sugary drinks are, watch the children's movie Wall-E, and then go stand outside 7-Eleven and tell me whether the people walking out of the store clutching super-sized sugary drinks don't remind you of the future predicted by the movie.
5
Are people any healthier in areas that impose a soda tax? If not the policy is a failure so why continue the tax?
The reason Cook County residents fought against this tax is that it makes no sense. It isn't a tax on sugary-drinks. Artifically sweetened drinks are taxed as well. It's one thing to argue that the 65 grams of sugar in a 20oz. Coke cause obesity, but it's junk science to make the same argument about a 12 oz. zero calorie iced tea. And all sugary drinks aren't taxed. If you buy a fat and sugar filled bottled Frappucino at a Starbucks, it's taxed. But walk up to the counter and buy the exact same drink except that it's freshly made, then it's not taxed. Is there some magic obesity causing factor that only involves sugar purchased in the checkout line, not at the barista counter?
The other huge problem with the tax was that it was assessed per ounce, not as a percentage of the sales price. If the County had added a 1% tax to all beverages, there wouldn't have been as much of an outcry. But adding a 68 cent tax to a $1 two-liter bottle of soda is ridiculous. What other consumer items are taxed at 68 per cent? Not to mention this tax is already on top of the sales tax, and in the City of Chicago, the bottled soft drink tax. This tax isn't about health, it's about revenue, and we, the overtaxed residents of Cook County know it.
8
Our Cook Country board president wasn't honest with the citizens. The tax was about filling a budget gap. In addition, the tax was way too high and diet sodas were taxed as well. 78% of Cook Country residents were for reversing the tax and we won. We were very concerned that everything else that contained sugar would be taxed as well. Wine, cakes, pastries, etc. would all be next. Lastly, Bloomberg was sticking his nose into Chicago affairs and offered significant money to keep the tax with dishonest commercials. Those of us in Cook County and Chicago do not like individuals from other states to interfere with our business. Education is the answer to this problem with health and not being forced into
submission with a huge tax.
11
RE: The soda industry won big in Chicago this week when county commissioners voted to scrap the 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks that had been in place for just two months.
Wrong the American people won over the busy body MINDLESS bureaucrats.
The issue is high health care cost. Charge people what it cost to provide them health care e.g. land whales and smokers will pay more. (Obamacare eliminated this sensible approach) What if someone is fat or diabetic from eating a quart of ice cream every day? Or fat from eating bushels of french fries every day?
6
Japanese tea with no sugar. That's how you win.
1
I am in complete support of taxing sugary drinks such as sodas and other beverages with a high sugar content. Increasing the tax on these beverages will drastically improve health standards throughout the country. It is a hard concept for many people to follow, “Shouldn’t Americans have the right to choose what they want to drink, despite the health effects?”
In America close to 70% of adults are struggling with obesity, and 1.5 million people are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every single year. Soda and other drinks that are high in sugar seem to be the main culprit. Obesity and diabetes seem to be an unending struggle facing our country. The tax on soda is merely an effort to reduce these deadly statistics. If the tax on soda is imposed, Americans will be less willing to purchase these drinks, and these drastic health epidemics facing America will drastically decrease.
Doctors, dentists, and other health professionals are also in favor of the new tax. As local dentists argue that soda leads to erosion of tooth enamel, plaque/staining, hypersensitivity, cavities, tooth decay, and even tooth loss. It is no question that soda is a leading cause for these certain health concerns and it is in America’s best interest to put in a significant effort in reducing the amount of consumption.
1
Composition of Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Thirteen Democrats and four Republicans.
To paraphrase some of my fellow commentators - Liberals, keep your hands off our soda tax.
There - that ought to do it.
3
Singling out the sugar in soda was just a money grab. The ultimate leftist dream would be a calorie tax so all food intake would be taxed and regulated. Why not penalize anyone consuming more than 1500 hundred calories a day...more than their fair share?
6
I see nothing in this article about health education. Sugar-added products because sodas are only one of the multiple food products on he market. If the objective is to prevent diabetes and obesity, then the "tax" should be to eliminate agricultural subsidies on growing and importing "white death." So the tax is on consumers, not on the producers. Does that make sense?
Secondly, sodas are acidic by nature. Take out the sugar, and the insulin cycle is still wrecked by the acidity: it is just another setup for diabetes and obesity.
In my family, we don't drink sodas. We boycott them because they are bad for health. Governments aren't going to get my tax money because we don't buy junk food. It took patient study to figure this out, because even the NYT "Well" column, and certainly not the government, teaches the basics of nutrition.
I win by never buying sugary drinks! Just so no for your kids.
I disagree with the claim that sugar is everywhere. It might be (is) everywhere in manufactured food but no one is forced to eat it even if almost everyone does it. I couldn’t care less if people make themselves and their beloved ones ill/dead by feeding sugary industrial food to them. I want effective control of habits such as smoking that can kill us innocent bystanders.
1
Why not require people to weigh in each year and then apply a fat tax. Then people could determine for themselves how to--or whether to reduce calories. I drink copious quantities of Orange juice--often 1/2 gallon a day which is very high sugar, yet I weigh 142# and have maintained the same 30" waist as per high school graduation. I exercise vigorously and eat healthy in most ways--but I love my orange juice. At age 73, I have yet to cost Medicare even $1 of expense.
Self control, self responsibility. Absurd to blame "Big Soda."
4
I do not see how Democrats can ever win elections being against Coke. It plays right into the Republican right which claims we Democrats have nothing to do but bother you.
6
I drink nothing but Health-Ade Kombucha and no longer crave sugary drinks. A 16oz bottle of Kombucha has approximately 2 grams of sugar. A 16 oz bottle of Sprite has over 50 grams of sugar. Do the math: Hypothetically If you drink a bottle of Sprite once a day everyday for one month you will have eaten the equivalent of well over a 1lb of sugar. Additionally Kombucha has live and healthy bacteria that feeds the healthy of the intestine. If the taste of something sweet is what you crave, there are so many alternatives to the garbage that these soda company are pushing. Finally, Did you know that a major portion of you body's immune system is found in the intestine? If you value your health, you'll stop drinking soda, seriously. . . . .
1
I attended a lecture on nutrition years ago. One of the most succinct pieces of advice was, "Don't drink your calories". People protest taxes on beverages sweetened with HFCS and sugars, but it could really help curb intake, as higher taxes on cigarettes have discouraged smokers. How many people protesting this tax as unfair to the poor will be protesting when the same poor people have no health insurance to deal with the inevitable illnesses these products create?
HOW ABOUT PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY?
If you think sugar is bad for you and soda is the problem, don't drink it.
Most fat people do not get fat from soft drinks. They are fat because they eat an unhealthy diet and they eat gigantic portions and they snack all day besides.
5
Gonna tax the mocha lattes as well? Or just the soda (and diet soda) at the fast food places? Because this isn't about health, it's about making those with lower income (who can afford soda but not mocha) pay the tax. The elite buyers of coffee drinks full of sugar don't pay a red cent.
9
Water is the best thirst quencher there is, second to none. All other facsimiles are not. What is so hard to fathom (pardon the pun) about that? Drink water, especially NYC tap water, and rejoice. At pennies a gallon, what's not to like?
DD
Manhattan
3
Either you tax sugar, or you don't. The sugar in your soda is the same as the sugar in your artisan farm-to-table handcrafted macaron.
7
What a fraud. For governments, it's about the money, the money, the money. If public health were the primary consideration, the responsible thing to do would be to ban the sale, possession and consumption of sodas. But no, they don't want to ban it, they want to have it both ways - raising piles of money while claiming to be combating a "health menace". They pull the same flim-flam with tobacco, which is a genuine public heath risk. No wonder people are cynical about government.
5
This was never a tax designed to get people to stop drinking soda; it was a nickel and dime naked money grab by Cook County to get more money because Cook County, like the State of Illinois, has been severely mismanaged for decades. If Cook County were truly serious about getting people to eat better and smarter it would have started programs and education about this matter a long time ago. The President of the Cook County Board says drastic cuts will now be needed because the tax is gone. How is it that this tax, not being implemented, is the reason why drastic cuts in services are now required? What had been going on all these years? Will the President of the Cook County Board or any of its commissioners cut their salaries and benefits? How many employees of Cook County are patronage or family hires that do little or no work? The President of the Cook County Board either severely underestimated the ramifications of this tax or received extremely poor advice about pushing for it. The people of Cook County are tired of career politicians who only care about getting re-elected and living off the taxpayers shoving nickel and dime taxes down their throats.
5
Dear Ms. Lappé and Ms. Bronsing-Lazalde,
How to “win” against “big” soda is by drinking less of it. I love soda, and I’ll drink the same daily amount no matter what I’m charged. You’re trying to tax gluttony and and demonize sugar water. Good health is mostly good luck and good habits. Why not suggest that parents treat their kids to some dietary discipline instead of treating them like garbage disposals?
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
5
Disclosure -- I don't drink soda - of any kind.
I don't understand why everyone is such an expert on why people don't want taxes on sugary drinks. Many of these comments follow this narrative:
a) X people don't want a tax on N food, therefore
b) X people want huge amounts of N for purchase
c) N used to be an indulgence and should still be, therefore
d) X people must want to eat and drink themselves sick or they are too stupid to realize that evil companies are taking advantage of them
Honestly, this is patronizing to people who will end up paying this tax. It is nonsense. Soda purchases in the aggregate don't necessarily reflect any individual's consumption pattern or wants. We need to stop being so sanctimonious and start listening to WHY people may choose to buy soda when it may not make sense to do so (in our mind). These taxes are a further example of how anyone can sell anything by appealing to the dynamic funding duo: obesity and diabetes. At the same time, we can't get clean water in some portions of the country. Clean water would be a bigger bang for the buck, but no -- too tough, too political, but we can put taxes on soda and say the magic words "high fructose corn syrup" and "obesity". Voila! The new face of public health.
I'm not paying the tax as I don't consume the product. But I object to my tax dollars being used in ineffective, and patronizing, ways.
2
Why not cut to the chase and just appoint a Government Official to supervise my entire diet? He/she could check out the details of my sex life too while he/she was at it.
For my own good of course.
7
What about including a beer in the choice of a combo? This is the case in some European countries, like Spain, and people there seem healthier.
5
And what about diet drinks? Are they taxed, too, even though they are not sugary? We have a slippery-slope problem here: What are the government-control-advocating liberals going to tax next? Cookies? Candy? How about foods rich in fat and cholesterol?
Obesity has many causes, but instead of education, the liberal-fascists have opted for government control.
4
I think the reason the tax was fought repealed was due to poor design rather than the tax itself. First, it was applied to any "sweetened beverage" so sugar free drinks were taxed. Then, instead of taxing a percentage of the purchase price, the penny an ounce approach meant that a $5.00 twelve-pack of diet coke had a $1.44 tax slapped on it. That seems outrageous to people used to paying a flat sales tax percentage. Even worse, sweetened beverages made by a barrista were not taxed. So the wealthy vanilla latte drinking crowd didn't have to pay a dime. The concept is a good one, the execution could not have been more poor.
7
After reading the comments section, I found the multiple claims that diet drinks do not cause weight loss, cause type II diabetes, etc. rather astounding and appalling in their science denial. The science simply does not support such assertions (and no, a Google search for articles on artificial sweeteners and disease will not lead you to the science). For a recent review of what is known about artificial sweeteners and weight loss, diabetes, etc., see:
Szimonetta Lohner, Ingrid Toews and Joerg J. Meerpohl Health outcomes of non-nutritive sweeteners: analysis of the research landscape Nutrition Journal (2017) 16:55 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12937-017-0278-x
It is available as an open access article. Additionally, one might want to search for relevant articles using PubMed to access the scientific literature. Many (most?) of the articles you will obtain via a Google/Bing search are simply opinions not based on the science, and that often distort the science.
4
To those who say we should just let markets decide, why do we tax income? At the end of the day, we need to raise revenue somehow. Because sugar contributes to obesity and other health problems, it is perfectly reasonable to charge a tax on soda especially since ACA does not let insurers charge more for those who are overweight (like they can for smokers).
1
I stopped drinking that stuff about the same time I stopped smoking about 15 years ago. I kept buying very expensive 8 oz Coca Cola in glass bottles for a guest who would drink three or four of them while bending my ear. I stopped that, she does not visit anymore. I won across the board, I gained control of my money and my time.
I just bought my first six-pack of Coke in over 20 years. I'm using it to get rid of lime scale in my toilets. It really works. Which is why I would never ingest it.
5
Just say no. No I am not going to try to micro manage my neighbors’ lives. I just polished off a plate of salmon, asparagus, greek yogurt, washed down with artesian water and kombucha. No soda in this house. Why? Because it’s my choice. Stop trying to take those choices away from me.
5
No soda in my house either, but kombucha?
Here's a better idea: End government subsidies for the corn industry. Corn = Sugar. And sugar is artificially cheap. Ending subsidies saves money and does the same thing as a tax - raises the cost of sugar. That's good.
6
Cigarette packages have warnings on them. Why not sugary drinks? "Drinking the 12 teaspoons of sugar in this beverage is detrimental to your health and could lead to diabetes."
1
Taxation alone will not fix the public health threat of sugary drinks. In Louisiana regardless of income level there is excessive consumption of sugary drinks. Parents give babies "juice" and their 8 year-olds expect non-stop refills of sodas at restaurants. The culture of careless sugar consumption is pushed at schools, daycares and all other institutions. As a parent with a 4 year-old and 18 month-old, it has been easy for me to keep sugary drinks, candy and artificially sweetened items away from my kids at home. In public well-intentioned strangers offer candy; schools push juice, canned fruits, sugary cereal. None of this is acceptable. The sugar consumption issue needs pediatricians, doctors and public health officials to educate about healthy consumption. It needs regulations to reduce children's access at schools and other public institutions. Like alcohol, sugary beverages should have a warning to pregnant women. State laws passed that limit (yes) the consumption of beverages of (x grams sugar per liquid ounce) that public institutions or restaurants serve to children (under x years of age). Like Big Tobacco, Big Soda may face a public reckoning if it continues with the same tactics. The economic costs of lifestyle "freedom" should not be bankrolled by all taxpayers.
3
Here’s an idea. Why not ban the manufacture and sale soda beverages just like we did with alcoholic beverages. That ought to work. Hmmmm? Let me give give this just a little more thought..
6
Is there any reason to believe that taxing soda will make people drink less of it? I certainly didn't quit smoking because of the cigarette taxes. I quit because it was getting harder to climb the stairs, & it probably had something to do with the 30 cigarettes a day I was smoking. Plus it was no fun desperately wanting nicotine in all kinds of places where smoking became illegal. Nicotine patches are a great invention. The thing is, you could illegalize smoking in various places because if you're smoking those around you have to breathe it. Not so with sugary drinks. I'm in no way affected by the slurpy you're slurping. So I think illegalizing sugary drinks will be a really hard sell. He-haw.
2
Prohibition failed. Federal taxation of cigarettes led to people rolling their own in recent years, often without benefit of a filter. The War on Drugs has not been a success, nor the war on prostitution.
Federal force is not how people change their behavior. Education is the route to go.
7
The authors are not on the ground in Cook County. I am so let me give my perspective. The tax was a disaster because people were immediately outraged, independent of advertising and PR from "big soda." No one could understand the law - not retailers, not customers. I read articles about the law. I read explanations of the law. I read the language of the law itself. I still didn't understand which beverages would be taxed and which wouldn't. A TV newscaster announced that "smoothies" would not be taxed. When I went to buy a smoothie at Dunkin Donuts, it was taxed. Yet a smoothie at Potbelly's was not taxed? Why? I guess it has to do with how the two smoothies were made differently. At first we were told that milk-based beverages wouldn't be taxed. Then we were told that Frappucinos bought in stores would be taxed, but a Frappucino handmade in a Starbucks would not be taxed. It was utterly infuriating.
This is on top of the reality that in Cook County taxpayers feel like we are being nickel-and-dimed to death already. Our sales taxes are the highest in the nation. In Chicago you have Chicago sales taxes plus Cook County taxes. When you buy beer at the drugstore there is regular sales tax, liquor/beer sales tax, plus an excise tax.
7
Exactly. Not to mention the fact that they were taxing sugar free soda as well.
4
I don't have to pay tax on soda, tobacco, or gambling, because I don't indulge. If government at whatever level wants to grab a little cash from those who do, more power to them. Expect resistance from soda drinkers, tobacco users, and gamblers, respectively.
If only we were talking about the consumption of animal products. Known carcinogens that play a larger roll in human health than sugary sodas. As the planet heats up, I have to pay the price for the humans that insist upon a cruel, violent, and environmentally destructive diet. The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance on these issues is just breathtaking.
1
I think if you look at the science sugar is actually worse.
Could be. These two comingled factors are not easy to separate in large population studies. Consumption of one is highly correlative of the other. But there is no way around the moral and environmental equation.
I wonder why my post (6th at the time) was not posted. I shared my city's experience with a sugar tax that supposedly would fund preK ed. It failed overwhelmingly because the tax was perceived as regressive and there were outside interests trying to sway the vote (Bloomberg in particular). (We have had a CocaCola distributor here for nearly 100 years and it employs 200 people). Additionally it was clear despite the mayor's repeated canard that the entire tax would go to fund pre K and it would be sufficient to pay for it--that there were layer upon layer of bureaucracy; at least 5 % went to some of the bureaucracy and at the numbers given, it wouldn't even fund 50 percent of those in need. Additionally we have had financial scandal upon financial scandal in the city of Santa Fe (NM). A parks bond approved in 2009 was used for city salaries--not part of the bond and that is the 10 percent we know was misused. There were so many hard copy and digital records "missing" that we will never know the extent of the fraud and abuse. We have done audits only to have more city employees pilfering goods and funds and the city "just" discovered over 60 other possible points of fraud in its system==hey only took 8 years to find those! Many people do not trust the city to properly use any pot of money at this time...Who knew sugar taxes could be this complicated?
4
If it were simply a matter of getting good health information to consumers and getting them on board, then they would eventually stop spending money on sugary drinks.There would be no need for a punitive tax on such beverages. Unfortunately for the authors of this article, consumers fully understand the health and fitness concerns that are involved and prefer to have their daily dose anyway.
3
This issue may force me to abandon the Democratic Party. Leave us alone. It’s none of your business what I drink.
13
Oh heavens yes, it’s EVERYONE’S issue. This country ‘s obesity is causing our health to plummet and our insurance rates to soar. We all have to pay more because we can’t get a hold of our lifestyles.
Let's tax guns and bullets the same way!
8
This entire piece displays the ignorance of these nanny state zealots, chiefly that people are rational and will just cross county lines to purchase tax free soda, and therefore the only people you are affecting is small business owners and the destitute or disabled who get screwed.
9
The way it was sold to consumers in Cook County was very disingenuous. It was marketed as a health issue. But then we found out that food stamp recipients would not have to pay the tax. Which is fine with me - give them a break. But then you can't market it as a health issue and pretend that the health of food stamp recipients is somehow less important than the health of the rest of us. I'm going to guess that the food stamp recipients of Cook County probably have worse health issues, including diabetes, than the rest of the population. Basically the tax just felt like a big money grab. Yes, here in Cook County we're used to having local government sticking one hand in our pockets every single minute of every day. But this particular tax just felt like insult added to injury. And I say this as someone who doesn't even drink sodas anymore. But I do want an occasional smoothie or Frappucino, and I feel incensed having to pay this tax. Honestly I felt like an American colonist confronted with the Tea Tax in 1773.
11
Also, notice that Preckwinkle only talked of the revenue lost. The tax was absurd. A penny an ounce?!
1
Its simple. Make sure that every one knows that #7 - 20 oz bottles of just about any non diet soda or #2 - 64 oz bottles contains about one pound of processed sugar. Refined sugar should be considered a drug. It is addictive - both physically and mentally. It rots the teeth of our children and is a terrible long term health risk for many of the worst diseases. It correlates with obesity, Diabetes, social dysfunction. and mental illness. It almost certainly is co present with excess caffeine intake which is also associated with its own set of problems and likely nicotine as well.
1
The Cook County tax taxed diet sodas too. How much sugar do they contain?
3
Sugar is not addictive, at all. Show me the citations on how it causes social dysfunction and mental illness. If you don't want your children's teeth to decay, don't feed them sugar, including but not limited to juices and dried (natural) fruit. A big cause of infant/toddler tooth decay is also leaving the bottle in with the child in the crib at night and letting the child use a bottle after one year of age. Caffiene? Lately studies have been showing the more coffee you drink the better for your health. It's the anti-science aspect of all this that bothers me too.
1
I didn’t think I had an obsession with sugar and sweet funds. Not until I read David Ludwig’s book “Always Hungry” and followed his recommendations. Putting it simply, eating more oils and fats, cutting back on carbs, and eating more protein. They were pretty simple changes, especially adding more oils and fats. Lo and behold, my whole desire for sugar and sweet foods just fell away.
Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at Harvard, explains that dozens of studies show that overeating, particularly with sugary foods, doesn’t make you fat: the process of getting fat makes you overeat. Low-fat diets work against you, by triggering fat cells to hoard calories, leaving too few for the rest of the body. Increasing weight and overwhelming sugar cravings are the result. A never-ending painful diet-and-binge cycle for so many.
I can honestly say that my relationship with sugar has completely changed—the thought of having a dessert or a sugary soda just doesn’t cross my mind.
But until people get to this stage, a sugar tax is the best way to go.
2
I was for the tax on principle, but the case for it was poorly made, and its implementation was a debacle. For example, SNAP recipients were exempt because it's a federal program, negating the argument that this was to help prevent low income kids from suffering the health consequences of too many sugary drinks. According to the NYT on January 13, 2017 "SNAP households spent 9.3 percent of their grocery budgets on sweetened beverages. That was slightly higher than the 7.1 percent figure for households that do not receive food stamps."
1
Since sugar is a poison, why is it not banned and the makers put in jail?
Google: "sugar toxin"
Yes, it is a poison - although it is not an acute toxin, it more than meets the scientific definition of a chronic toxin/poison. It is also addictive.
No it is not a poison and it is not addictive! ARRGGG!!!!
2
I live in Cook County. The authors of this op-ed piece neglected to mention the following:
1. The one cent per ounce sugary beverage tax also applied to artificially sweetened beverages that diabetics can drink, juice blends that include even a small abount of sugar, and sweetened, powdered beverages, such as powdered lemonade. Who would label a 60 calorie, 8-oz. glass of lemonade as terrible for your health?
2. One of the main arguments for the sugar tax was to lower the rate of diabetes, which is sigificantly higher among those with low socio-economic level (Agardh, E., Allebeck, P., Hallqvist, J., Moradi, T., & Sidorchuk, A. (2011). Type 2 diabetes incidence and socio-economic position: a systematic review and meta-analysis. International journal of epidemiology, 40(3), 804-818.). As it turned out, low-income Cook County residents who receive food stamps could not be charged for the sugar tax.
3. The funds were not directed towards any worthy cause as in Philadelpia, but were to be used to for general county expenses.
4. A recent survey found that 87% of the residents of Cook County were against the tax.
Thankfully, a number of astute politicians realized that the residents of Cook County know a money grab which they see one, and the tax has been repealed, effective 12-1-17. I am not a soda drinker but I had a Pepsi, purchased in the next county, to celebrate.
9
I don't care what you drink or smoke as long as YOU are the only one paying the consequences. Fine, don't tax cigarettes or soda but don't ask for MY tax dollars to pay for YOUR lung cancer, diabetes, and other obesity-related treatments. Deal?
6
Just don’t drink sodas anymore. Easy.
4
The tax applied to more than just sodas. Fruit smoothies, milk-based sweetened beverages, lemonades.
1
Sometimes, and I'll admit, it's rare, articles here leave me virtually speechless.
Anna Lappé and Christina Bronsing-Lazalde are an embarrassment. Not because they have an opinion. They're entitled. Not because they're wrong. They're entitled to speak and remove all doubt. Not because I disagree with them. No one needs to agree with me—I'm a harmless little fuzzball.
No. they're an embarrassment because they seem to honestly feel that their flawed judgment should be literally forced by power of law onto others. Yet, I'll bet that when an health insurance company wants to raise rates for the same reason, based on risk, i.e., orange juice drinkers consume too much sugar, they would be adamantly against it.
That's just hypocrisy.
13
A better solution is to cut health insurance by half for health complications caused by sugary drinks: overweight, blood pressure, etc. Clearly list all such diseases on the bottle or can - no excuses.
The authors' spin on the Chicago tax is pitifully naive. Cook County consumers discovered that this was no mere, health-driven movement when the items being taxed went far beyond sugary drinks, and even beyond the so-called sugar-free diet drinks. Suddenly a 12-pack of unflavored La Croix sparkling water in 12 ounce cans had another $1.44 tacked onto it. When the public outcry grew for repeal, County Board President Preckwinkle revealed her true motivation by bleating that the lost revenue would immediately force layoffs and terminations for 20 percent of the county government workforce. Today Tony Preckwinkle has about as much credibility as Donald Trump when he claims that he's going to make health care "better."
4
The LaCroix sparkling water wasn't supposed to be taxed, because it doesn't contain any added sugar. The problem was that the law was so confusing that some retailers taxed it, and others didn't.
4
I have a problem with the soda tax. It goes like this. We taxpayers subsidize the over production of corn, so corn producers are forever finding new places to be put corn products lie corn syrup. And now we taxpayers are asked to pay an additional tax to consume the products that contain corn syrup. How about, instead of paying a tax on sodas, we stop subsidizing at taxpayer expense the over production of corn. (I hate sodas and never drink the stuff).
6
How to win against Big Soda? Easy: Don't drink it. And there's an easy way to accomplish this without the Cook County Solution.
What we should be doing is taxing pounds. That is, obese folks should have to pay a pound tax simply to exist. Make it $1 per pound for every pound over optimal weight, with, say, a 10-pound exemption--we are, after all, not draconian here. It would be a graduated tax. After the first 20 pounds at $1 per pound, it goes to $1.25 per pound for the next ten pounds, then to $1.50 for the next ten and $1.75 for the next ten and so on. Payable on April 15, along with income taxes. It would largely be on the honor system, but audits would be quick and easy.
This would be the fairest way. Not all folks who drink soda are obese or are going to become so, but obese folks require more health care than folks who are not obese. So, if you're fat, you should pay--why should skinny people subsidize health care for sloths? If you don't want to pay, lose weight. In the end, individuals would have complete control over whether they will pay or not pay.
When you think about it, this would be much less ridiculous than a soda tax. And with the epidemic of obesity in the country, this might go a long way toward establishing a balanced budget.
4
I can just hear the ACLU chomping at the bit for that class action discrimination lawsuit. How ridiculous. For the record, I'm still (in my early 60s) at the low end of the BMI charts.
1
Big Soda spends millions to get (influence) families and individuals to regularly (habitually) drink the sugary drinks.
Families and individuals spend millions to care for the diabetes that disrupts their lives.
Let's call out Big Soda!
1
THat's an easy question. No one buys soda.
Think of this issue in free market terms, not that I support free market theory. If consumers have transparent information causing soda to not be bought, or purchases greatly reduced, the market will react.
Drink seltzer if you want bubbles and no calories. Add a little fruit if you want some flavor.
1
This doesn't tell the whole story.
People were outraged by a new tax, and the messaging was bungled from the start. They didn't outline a planned use for the new tax funds, i.e. schools, roads, etc. Illinois is in really rough fiscal shape, so people here felt like the tax did little to solve our long-term issues, but cost people more at the grocery store.
And for the record I am in support of these types of taxes that are in place to prevent people from unhealthy habits. It's just that the rollout was poorly done.
3
It is interesting to note how folks who live in Cook County are reacting as opposed to folks who live elsewhere.
Folks who live in Chicago tend not to like the tax not because of the tax, per se, but because the tax system in Illinois is so hopelessly out of whack. The Chicago Tribune just published an excellent report on how the poor and middle class in Cook County pay an outsized share of property taxes because the assessor under-values property owned by the wealthy. On the state level, Illinois just raised the income tax by 30 percent. But if you're retired, you pay no state income tax at all, because retirement income, no matter the amount, is entirely exempted. There is no tax on services, so you're taxed for the spark plugs but not on the mechanic's time to install them. Illinois and New Jersey are neck-to-neck in the fight for the nation's highest property taxes.
Add it all up and what you have is a regressive system with a narrow tax base, which results in absurdly high tax rates shouldered by a narrower-than-it-should-be base of taxpayers, who understandably get upset when hit by new and/or higher taxes. The money has to come from somewhere, but where it goes in Illinois is maddening. Illinois has 7,000 units of local government, more than any other state by far. Mosquito abatement districts, townships with no real duties, hospital districts, more school districts per capita than any other state. The soda tax was merely the straw that broke the camel's back.
10
Don't buy it; stop drinking it. Problem solved.
6
I think sin taxes are good policy in a limited number of cases where the product imposes significant socialized costs on society. In this case I don't understand why we're not putting the tax on sugar, rather than on just soft drinks.
5
I agree, dave r. Big soda is not the only merchant of White Death. We do the opposite of taxing sugar: we subsidize its production. Nuts.
1
I live in Cook County. The soda tax was not levied because the commissioners cared about our health and obesity problems. It was levied because Cook County has long been badly managed and there is lots of bloat and they needed more money to continue that bad management and bloat. The health issue was used belatedly to try to justify yet another tax. Also, the way the tax was written it unfairly targeted drinks that did not even have sugar.
4
How about you just educate people and allow the market to decide? Freedom means free to do things that some consider wrong.
6
Does freedom also mean not to ask the government for help when you go to the ER with a heart attack and can't pay?
1
For this to work from a public health perspective healthier options need to end up in the hands of the poorer people who are more likely to consume high-sugar drinks. Healthier options that are comparable to soda in terms of tastiness (e.g. fresh fruit and vegetable juices and not water or seltzer) are often 50% more than soda. I don't see how a tax can be an effective deterrent to the consumption of high-sugar drinks for all demographics until the healthier options are affordable to poorer consumers. Until then, people who can afford healthier options will be the only ones benefiting from this public health initiative.
3
Tap water is essentially free. Taps and water fountains are everywhere.
1
This is all find and dandy. But let's talk about the Cook County Tax.
It was a money grab, plain and simple. And against the people who could least afford it.
There was WAY too much hypocrisy in our soda tax. If this is all about “our children” and helping preventing them from being overweight and developing diabetes, WHY was diet soda being taxed? The American Diabetes Association recommends diet sodas instead of regular soda. They also don’t recommend you drink juice that is sweetened with sugar. There are very FEW juices you can buy that aren’t artificially sweetened. Even then, they don’t recommend you drink large amounts of juice. WHY was juice NOT being taxed? It has just as many calories as regular soda.
Because not enough people drink juice to make any money from it.
Toni Preckwinkle also said that one of the budget cuts she was going to make was not to fill 600 open positions. WHY didn’t she do this BEFORE choosing to tax us AGAIN?
We are SICK of being nickeled and dimed by Cook County. I made a trip OUT of Cook County to buy soda. (I also filled up on gasoline much cheaper than it is in the city if Chicago.) I ended up saving almost twenty-three dollars on buying, in bulk, diet soda and Gatorade, which was also taxed.
Do you think that wasn't worth a trip out of the county once a month?
5
Actually, there are a lot of juices that do not have added sweeteners. Start reading labels, and buy accordingly.
1
**Because not enough people drink juice to make any money from it.**
Well, I could present the argument that it wasn't taxed precisely because not enough people drink it to make it the health concern that soda is.
Diet sodas just increase cravings for sugar
Please do not forget the new sugary drink: Starbucks beverages ( teas coffees etc )
A lot of sugar and very expensive
7
How to win against big tobacco. How to win against Big Pharma. How to win against Big Soda. How to win against the Big Three. When are we going to see an article, "How to win against the Big Media Companies?"
People make choices. That is what makes America such an incredible country. We can be great, or we can be nothing. We can be winners and invent something phenomenal, or we can be average.
When we start dictating by taxes what the public can or cannot do, then the difference between us and the North Koreans narrows.
6
The fundamental problem is that soda is cheap to make, distribute and sell, with federal subsidies on sugar production playing a role. So, the corn farmers in the mid-west are being rewarded to produce a product that harms the health of the population. Is that what we should be doing?
An awful lot of poorer citizens buy big two liter big tubs of soda. They take it home and their kids drink it down like water and in two days, they are back at the store buying another big tub. A penny an ounce tax would take away this choice for many, which, on its face, seems unfair, but the question is then, what can be done?
Scientific studies have indicated that 60% of the cancers in America are related to obesity. Just imagine the amount of human suffering and the cost in medical bills related to this statistic. Nearly 40% of adults and 19% of children in America are obese. This is a national health crisis, one with a much wider impact than opioids.
What would you do about it? It is not enough to say one approach is wrong or elitist. For that matter, we rely on "elite" people in the medical profession to guide us toward better health for all. Maybe a dose of elitism to counter other social and economic forces isn't so bad.
People being grossly fat is a national health emergency, undoubtably killing more people than the opioid crisis, but fat is a crisis in slow motion, many bad choices made over years. If we don't start acting now, the emergency will only grow, claiming more lives.
2
Sugar production is not subsidized. In fact, imports are restricted to increase sugar prices.
Corn production is subsidized, so high fructose corn syrup is subsidized. It is used as a sweetener, but it's not sugar.
2
The latter is what I had reference to. Sugar production was subsidized for many decades. High fructose is, you are correct, not sugar, per se, but it is under the general classification of sugars, meaning sweeteners.
Restrictions on sugar imports amount to an indirect subsidy and this is particularly true for corn syrup because that is what is used in almost all sodas in the US.
Since when is it the business of the proven dopes in government to decide what free American citizens should and shouldn't drink? If I could just get every American to ask one simple question about everything government does, we'd all be in much better shape. That question is "Does this make me more free or less free?" If the latter, it's wrong and antithetical to human freedom.
2
If someone somewhere else is making the choices about my reproductive rights (just for example), his freedom to do that makes me less free. It's not always as simple as what one person might want.
What's next? What personal behavior will liberals attempt to regulate next? Popular snack foods like potato chips and corn chips are pure carbohydrate, salt and fat. How about them? Drinking a beer is like eating a loaf of white bread. An apple, though it has nutrients, is almost pure sugar. A glass of orange juice is just as harmful to a candidate for diabetes as a similar amount of sugary soft drink. And many of those who advocate taxing sugary drinks also want to tax drinks made with artificial sweeteners. The solution: take care of your own diet, and let those whose behavior you want to change take care of theirs. It's hard enough for you to live a healthy life---stop trying to make others conform to your preferences. There's nothing more narcissistic than trying to control and regulate other people.
5
The thought of taxing soda drinks in order to curb consumption, albeit a bad food choice, and merely one among hundreds in a sea of bad choices, crosses a bright line. Where would it end? Why not add a tax due to the high saturated fat content of my favorite chicken pot pies?
3
If you have something against soda don't drink it. Don't tell me what to eat or drink.
This is a typical political maneuver, tax something you don't like. If the politicians had been honest with the people they work for, namely US, and told us when they were running for office that they would be imposing these taxes, installing red light cameras, considering congestion pricing, they'd never get elected. They'd have to take real jobs, something for which they have aptitude, like maybe delivering pizzas.
What's next, taxes on doughnuts, French fries, hotdogs, potato chips, cookies, sugar, candy?
I hate these politicians who, if left to their own, devises, would rob us.
9
A tax doesn't force anyone to eat or drink, or not eat or drink, anything. A penny price increase is not going to put soda out of anyone's reach.
To paraphrase Ev Dirksen, "A penny here, a dime there, pretty soon you're talking real money." I drank sugar sweetened Coke 40 years ago, switched to diet 25 years ago, and within the past 2 years switched to store brand flavored seltzer. No calories, no funny taste, and no aftertaste. AND it's cheap! If the local authorities slapped an extra tax on my seltzer, I probably would try to get in on suing the taxing authorities.
It seems pretty regressive, tho. Poor folks aren't obese just because of poor food choices. High calorie, low nutrition food is seductive and affordable.
Excuse me, I have to go crack a grapefruit seltzer and have some Jarlsburg cheese for afternoon snack (BTW, I'm a Diabetic retired guy.)
It's a penny per ounce. Yes, that does put it out of reach for many people.
2
Taxes on soda are a viable solution. They work well in Philadelphia despite negative press and a very powerful soda industry.
We should tax vices such as tobacco and sugary drinks. It deters use and improves health. Otherwise, we all pay the price with higher healthcare costs.
1
"Taxes on soda are a viable solution. They work well in Philadelphia despite negative press and a very powerful soda industry."
Funny, I noticed no shortage of fat people last time I was in Philly.
5
Have you ever eaten a Philly Cheese Steak?
(I live in Chicago.) I speak for two registered voters who always vote. Additionally, I am a Democrat. I am delighted that this regressive tax was repealed. I believe that if Cook County voters had been allowed to vote in a referendum, the tax would not have passed in the first place. Even without this extra tax, both Chicago and Cook County tax levels are already much too high, especially sales taxes. (All grocery items are already taxed.) Both Chicago and Cook County already have ample supplies of tax money to work with and need to manage better what they already have.
7
re are diet soft drinks perfectly safe?
Please do your own diligent research for yourself and family members
There are articles that are anti aspartane (sp?) and anti the other fake sugar substitutes in pastries and other sweets
I recently read a very anti Splenda slanted caution, and but i'm sure there are pro Splenda rationales on the internet too
I tried to post a Wikipedia article to clarify what i'm suggesting is reality
do some research vs research before your kids become addicts like mine did
the fake sugar problem was exposed on 60 minutes, circa whenever, but they don't have an exclusive on scary sensationalism of course
at the risk of being written off as another obsessive kook, I must urge diet soda drinkers to reconsider what damage the d stuff allegedly does
it's sickening propaganda, especially if true enough
I
What utter garbage...
Politicos tripping over themselves to tax moderately sinful things - because the excessively sinful things have been taxed to death...
Find the politico brave - or dumb - enough to put a fifteen percent VAT on the next harvest out of Humboldt, or on any pharma priced at more than $100K per year per patient, in the US...
Any moron can tax soda - or try to
Apparently, more than several of them already have...
5
To be honest... this is my problem with 'the left';
No perspective.
Is this an issue? Yes. Is it a worthy issue? Kinda.
How does it compare to all the crap going on right now? Poorly. There are FAR more important issues. While the GOP is dismantling health care, these authors want to tilt at windmills against 'big bad soda'. Which has the bigger impact on national health? (hint; not this)
This is a buzzing gnat compared the lions, tigers and bears (oh my) that we face today. US Soda consumption, and how to curb it... can anyone say with a straight face this even makes the top 20 political issues we face today?
And this is why I say the left is screwy... no sense of scale or priority, they get pulled into a pet issue and adopt it for life as the most important thing on the planet.
This administration is destroying health care, transferring wealth from the middle class to the most wealthy, dismantling national parks and monuments for energy interests, nearly starting nuclear wars... with TWITTER... and might be in bed with Vladimir Putin.
Explain to me, why, TODAY, I should give a rat's arse about how much soda we are drinking?!?
This is an issue. This is a real issue. I am not arguing that. But as a political priority today? It's a freakin' joke.
8
The idea of pro-any tax community coalition is not realistic. The taxing effort must be tied to popular initiatives funded by the new soda tax. This was a key element of success in Philadelphia. There were 3 popular new programs waiting to exist if the tax was passes: pre-K, community schools and major investments in parks, libraries and rec centers. The supporters of those programs in Philly worked together as a large, vocal coalition to push for yes votes on the tax. Many of those voices would not have supported a new soda tax for the sake of the health benefits alone. It was those yet-to-be created programs driving a pro-family community coalition. It was not a pro-soda tax coalition. The tax was simply the means to an end.
Cook County Board has a problem because this tax was stated to be necessary for budgetary reasons, with the threat of curtailed services. The county has too many friends and family employees who make undeserved salaries and excellent pensions among the hard-working staff members. Political leaders have themselves to blame.
3
My soft drink consumption is about 4 litres per year. That's less than 12 oz. Per month. A safe level. A small indulgence. Please stop trying to cloak your money grabbing schemes in the masquerade of a nutritional crusade. The people of Chicago and Santa Fe represent the majority opinion across the country. Low income and middle class people will stop you. Prepare to lose if you persist with your nonsensical taxes.
5
Frankly, this looks more like an effort to raise regressive taxes than it does to spur community health. Cigarettes clearly kill more people than soda does. Yet not only are consumers hooked on cigarettes, but now governments are hooked on cigarette taxes. Consequently smoking will probably never go away. Are these soda taxes limited to sugary beverages, or are the sugar-free versions taxed as well? Are the teachers union supporting them because the tax base is low and public schools need more financing?
Look, you want to cut down consumption of these drinks, then educate the public. Educate the students. Put warning labels on cans and bottles. Use persuasion. But taxing them is regressive. I am a liberal. I want my taxes raised. But I don't like this way of doing it. It's regressive. It's unfair. It seems poorly targeted.
Eric Schubert
Chattanooga, TN
5
Like most tightly wound, political or organizational mission statements it glosses over both complexities and context, establishes a binary--people and Big Soda--of actors, and presupposes the justness and strategy of its cause to make a call for action.
I live in Chicago and am familiar with it's cash-strapped political compulsions. Like many here, I am also an unabashed progressive. The Chicago tax was a regressive sales tax for progressive purposes: it taxed poor people (the main consumers of soda) for their public healthcare. To add to the typical parentalism of politics here, it was hastily passed, without much public input. The primary--and admitted-- rational behind it was to raise funds.
If you're to invoke our example, you'd be well to mention the significant differences between the places mentioned, how their soda tax models operate, and their significant demographic, class, racial and municipal financial and size differences.
Instead the authors ignore all of this context. Furthermore, they do not do justice to the most pressing issue: that soda consumption in major cities is inextricably linked to environmental racism and poverty.
This is one front of that war, yet it does not even mention it.
I'd be inclined to agree with the general sentiment, but this org either doesn't think much of potential supporters' understanding, or has a hopelessly flawed understanding of the battle they're fighting themselves.
1
As long as people want to be fleeced they will be. No one forces you to drink soda. Same for smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and playing the lottery. Thank you all for helping keep my taxes down.
It's a proven fact that people often sit down when reading a newspaper (paper or electronic version).
Sitting is a known health risk. The Mayo Clinic states excessive sitting can cause:
•A nearly 50 percent increased risk of death from any cause
•About a 125 percent increased risk of events associated with cardiovascular disease, such as chest pain (angina) or heart attack
In the interest of public health, I call for cities and states to levy a $1 tax on each newspaper sold in their jurisdiction. Sunday papers will be charged $2.
When will progressive cities save their newspaper reading citizens?
9
Why shouldn't corn syrup sugary drinks be subject to a sin tax like alcohol and cigarettes. But the best way to win against soda pop is to stop drinking it and stop buying it.
The solution is a simple one.
Every 12 months, the marketing people for Coke and Pepsi would switch posts with the government's marketing people.
The mediocre messaging of the government is part of the problem - they need an up-grade, desperately.
For me, the problem was messaging. The pro soda tax messaging was all clearly from the larger national effort to tax these unhealthy consumption habits. Consumers/citizens understand and can on many levels support this. However the taxing of diet sodas, protein shakes and slim-fast divulged the likely dubiousness of that virtuous motivation. On top of that, with some beverages nearly doubling in price from the tax, it did not take an economics professor to come to the conclusion that the principal force here was monetary. There's nothing inherently wrong with this motivation either, but this made the messaging come across as patronizing and even manipulative. My advice, because I agree with the principle behind this tax, would be for the County board to try again with a smaller tax which allowed reasonable exemptions while being honest with messaging (i.e. Don't just use the first blanket messaging campaign Bloomberg's office sends your way).
Translation: American consumers are too stupid to make decisions regarding their health. If the war on sugary beverages were anything more than specious grandstanding, it's proponents would be going after Starbucks and it's plethora of sugar-laden offerings as well.
2
WHy is it that the Left encourages personal freedom in self-destructive behavior such as smoking dope but then claims that we really must stop people from drinking soda?
8
Not only is the sugar bad for our health, the bottles and cans are bad for the environment and therefore our health also. Why not a $5 per bottle tax, your spring water included? Cars cause pollution so how about a $5 per gallon gasoline tax. Alcohol is bad for us so how about a $10 per bottle tax. Producing bicycles causes millions of cubic yards of greenhouse gasses to be put into the air, how about a $400 tax on bicycles? The same can be said for solar panels. How about a $1,000. tax on them? The production of newspapers is horrible for the environment and therefore our health. How about a $50 tax on each one of those that has an article in it which is preachy drivel like this?
5
This is just more of the laziness of the modern American, turning to govt to solve their complaints and trying to FORCE their views on others. How about educating yourselves and your families if you object to sodas and let the rest be free to choose whether we want to drink them or not. Freedom is what this country is all about and many of us are sick and tired of the minority trying to control our every thought and deed.
6
Please stop controlling how some of us think. Some of us think the government has a role in protecting public health.
First they came for cigarettes, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a smoker.
Then they came for the boxers and football players, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a boxer or a football player.
Then they came for sugary soft drinks, and I did not speak out
because I did not drink soda.
Then they came for my own personal vice—and there was no one left to speak for me.
15
Interesting to read about Chicago eliminating a soda tax while Massachusetts legislators fought to put a whopping 20% tax on recreational marijuana (recently approved for sale here at 12% sales tax by voters). Since they were clearly trying to curb usage, I hope MA pols will go forward with the sugary drink tax being considered here.
1
Maybe we should seriously reconsider crop subsidies that warp the market in favor of corn and soybeans. Big agriculture loves the current system and the country gets cheap hugh fructose corn syrup and animal feed.
3
How about going after the big picture, if the issue is truly health and not political grandstanding?
For example, how about:
1). The big US sugar lobby, and the artifical high US sugar prices vs. world sugar prices? Big soda uses big sugar, after all.
2). How about going after sodium, since that is a huge problem re cardiovascular disease and other major health problems?
3). How about going after junk food generally?
4). How about going after high fat food generally?
5). How about going after massive calorie intake generally.
But no, let's attack, say, Coke and Pepsi, in various localities, and absurdly only in movie theatres in NYC for large drinks -- because it makes some liberal politician be able to claim they are "doing something".
Sure.
2
Big Soda won in Santa Fe, NM by vastly outspending proponents of a tax. Half the population doesn't drink sugary drinks in any case, and the other half doesn't care about subsequent health hazards.
So our self-appointed protectors who don't drink soda have decided that no one should and that those of us who do only do so because of all-powerful corporate advertising, to which they themselves are totally immune. And given that we are as children in the face of corporate advertising, our beneficent protectors have designed a plan to save us in spite of ourselves. Thank you so much! What would we do without you!
9
Why am I paying sales tax on seltzer, which is plain carbonated water?
5
It's not just Big Soda that is the culprit with sugar. There's cereals, fruit juices, Gatorade, and the other "sports" drinks that contain a lot of sugar.
Other culprits contribute to poor health and people being overweight. These include overindulging in fast food, fatty foods, saturated fats, and so on.
You can tax Big Soda, but then people have the option to cross state lines to get drinks that are not taxed.
What are the alternatives? Moderation, drinking water and adding lemon or lime juice, drinking less sodas, and education. Education and being informed are also very important, but as the old expression goes, "you can bring the horse to water, but you can;t make him drink!".
1
Excellent point. So many factory-food products are loaded with sugar it's hard to know where to start, but soda is a good beginning. And it should be taxed; very few people are going to cross state lines to pay a little less for soda and the people who produce and consume this stuff should bear the true cost it imposes on our health care system.
1
Actually you're wrong; many people in Cook County were crossing into other counties to do their beverage shopping, which meant that Cook Co. retailers were losing a lot of money (and not just on beverage sales but on food sales too). Don't forget this was a penny per ounce tax. That adds 68 cents to a 2-liter soda bottle. That is a LOT of money.
1
funny how we can fight big soda, but we just give up to the NRA
8
Big bellies are called Beer Guts but Nanny state do-gooders want to tax soda pop- even diet soda pop that HAS NO CALORIES.
How about the career ending political death penalty for stupid laws lie taxes on Soda that are already taxed.
Starbucks Caffè Mocha 360 Calories
Starbucks Sweet Tea 100 Calories
Starbucks Chocolate Smoothie 360 calories
Gatorade Lemon Lime 90 Calories
Full Throttle Citrus 220 Calories
Red Bull 223 Calories
Diet Coca Cola 0 calories
Diet Dr Pepper 0 Calories
Sprite Zero 0 Calories
So why is it that we are taxing Diet Soda, do gooders?
7
On the one hand, people complain about the high cost of health care, but on the other hand, they object to the most effective means of lowering healthcare costs. If you want lower healthcare costs, you must intervene to combat obesity and tobacco abuse.
One 20 oz vending bottle of Coke and other sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) per day amounts to over 50 lbs of sugar equivalent per year.
Not long ago, 1 in 3 New Yorkers consumed 1 or more SSB per day. Thanks to adverse publicity resulting from the Bloomberg administration's attempts to limit SSB consumption, about 1 in 4 New Yorkers consume SSBs.
The major way to lower healthcare costs is to intervene at the policy level so that people are less obese and consume less tobacco. To be against SSB taxes is to be against attempting to lower healthcare costs.
2
Fat tax coupled with Stairmaster test--failure adds another personal tax. Stop blaming Big Soda, Big Sugar, or "Big" anything else.
1
The Cook County soda tax was not about sugar or health. The tax applied to artificially and naturally sweetened beverages, such as Zero Vitamin Water. The anti-obesity component was minimalized because families on SNAP were exempt from this levy. What it was was an intelligence- insulting grab for yet more money from taxpayers who already pay the highest sales tax in the nation. This tax was one money grab too many. Big Soda was not the force behind the repeal. It was fed up taxpayers and small business owners who were losing revenue when people left the county to shop who foiled this abomination.
6
"Sssssssss," goes the soda bottle. So I see that the sinister snakes on social media aren't solely Russians. I'll bet plenty of people who saw posts by "Philadelphians Against the Grocery Tax" felt a kinship with their (imaginary) neighbors, got emotionally invested in the "cause" as a result and so passed along the posts to others, with approval.
This country desperately needs a fundamental, universal curriculum in understanding social media.
If you want to tax something harmful, tax bullets at 200%. Or 2000%. THAT would provide a societal benefit.
The several suggestions above for cutting support payments for sugar and corn farming are common sense and good economics.
Everyone makes lifestyle choices. If you don't like my dietary choices, that's your problem, not mine. It's not your life. It's mine. Leave me alone.
Please stop demonizing my dietary choices, on the basis of your prejudices. Dietary advice changes constantly. 20 years ago, similar logic would have supported the Meat and Corn Oil Tax. The "diabetes epidemic" came when Big Pharma lobbied to redefine downward the resting glucose number. Voila...400% increase in daily metformin user base. Hmmm...how much is spent by Pharma on lobbying and campaign contributions, anyway?
2
Cook county already taxes ammunition. Murder rate has increased since then. If anyone thinks the soda tax is intended to change behaviors, the only behavior that gets changed is consumers traveling to the 'burbs to buy their favorite vice.
I don't oppose an additional tax, but I don't think it will change the culture. People continue to smoke although a pack, which was 75 cents when I started smoking in high school in 1972, is now well over $8 due to taxes. (I quit 20 years ago.)
My mother would be 98 years old this year. When she was a girl, a 6 oz Coke was an occasional treat. When my sister and I were growing up, we drank soda daily; my grandma used to present me proudly with a 12 oz Pepsi in our monthly Sunday visits, and I never had the heart to tell her it wasn't an extra-special treat. But even then, our sodas were 12 oz bottles (return it for 2 cents back!). Sodas now are so yuuuge you could bathe in them, and kids are accustomed from an early age to assume that beverages must be sweet (those juice packs aren't much of an improvement; drinking your calories is usually a bad idea). Unless parents start raising their kids on the assumption you don't need to be eating all the time, and that water, unaugmented, is a perfectly good beverage, you can jack up the tax to usurious rates and get no result but resentment from the guzzling butterballs.
1
I don't drink soda because I think it's unhealthy. My kids don't drink soda because I think it's bad for them and therefore I don't buy it. Shouldn't it be just left at this?
6
Most of these sodas contain high fructose corn syrup. Not sugar. Look at the ingredients of all of the food items you have in your fridge or cupboards. High fructose corn syrup is probably one of them. Instead of taxing soda makers get rid of the subsidies that corn farmers get from the Feds.
2
Susan, your body responds the same to all sugars. HFC is a sugar, as is cane sugar, etc. Same things, slight different in structure, but the body reacts the same. Eat as much cane sugar as HFC and you will have the same reactions.
1
The key here is moderation. I have a 7.5 oz coke or sprite daily. I also get exercise. People aren't as active as they were when I was a kid. They sit in front of the tv or computer for hours on end. And why is high fructose corn syrup in virtually every food product sold on the market?
If people want to continually make bad choices, like drinking 20oz of soda a day, then let them. So long as we also let them be the ones to pay for their consequences such as diabetes, gaining weight and all associated weight related diseases. Sadly, they're not the ones who are paying the consequences--people who make bad lifestyle choices spread their consequences to everyone else. We all have to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the 2/3 of the American population who's overweight. Since they're unwilling to pay for their own consequences, then I say tax them as high as possible. This will only really affect people who continuously make unhealthy dietary choices. No one who drinks a can of soda once a month is going to be effected by a tax like this.
1
The problem with the Chicago soda tax was that it was a pure money grab. If the intent of the tax was to encourage healthier habits, why were diet sodas taxed the same? Why were high sugar coffee drinks exempt? And perhaps most galling, why were food stamp recipients - a population impacted more than others by obesity - exempted from the tax? I'll tell you why: Our county board president was only interested in Benjamins, not our waistlines.
5
Sugared coffee drinks were NOT exempt. It depended where you bought them. A sweetened coffee in a bottle from the grocery or drugstore incurred the tax, but a Frappucino made by a barista in a Starbucks did not.
2
Sorry, but what is "universal pre-K." It seems to be written as if I should know what that is, but I don't know what that is.
"Free" pre-school for all.
I am appalled by the amount of sugar in all of our food products. Why is there sugar in bread in crackers which are supposed to be salty. In two weeks parents around the country will be accompanying their kids around neighborhoods to collect bags of sugar in the form of candy Kids cereal in the morning is little more than candy. If we are going to tax sugary beverages to promote good health let's tax doughnuts, cake mix, cereal, cookies, candy. Anything with added sugar. To single out one product and ignore all the other sugar saturated products is totally ridiculous. Spoiler alert. I am diabetic and do not drink sugary beverages.
This is silly, folks. First of all, the tax, for it to achieve anything, would have to be much, much higher (like 25-50 cents). That may actually reduce consumption; anything less doesn't "hurt" or affect consumers much.
More importantly, sugar consumption in the form of soda drinks could be directly and more effectively reduced if manufacturers simply agreed to reduce sugar content. If done so slowly and gradually over about 2-3 years, the consumers would not notice (if below the threshold of sensory perception of stimulus). A reduction of atleast 50% of sugar content would easily be attainable. A win-win for consumers, those who insist on wasting their money and health on soda, and manufacturers, who could actually reduce their own burden on health in the US and elsewhere in the world AND still make their dirty money.
This was a penny per ounce tax. That adds 68 cents to a 2-liter soda bottle. That is a LOT of money.
1
The op ed piece on sugary beverage taxes fails to address a few key points related to the tax in Chicago's Cook County. The tax was ridiculously excessive. On a twelve pack of canned soda which one can get on sale for between $2.00 and $3.50, the tax was $1.44; a 25% to 50% levy. Yes, the soda industry bought millions of dollars of ads, but they didn't have to. The public experiencing sticker shock on their grocery receipts called, wrote, and emailed their county commissioners by the thousands. 80% of the public opposed the tax. We already pay over 10% in Cook County. Additionally, artificially sweetened beverages were also taxed the same amount, so the idea of imposing the tax for health reasons doesn't hold water. The outrage of consumers was real. This tax was a blantant money grab by a county which cannot address its decades of financial waste. Lastly, it provoked many residents to travel to nearby counties and Indiana to purchase their beverages as well as their other groceries. Cook County merchants were bleeding losses. The best and only way to cure childhood obesity is education and good parenting.
4
No one is taking away sugary or diet drinks. Yes, making them more costly will reduce consumption, and that is in the public good. To those saying that it's a freedom to eat and drink what they want, they fail to realize that we all bear the costs of poor health, especially in these areas. These costs are huge and nowhere even approached by revenues from sin taxes. These costs, in terms of hard dollars, lives, and misery, are on par with wars, and perhaps greater, as they occur continuously as a function of consumer behavior.
Sugary drinks are some of the most heavily marketed consumer products, and this marketing works. Their supply chains have evolved to make them ubiquitous, so consumption is always possible.
The comments clearly show either a lack of understanding of the facts in this situation or a rejection of the science in general. The science on how these wreck your metabolism and the resulting health problems is settled; individual responsibility for behaviors isn't. It's simple: Individuals cannot afford to treat the health consequences of their behaviors; because it's pervasive, as a country, we cannot afford to treat the health consequences either. From this perspective, the sugar sin tax is a tepid action in light of the magnitude of the problem.
2
You could make the same argument about a multitude of foods, from red meat, to cookies and candy, to anything containing sodium. Effectively, people of your ilk want to tell others what they can and can't consume.
1
I'll support a soda tax, as well as many other 'sin' taxes, as soon as the tax revenue goes to treat and support all those who've possibly been affected by the consumption of the goods in question. Berkeley's tax is a bad example when you consider how many other governments have been simply looking for a new source of general funding. Too many politicians find it too inconvenient for their reelection campaigns to raise traditional sales or property taxes when it's time to fill in potholes or pay teachers.
I drink Coke.
That's my confession.
I went 30+ days once recently without a single drop, but my habit kicked back in fairly quickly. Now I am trying to limit intake rather than go "cold turkey".
The soft drink industry, like many before it, has started a public relations and lobbying campaign to try to convince people they are good guys, looking out for and concerned about public health. You can buy Coke now in a variety of smaller sizes, but these are generally only available in large grocery stores and, here's the kicker, at considerably higher price than 12 oz. of 16 oz. sizes. The more you buy in a bigger size, the cheaper it gets.
Another catch. As they come out with smaller sizes with limited availability and tell the public how good and wonderful they are, Coke has also introduced a 16 oz. can. The merchants and Coke make more money on these larger sizes, so they keep pushing and pushing to get people to buy them rather than smaller ones. Its a trick, a dirty one for people who become grossly overweight. If they follow the usual course, the 12 oz. can would likely be discontinued entirely.
Coca-Cola and all of the soft drink industry know that the spotlight of public attention about health is turning sharply toward them. They'd like to deflect it with PR. With almost 40% of adults considered obese and 60% of all cancers related to obesity, this is a public health crisis bigger than opioids, more deaths, more suffering, greater human and economic costs.
1
Foods like soda and snacks are carefully engineered and consumer-tested to be as addictive as possible without including regulated substances such as opium or cocaine. Tiny variations in taste and texture are tested in company laboratories to find the maximum "can't eat just one" effect. Another way of describing this research is that the companies are looking for the maximum addiction effect on the maximum number of customers.
The success of these efforts can be measured in terms of sales or in terms of obesity and unhealthiness. The first measure is used by the stock market, and the second correlates with how much disinformation will be needed to preserve sales. The disinformation can be product-specific or a general discrediting of the nanny state in favor of personal freedom and the rights of businesses to increase sales by any marketing campaign that works (as with guns and painkillers).
1
Interesting that the study they chose to cite states, "Limitations of the study include inability to establish causal links due to observational design, and the absence of health outcomes" and "Reductions in self-reported mean daily SSB intake in grams (−19.8%, p = 0.49) and in mean per capita SSB caloric intake (−13.3%, p = 0.56) from baseline to post-tax were not statistically significant."
To me, this is not convincing evidence that taxing SSB is actually an effective public health strategy. Other studies on SSB tax are equally unsupportive of meaningful behavior change or health impacts. In theory, taxes would work, in reality, consumer choice is much more complicated. I routinely pay $4 for a coffee. If I were a soda drinker, I would probably pay $4 for a soda too.
1
I believe that the public health outcomes associated with sugary drinks are undeniable and that there are clear benefits to reducing soda consumption. Having said that, as a resident of Cook County where the tax was implemented, it was also sold by the Cook County politicians as a way to balance the budget. My issues relative to taxation and funding county government is that i) it is an exceptionally regressive tax, which generally isn't helpful, ii) if you do want tax this behavior, then make it a tax neutral by eliminating taxes on something else, e.g. fruits and vegetables, and iii) have a county government that can live within its means.
2
A diet very high in sugar is not desirable. But the AHA rec for sugar is
NOT 25 gms/day. This is misinformation by the writers of this article.
25 gms of sugar is 100 calories. In a diet of 1800-2000 cal, that
miniscule amount of sugar is absurd !!!
You don’t want to pay an extra six ounces for your can of soda. Fine. You know what I don’t want to pay? Your medical bills for diabetes and obesity related health problems.
As we move closer to single-payer health care (a good thing!), as we already have health insurance subsidized by tax payers, is it really so unreasonable for the government to encourage people to watch what they put into their bodies?
8
Where do you get the idea that we are going to single payer? Pure fantasy on your part. But your post does illustrate why I don't want some "progressive" bureaucrat in control of my health care - I don't want the state to own my body and punish me for not following some directive.
3
How about a special tax to hire people to make sure that we brush our teeth? Maybe special monitors to make sure that we keep our carb load low at the all-you -can- eat joint?
This is an absurd, patronizing intrusion by the nanny state and the saddest part of all is that it is a regressive tax that hurts the poor.
7
Actually your examples aren't that bad. What we have now is maximum freedom with minimum responsibility for any consequences. We scream bloody murder, and rightly too, when banks and corporations engage in that, e.g., reaping the profits of excessive risk but saddling taxpayers with the bailout bills when the risks go bad. Similarly, we individuals expect the freedom to engage in any kind of risky behavior that suits us, including predictable results of poor diet, but also expect the health care system (such as it is, ha ha) to shoulder the burden of our avoidable ailments. That's not sustainable in the long run or even the short run. At the very least you should be paying more for your health insurance, especially now that Obamacare is forcing a lot of people who'd rather not pay for your bad judgement to pay higher premiums.
It 'hurts the poor'? Um, the poor are the ones most likely to be depending on government for medical care, either through Medicaid or insurance supplements. It seems reasonable to expect some small responsibility in return. There are junk foods you can't buy with SNAP or WIC.
1
We can't simply tax or legislate away behavior deemed unhealthful by the powers-that-be. Sweetness is the perceptual representation of energy density and both man and animal are easily caught in its rapture. Heck, even an amoeba has a sweet tooth.
Once you determine that sugary sodas are worthy of specific taxation, there's no logical argument to suggest that other similarly obesogenic comestibles shouldn't be similarly taxed, including most fruit juices, any pastry, breads and cakes, canned fruits, pastas etc.
We now realize that sitting is similarly dangerous to our health and waistlines. Should we start legislating a chair tax? Should the white collar office worker be forced to pay the government for each hour squandered resting on their derriere?
Such selective taxation seems over-simplified and capricious, an effete attempt at controlling behaviors felt irredeemable by a self-reverential elite. Educate people on the facts surrounding sugar and simple carbohydrate consumption, not in a school-marmish way, but simply regarding what we do and don't know about the risks of chronic simple carb consumption. Then let folks make up their own mind and allow the free market to respond in kind.
3
No, you can actually make an argument against sugary sodas, in that they have no nutritional value, unlike fruit juices. Moreover, unlike cookies, cake, etc., which are also sugary (and usually have at least some nutrients), beverages make it fatally easy to consume a large amount of calories in a very short time, without satiation. You probably can't eat, say, an entire Sara Lee chocolate cake. But you can consume the caloric equivalent in soda and keep going.
My older sister and I are the same height, 5' 1". She drinks regular Coke. I drink diet (OK, I know, that has its own problems). I'm around 100 lbs. She's over 200. Until I cleaned up my act at age 18, I also overate junk and particularly drank lots of Coke. (Which is part of the reason, I think, I drink Diet Coke now; it's like my Methadone, I guess. Which is why it's a good idea to discourage kids from starting the habit in the first place.) My top weight was 175. So I know whereof I speak.
1
If you ask public health advisers, they will likely say that fruit juice holds little nutritional value. You lose all the fiber from fruit and consume substantially more sugar than you could in normal servings (ie, peeling an orange/crunching an apple/etc).
As others have pointed out, the pretense and hypocrisy of those supporting this tax is astounding. To single out one form of sugar consumption that the cosmopolitan elite disfavor for a tax "for the own good" of those that are (in their opinion) stupid enough to drink them in the first place and in need protection from themselves, while leaving other forms of sugar that these elites favor completely untaxed is a disgrace. If these same groups would advocate for an across the board sugar tax, covering added sugar in coffees and natural sugar in chocolate, wine and ice cream, then there would at least be some ideological consistency to respect. Or even better - try to cover other high fat food that they love, such as cheese.
But that's not what this is about - it's really just a look down the nose of those beneath them with the air of intellectual and personal superiority. It's gross.
7
Don't forget the influence of the Chicago Tribune, which ran editorials against the soda tax daily.
3
With all the major events in the world: US political corruption, attacks on healthcare and middle-class taxpayers, assault on environment, 200 people killed in Somalia, Iraq chaos, Syria carnage, and 10 US military people killed in Niger not long ago, THIS is the lead op-ed item? Sorry, this just doesn't seem all that important to bump ALL those other areas.
3
If Cook County politicians really cared about the overall health of their constituents, why not tax ALL sugary items like Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, cookies, cakes, candy, bakery items and everything in between?Either tax ALL surgary items or NO surgary items. It's always the picking and choosing process that leads to trouble and lawsuits.
5
If anyone thinks that a 1 cent per ounce tax (that's 12 cents per can of soda) is going to change anyone's habits, they're obviously misinformed. If someone wants a soda, they will grumble but pay the additional 12 cents. This is a ridiculous tax, designed to legislate "healthy behavior", but it will not change anyone's behavior. Anyone see the sales of beer, wine, and liquor on the decline because of the "sin taxes" imposed. I didn't either. I'm glad Chicagoans woke up and repealed this tax. Now let's give personal responsibility a try....
3
Big soda is not a big problem in Chicago.
I was born and bred black and poor on the South Side of Chicago and I am a product of the Chicago Public Schools K-12. I still live in Cook County but no longer reside in Chicago.
Chicago and Cook County are known for their eternally socially conscious civic minded citizens who rise from their graves to vote early and often on election day.
Chicago is also known for the organized crime Outfit run by the likes of Scarface, the Waiter, Big Tuna and Momo.
Chicago is known for the political Machine led by the likes of Boss Daley and local elected officials who are convicted criminal regulars who mismanage finances.
Chicago is known for a high homicide rate, colored ethnic segregation, terrible public schools and lousy housing.
How to win against these multiple big ailments matter most of all to me.
While our craving for sugar, fat and salt is a biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit remnant of the origin of the one and only human race species born in Africa 300,000+ years ago when access to those food stuffs was rare and we were active and did not live long.
2
Why not call "Big Soda" what it is, the largest most successful Drug Pushers in the world.
What incensed the majority of Cook County residents (not just Chicagoans) about the "1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks" wasn't merely the penny per ounce tax, but the ADDED taxes heaped on top of the county beverage tax, i.e., sales tax AND soft drink tax. In essence, a 24 pack of soda that costs $5.99 would end up costing $9.66 for the added county beverage tax, sales tax and soft drink tax). Only in Cook Country would an imposed tax be taxed two additional times. It's that kind of gluttonous taxation that caused such an up roar that people were driving anywhere but in Cook County to purchase their beverages. My husband and I were so angry by this price gouging that we would drive to Wisconsin to purchase any and all beverages. Taxing sugary beverages is one thing, but being greedy and insulting the voter is crossing the line. And for once, the voters were heard, loud and clear.
8
This editorial does help us acknowledge the harmful effects of sugar in soda. However, sugary “treats”, like a red Velvet Cake, are being pushed in other parts of the New York Times. Our society consumes tremendous amounts of sugar to the detriment of our health. Sodas are one part of that, problem, but bakeries, candy manufacturers, cooking shows, restaurants, and NYT cooking articles all offer other seductive forms of this proven poison. Seems hypocritical to support those venues while castigating the soft drink industry.
4
No thanks. Diet Pepsi may not be good for me, but it is my one and only vice. I see no reason for another nanny tax. It’s not the same as cigarettes, which can harm people through passive smoke.
4
Placing more prevalent nutritional information on packaging, good. Providing educational information about nutrition and diet, good. Funding programs that promote physical activity and teamwork, good. Telling people what to eat and drink, political suicide. Stop wasting time, money and precious political capital trying to force people to give up Coke and Pepsi by rule of law. Focus all of this effort on far more productive and politically viable ideas, educational programs that may actually have an impact.
1
Because some people can't control urges or gives their kids endless supplies of soda everyone has to pay. Sounds fair to me. Not. everything boils down to personal choice and having others dictate what's good and bad. When will we learn?
1
The lesson of Cook County is that had the tax been used to generate revenue for health programs it would have been much more supportable. As a general revenue raiser it was discriminatory and regressive. Sound public finance principles killed this one.
2
I paid the tax when in Chicago. It amounted to 67% of the purchase price on a diet Pepsi that had no sugar at all.
And of course there was also the 10.5% sales tax on top of that. I consider that an outrageous money graph.
3
On one hand ask I myself at what point does the government stop deciding what is good and bad for me. Start taxing partially hydrogenated oils? How about candy bars? How about those bottled coffee drinks. I could go on.
On the other hand, as a society we spend huge resources caring for people with diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer, just to name a few biggies. That's our medical and insurance costs we all pay for.
2
Assess a surcharge on medical-insurance premiums for each pound of weight a person carries which is in excess of the combined total of the recommended maximum BMI weight for a person of that height and sex, plus a 10% allowance--like the 10 mph allowed on a speeding ticket out of the city limits before a traffic infraction for speeding becomes a moving violation. We could also factor in how much of a person's weight is fat versus lean muscle, so that people who are over the BMI-plus-10% base formula who work out--such that they are well muscled--are not penalized. Smokers pay a much higher rate for their medical insurance (only age and smoking are factors for which a medical-insurance companies can charge more under Obamacare).
I say all this because it isn't McDonald's and Coke which makes us fat, it is consuming too much of that type of food and drink, and simply too much of other types of food. If we are going to levy a tax on sugary soft drinks, shouldn't we levy an extra tax on all "convenience" food which has too much sugar in it, or is out-of-the-box into the microwave oven versus made from scratch, e.g., pizza roles?
1
I mourn the repeal of this tax, which would have alleviated the county's fiscal problems while improving public health. Up the nanny state!
4
For all of these people commenting that they have the right to drink whatever they want without taxation and that this is unfair to poor people- let's remember what this current health insurance fight is about. Insuring more poor and low income people who can not afford health insurance on their own, through higher taxation. Insuring unhealthy people through higher taxation. Does the government then have a say in whether or not people should be able to consume large amounts of soda for cheap that will inevitably lead to diabetes which will raise the cost of care and insurance, as well as taxes, for everyone? Yes, if you want your health insurance paid for through taxation, then you have to expect the nanny state trying to moderate your behavior. There are trade offs for everything in life.
2
Yes! Get government out of both.
2
The Cook County Soda tax was never about public health, simply another way to sneak in a hefty tax in an already over-taxed municipality with a 10.5% sales tax. The "Sugary Drink Tax" was levied on soda, but not juice drinks with similar sugar content, levied on diet drinks with NO sugar, levied on the full size fountain cup including volume taken up by ICE with no sugar. The contradiction list goes on and on. Perhaps if the tax were solely about public health with a consistent application across all high sugar content foods with all money flowing to public health initiatives instead of Cook County board projects, then it would garner widespread community support.
5
Although my neighbor's wonderful teenagers and their friends drink an alarming amount of sugary soda, I am not worried about it. They will soon switch to drinking alarming amounts of light beer as they get into their twenties, same as all their older friends and relatives. Which leads to different problems.
4
It would be helpful as well if we could document the related health costs borne by spouses or family caregivers. Our son as well as our daughter's husband drink Coca-Cola as if it were water. Both are overweight and neither one exercises. My wife and I retired early to care for her mother, which resulted in a 37% cut to my monthly Social Security. Even if we're still living 20 years from now, we won't be in a position financially to help with their health related costs. Is Coca-Cola? Of course not. Our daughter will mostly likely bare the burden of their cavalier attitude. Education and taxing cigarettes made a difference. The need for education and a tax on soda is equally urgent.
1
Public health studies that employ econometric modeling have shown that sugar taxes are effective at reducing consumption of sugar sweetened beverages, and that the low-income minority populations that are the highest risk of obesity-related chronic diseases receive the greatest health benefit (reduced risk of mortality and morbidity) from these taxes. This is why Big Soda companies fight so hard against these taxes. As reporting by this newspaper has shown, Big Soda companies have gone so far as co-opting civil rights organizations with large donations and lucrative employment and board positions for their leaders in order to turn them against their constituent groups.
7
Besides the maladies listed here, sugar consumption increases cancer risk and existing tumors feed off of sugar growing and spreading faster:
https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/cancer-frontline/2016/01/study-l...
One cent per ounce tax does not recoup the burden to society that sugar has on health care costs.
Ten cents or twenty five cents per ounce seems more reasonable. Drinking soda should cost as much as drinking hard alcohol like whiskey or vodka. The sugar industry deserves stronger castigation!
3
Please look at aspartame, a non-sugary alternative, which gave me peripheral neuropathy.
3
I don't drink sodas for the simple reason I don't want that much sugar in one dose. Taxing sodas (or "sugary drinks") is a Big Brother way of getting people to stop.
Let people drink what they want and suffer the consequences. This is just another overreach by government to control what people do.
3
I would agree with you if my taxes didn't pay for the health care of people who drink what they want.
As a frontliner, a dentist who sees my share of rotten teeth, I couldn't agree more. Efforts like the one in Berkeley are a great example of how communities can stand up to industry, and win.
I do my part to educate each and every patient, but it feels like an uphill battle at times.
49
One of the commenters said earlier that the sales of sugary drinks in Berkeley have not decreased at all since the new law went into effect!!! I wonder if that is the case!!!
I'm not sure taxation is the answer. I think health education is. Coca Cola has been around forever, and there's a lot of nostalgia associated with the brand. I recently saw one of their TV ads where the company went on and on about clean water, associating that with what was used in their long line of products, of course. I used to drink a lot of soda until I learned that it was harmful to my health. I made the change to filtered water. Now I'm used to that. I learned all this in my 50's and I'm poor, if living on Social Security makes one poor. Start educating children in kindergarten and you won't need to tax anybody. That's where grass-roots efforts ought to go.
4
I couldn't care less about soda drinks .
Not very healthy , full of chemicals , nauseatingly sweet , gas filling , artificially flavored and not thirst quenching.
For me their taste doesn't go with any food .
I avoid them completely and prefer a good glass of water .
1
If you were courageous, you would seek to charge obese people higher health premiums. Instead, you go after "Big Soda". Why do you seek to tear down the successful?
1
Sadly, many obese people can't afford any insurance premiums at all, let alone higher ones. Who do you think then pays for their ailments? (Answer: You.)
Clueless Democrats wonder why they lose the working-class vote. I'm not disputing the link between soda and diabetes, but the political deafness- blaming it all on the ogre big soda- is astounding. For the consumers of these beverages, a better illustration- instead of the hands in six-pack chains- would have been a scolding nanny snatching the soda from their shopping cart. And for better accuracy and to aggravate the class resentment, make the nanny look like one of the young women in the yoga ads.
7
In a less politically correct era, people would dress as native Americans and dump Coke, Sprite, etc., into Boston Harbor.
Soda pop has been around for roughly a century. Why has it become the new arsenic just now? For the record, a 12-ounce can of non-diet soda contains 140 calories; that's slightly more than an equal amount of nonfat milk and slightly less than an equal amount of orange juice. There was a time when drinking soda was not only considered a wholesome activity but one with beneficial results such as relieving nausea. Whatever health risks derive from carbonated sugar drinks can be avoided the way you avoid getting sick from any food or drink: by not overdoing it. But some people just won't be happy until we're all on kale smoothies and tofu. The only thing punitive taxation will accomplish is drive one more nail into the coffin of the middle class.
Incidentally, it's interesting that we hear so much about an Obesity Epidemic (although we mustn't fat-shame the obese!) and a Diabetes Epidemic but nothing about the a Cavities Epidemic you'd think would follow.
4
Sorry, my memory goes back a ways. Pop, as we called it, was once a treat, sold in smallish glass bottles that you might even share with another person. There weren't monster big-gulp fountains at every filling station; you sat in your car while an attendant checked your oil. The way soda is consumed did change in the last 30 years.
1
Do people even realize how pathetic they sound when they defend their right to be fat? Americans are obscenely overweight. Since so few Americans travel abroad, they don't realize how the rest of the world views us. Once traveling in China, my husband and I were meeting our guide at the train station. She overlooked us, even though there were few Caucasians around. When we finally got together, she asked incredulously ' Are you Americans?' And when we said yes, she exclaimed 'But you are not fat!' Of course, sugary drinks are not the only culprit in the obesity epidemic. But they contribute to the corruption of the American taste. To anybody with the discerning palate, American junk food is inedible. And sugary drinks have no nutritional value whatsoever. A sugar tax is a way to educate the public, to express social disapproval of the way people ruin their health and then make the rest of us pay. An alternative us to tax fat itself, having overweight people pay more in health insurance.
3
My taxes are paying for your diabetes, heart disease and a host of other obesity-related problems, so why shouldn't I have a say in your diet? The reason the insurance companies do NOT raise premiums on the morbidly obese is the governmental regulations preventing them to do so. Rescind the regulations and see the premiums being calculated by weight. And what's wrong with having an educated palate? Are you one of those who, following Sara Palin, would take carrots away from our kids and ply them with sugary cookies instead?
1
Heres's a suggestion. Let's transpose the Liberal focus on behavioral change through taxation to accountability. Financial responsibility for life style choices. Where? Why the insurance market of course. Funny how the same nannies who favor taxing soda, taxing cigarettes, taxing alcohol, pot, gasoline, cars,... are stringent opponents of pricing health insurance based on risk.
35
@Daphne: "Funny how the same nannies who favor taxing soda, taxing cigarettes, taxing alcohol, pot, gasoline, cars,... are stringent opponents of pricing health insurance based on risk."
Supposed that the risk involved is involuntary, say, due to one's genetics or perhaps second-hand smoke?
Should the insurance cost be borne by the victim?
2
Good idea. But how do you propose to know who is consuming all the sugary drinks in order to know their risk factor at insurance purchasing time?
Here's a suggestion: add a tax to the drinks and use the money to fund ACA subsidizes.
The problem in the insurance market is that you cannot raise cost based on unknowns like diet. Not all diabetics drank Coke until their pancreases died. Some were brittle, and diets that most of eat put them over the hurdle. Some are sugarholics. Some chose the wrong parents and grandparents. And some got viruses that wrecked their ability to make insulin. How is the insurance market supposed to tell who "deserves" to pay through the nose for healthcare?
How is the insurance market supposed to tell which cholesterol patients picked the wrong ancestors and which ones picked too much bacon?
We like to think that we can match everything up in neat little buckets of blame and responsibility, but we cannot. We can, however, tax items that increase overall poor health, and put the money towards healthcare.
1
This is not a unfair tax, this is a health crisis created by the soda companies, we don't mind taxes, cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and any other product we deem a health issue. I would even support one on candy bars and bullet you can have you gun but the tax on anything to make a bullet just when up 300% with a new tax
It easy to win against big soda, just quit drinking it. I used to drink 3 cokes a day until I got tired of my stomach feeling sick all the time, quit cold turkey one day and have not had a sip of a soda of any brand in 10 years.
I drink mostly water now and I don't buy anything with Coke or Pepsi name on it. Quit can be done only when you want, quit being lazy and using excuses.
2
There is too much money in politics and that appears to be the main reason this tax was reversed. Shame.
2
Agree, community engagement for a good cause, to fight against the well demonstrated harm sugary sodas are causing to the population at risk. Unless we can educate people to stay away, most of the time, from 'sodas', health poisons shown to cause or accelerate preventable illness (Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, possibly cancer, etc, etc), and premature death, all for the 'stupid money' involved, a tribute to their god Greed. As to why the 'soda industry' wants to cheat on the public they depend on, instead of contributing to our well being, by designing and offering healthier alternatives, is beyond the pale. Incidentally, Jesus Garcia, commissioner of Chicago, is also on the wrong side of history, by indirectly supporting the unsupportable.
1
I am old enough to recall when having a soda pop or whatever you wish to call it a treat, like having a piece of candy. The same goes for junk food, which not only includes McDonald's and the like but upscale faux "smart food" places like Five Guys, et al. All they have done is up the ante. Like Starbucks they make the gullible consumer pay more for something they don't need, more fat.
Why is America and the world getting so huge? We have the most unhealthy lifestyle when it comes to eating. To top it off, we have and love huge portions, more salt and sugar to consume than any human should be inhaling in a week we consume daily.
Now we are being force fed by Coke and Pepsi the notion that our own drinking water, out of the tap, for pennies on the gallon, is not as good and healthy as their "purified" water, which is nothing but putting tap water through a Brita-like filter. How stupid and gullible is the American consumer? I guess as stupid as a nation which has the unmitigated gall to elect a bloated junk food junkie as its president.
DD
Manhattan
7
"Now we are being force fed by Coke and Pepsi the notion that our own drinking water, out of the tap, for pennies on the gallon, is not as good and healthy as their "purified" water..."
Who is holding a gun to your head forcing you to buy bottled water?
1
Dear hm:
Perhaps folks in North Carolina have a problem noting the difference between statements of fact and blatant sarcasm, wot? The force feeding (eg: foie gras) metaphor was in jest. As for guns, no guns here pointed at anyone's head. I think your poor choice of words in light of our most recent massacre would persuade even North Carolinian's to show a little refrain, however short.
For my Southern reader I will keep it simple: I have never bought bottled water. Being NYC has one of the finest aquifers in the nation, we get our water pure and unprocessed.
The point, old sport: Whether it is Coke and Pepsi or their water derivatives, none of it is worth paying for. Water, as health care, is a human right any First World nation should demand. Problem is the US is rapidly fading from First World status. Cheers, and cheerio.
DD
Manhattan
1
Get out of my personal life. You don't like soda, fine. Don't drink it. What's next on your list of things I shouldn't eat or drink? And after that? Will you impose a vegan lifestyle on me?
17
It's mostly red state Trump people who drink all this soda. You never see a person in Santa Monica, Palo Alto, Williamsburg or Wellesley coming out of yoga and drinking a Coke. Let them drink it, be fat and shorten their lives. I don't care!
1
One of the biggest problems in our culture today doesn't even get called what it is: Addiction. To sugar.
We evolved, as a species, to crave sweet, salt, and fat, because those things were not readily available to creatures who'd just come down out of the trees to walk on their hind legs. We could only find sweetness in fruit and other things like honey or some tree saps. Salt came from the blood of animals or the distillation of sea water. Fat came from animals. In the 19th century, food manufacturers realized that adding these 3 things to their products helped preserve them, but, more importantly - made people want to eat them.
Fast forward 150 years, and we have a populace that doesn't want to eat real food, because it can be feeding this natural addiction constantly. Everywhere one goes, there are Point of Sale placements of candy, chips, soda, even ice cream - not only in public schools, but at the hardware store, the bookstore, rest stops along the highways, almost any public place. It requires a lot of conscious effort to not EVER indulge, under such an all-out attack. But the only way to fight this is with an each-person-for-him/herself understanding of the problem.
Which means education. Persistent. Making simple, clear points, and showing what happens to the human body when it is starved of real nutrition and fed non-food. We did it with cigarettes, we can do it with addictive food.
4
This is a Public Health issue. Local, State and Federal Governments have been making regulations for decades requiring certain changes in our lives such as spraying mosquitoes in heavily infested areas, not allowing open sewers, cleaning up of reservoirs and water bodies which provide drinking water.
This is nothing new.
Some poorer people need state and federal assistance for healthcare. That money comes from other people's taxes. This taxation of sodas will be a direct tax on anyone who buys the soda, whether they are poor or not. Very fair tax, it seems to me.
If people don't want to pay the tax, they don't have to buy the soda.
It will be hard to change their lifestyle, but they can do it and be healthier.
I will have to do it if the tax comes to Oklahoma, but if I want my soda I will pay it just like if I want to own a car, I pay the auto tag tax.
Don't want to pay the tax? Don't buy the soda.
That is freedom of choice, not Nanny state.
In my opinion, a Nanny state is people whining about doing something that is good for them and the state gives in to their whining.
3
It's amazing so many are willing to surrender their right of choice to the government. If people want to over indulge with soda, that's their business. The nanny state is a scary place. Bureaucrats and political hacks making decisions about what we can eat, drink, drive....what's next? Population growing to fast, will they limit the number of children? Birthrate too low, so provide cash incentives to have more kids? It's a brave new world I want no part of.
4
Given the option, many companies will kill their customers for profit. It's simply amoral capitalism. Sadly, this is an acceptable form of capitalism for many American companies. Thus the need for regulations.
2
The sweetened beverage tax repeal may have been a win for "Big Soda", but it was also a win for consumers and Cook County businesses.
The tax was poorly designed from the get-go. Diet soda? Taxed. A sugar-laden Frappucino from the local Starbucks? Not taxed. Chocolate milk? Not taxed. Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle referred to it as a modest tax, but it was anything but. I buy 2 liters of diet soda on sale for 99 cents. The sweetened beverage tax on this? 68 cents!
The repeal was a win to local businesses because people were just buying items subject to the tax outside of Cook County, and oftentimes just doing their entire grocery shopping while there. This was particularly hurting businesses close to the county line.
Forget the Bloomberg financed ads that were pro-tax - this had nothing to do with health and everything to do with the county needing more money. And the design was awful. The tax did not apply to the poor (couldn't apply the tax to food stamps recipients), or to the well-off, who are much more likely to get their sugar fix from untaxed juices and Starbucks runs. It was another hit to the middle class - it's almost as if Trump himself had designed it!
8
The alternative to sugary drinks are on the shelves: seltzer drinks, non carbonated water.
Unless you think sugary drinks are as much a threat to public health as cigarettes--a product we justly tax in an effort to destroy--then you really are engaging in paternalistic government.
I'm no fan of Steve Bannon or libertarians, but this sounds like exactly what they rant about when they point to government interjecting itself in areas where citizens feel scolded, not free.
What we need is more Michael Palin and less Coca Cola, but at some point citizens have to take some responsibility for their own choices. Nanny government can be annoying.
3
Its incredible that this NYT article ends with statement that "we KNOW we will be OUTSPENT but lets not be outnumbered "!
This exposes , media-messaged and conditioned, cultural paradigms of self pleasing consumerism.............where ,the amount of money spent,determines whether Americans can be convinced to stay healthy or accept overuse of sugar which can destroy their health and life.....also overburdening health care systems .
This process of corporate intervention to "buy" public opinion and government regulation has occurred with tobacco,asbestos,and numberless toxic pesticides,chemicals dyes and food additives.............preventing removal of KNOWN lethal products by falsified science,media conditioning, or lobbyist "bought" politicians authoring favorable regulations .
The Trump "regime " is ENGENDERING removal of ALL CONSUMER PROTECTION.......fundamental institutional change is required to protect consumers from the "corporocratic greed" that underwrites and determines the POLICIES of the US government !
1
I support the demonization and taxation of sugar but it would be nice to hear todays nanny state types admit loud and clear that it was the demonization of the 1950s diet your grandma enforced that led to the obesity crisis. Our government told us scrambled eggs, sausage and whole milk would kill us. So what did moms and kids turn to? The only alternatives they knew which were Captain Crunch, Leggos and syrup, and coke and orange juice. Every meal became, in effect, birthday cake or a trip to the candy store. It's what people liked to eat all along but were told not to. Did you ever see a kid pig out on scrambled eggs, pot roast or broccoli? It never happened.
2
I have the right to drink and smoke myself to death, but would pay a lot of taxes for that. Anyone has the right to overload their shopping cart with flavored sugar water. Let them be taxed for it. A decrease in consumption has a social benefit. So does an increase in tax revenue.
58
but when you get your heart attack at 45 and gastric bypass and chest split open to re pipe your clogged arteries, the rest of us will be paying to clean up the mess which was totally preventable. So should your freedom to do yourself harm give society the freedom to say "lets not waste scarce resources on a lost cause" during your first MI... That's a thought. Don't forget that rights have attached responsibilities.
Perhaps the solution is not to tax soda (which will obviously curtail usage, the same way cigarette taxes do). Perhaps the better idea is to remove subsidies to the sugar industry, and allow the prices of these beverages to accurately reflect their cost.
That would save the government a great deal of our money -- hundreds of millions of dollars a year -- that could, perhaps, be spent in service of educating people about the pitfalls of sugary drinks and snacks. It would also save the taxpayers from paying extra for their sugary drinks TWICE, once in the form of subsidies and again in the form of beverage taxes.
Of course, remove the sugar subsidies, and the costs will be passed onto the consumer. But because the price differential is coming entirely from the corporate sector, not from the government, those who end up paying more will have their resentment more properly directed.
4
Another idea in terms of fighting the food industry would be to have congress tie subsidies of healthcare costs directly to the food industry. Essentially, if you sell sugary drinks or processed foods, for every dollar in revenue you derive from those food groups, you have to pay a tax that goes directly to Medicare or ACA subsidies, with the argument that because the sale of those products directly impacts the overall cost of healthcare. Perhaps that might convince companies to produce healthier foods and beverages.
7
There is absolutely no justification for continuing to allow sugary drinks to proliferate in American diets without taxing them the same as we tax other health hazards, like alcohol and tobacco. Not only do the taxes on these items help dissuade customers from purchasing them, the proceeds can be used to directly fund diabetes treatment and prevention programs.
Soda companies are not paying for the medical costs associated with treating and caring for people with diabetes, which is footed by the taxpayer (Medicare and Medicaid). Why should taxpayers pay for the problems created by these companies? Especially since sugary drinks seem to provide absolutely no benefit to consumers.
8
One issue in Chicago that garnered a lot of push-back from opponents was that Link users (food stamps) were exempt from the tax. So some of the biggest users of sugary drinks were not impacted, thus lessening the argument that the tax could help lessen a major health threat.
18
Here's how you win against Big Soda: don't buy it for yourself or your kids. Instead of having it in the house keep it out. Drink water for dinner and add a squeeze of lime to it. Take juice and add seltzer to it. Drink tea. Make your own limonade. Don't purchase sports drinks and don't drink them. They're too salty, have too many artificial things in them, and don't quench one's thirst.
As for candy, don't keep too much of it around either. Have plenty of fruit for snacks. Apples, oranges, peaches, pears, cherries (in season), bananas, etc., are great snacks for every person. The occasional piece of chocolate or cookie won't hurt but it shouldn't be a mainstay. Nor should fast food or some of the junk sold as healthy snacks be mainstays.
The other way to win, which takes time, is learning how to cook your own meals and bake your own desserts. Sugar and salt are not the only items that can improve the taste of food. So can herbs, spices, the judicious addition of wines, or even stir frying the vegetables. Try making your own salsa. Homemade means you can adjust it to your taste.
15
Learn to cook? Perish the thought, Henry. New York City's public schools feed kids breakfast and lunch and let the parents off the hook entirely.
If you can't put out a carton of cereal and some milk for your child's breakfast, or slap together a cheese sandwich for his lunch, why bother having kids? I hope no one replies that poor people have no time to take care of their kids. Or no money. My grandmother had no money during the Depression, but she fed her kids vegetables and occasionally a chicken she plucked herself. My sister-in-law, a busy nurse, got up at 4AM to get her sons' breakfasts and lunches ready and whip up something that could be reheated for dinner. It can be done.
1
The insidious corporate battle against soda taxes is one more example of corporations being (and set-up to be) externalizing machines (the phrase from the terrific book/DVD The Corporation by Joel Bakan). To maximize profits corporations try to externalize the costs of making/consuming their products to the public so they offer the least-cost alternative. Soda taxes are one version of including externalities, social costs of poor health, into soda prices. Should sugar products be taxed so prices include their adverse health effects, and perhaps also the socio-economic effects of growing sugar instead of more nutritious crops in low-income tropical areas? Probably yes. Let the price of sugar to the consumer tell the truth. Prices are the language of capitalism, and to the extent they don't tell the truth, we are all in trouble. Likewise, coal-fired electricity's price to consumers is way way below its costs to people around the planet throughout its lifecycle - maybe 4 times lower than it should be. I hope that someday, responsible capitalists will support accurate pricing to consumers instead of this race to the bottom where externalities are maximized, and consumers therefore make poor choices based on price signals. It is too bad this work has to happen at the city/county scale, one by one, rather than on the national/global scale. Thank you to the local activists who carry this torch, speaking truth to power - you are trying to make capitalism work better!
5
cljuniper, don’t forget to shout out the egregious consequences of Dow, Monsanto, Bayer etc. fertilizers and weed killers in the Mississippi River Delta which poisons the land and kills life in the river delta. The enormous negative consequences of their products are not included in their pricing. Same thing with the huge amounts of water and toxic chemicals used to “waterproof” some clothing products.
3
How to win against Big Soda?
Simple: Don't drink it.
My gosh. Has the simplest of things escaped the NYT in its all-out effort to find everything wrong with America, real or imagined?
18
The problem is that this is a societal problem not just a problem of individual responsibility. We all pay the costs for extra health care related to sugary drinks with higher insurance premiums.
The New York Times has ceased believing in personal responsibility except where it concerns corporate executives.
I'm no fan of rich people, but I haven't noticed that poor people are any better when it comes to personal responsibility, either for their children or their interactions with others or their sidewalks.
Self-indulgence and feeling entitled aren't limited to the wealthy. The Times provides excuses just for some people.
@hewy: "The problem is that this is a societal problem not just a problem of individual responsibility. We all pay the costs for extra health care related to sugary drinks with higher insurance premiums."
So your answer is having the government telling you how to live your life? Insurance companies would be much better at controlling behavior or risk financial loss.
1
This is big brother/big government/the nanny state at its worst. It assumes people are just too stupid to make healthy choices so the government will force them to, in this case via taxation. There’s no question that sugary drinks are bad for you. In our home we have none. But it’s just not the government’s job to legislate what goes into our stomachs. We have more important things to worry about — for example, Donald Trump.
13
The total blood in the body is 5 Litres.In this 5 Litres only 5 Grams of sugar is needed to enable the body to function(Only 5 Gram) & to keep the sugar in the normal band reading : 80-100mg/dl.This is how for centuries the blood sugar range was maintained until 1950 when Sugar became the newest addition to Progress.
Today the body is subjected to sugary fields.Its saturated with Sugar.
Excessive sugar,Liver has loses its receptivity & consequently the Insulin is resisted by the Liver leading to Insulin Resistance.
The beta cells in the islet of Langerhans (Pancreas) have also given up due to Sugar Overload.
Both Liver & Pancreas have given up.
Excess sugar gets converted to Cholestrol (LDL,Tri Glycerides)
The result an endocrine malfunction:Diabetes.
Please stop this CARB Mania.United States is the worlds fattest nation due to Sugar.
The US Congress should mandate an nation wide education programme to all its Citizens.Please don't touch Sugar & Sugary,Starchy products.
Let's live healthy.Sugar Free.
7
I'm not recognizing 1950 as a tipping point in this issue - why is 1950 significant? Sugary drinks were available long before 1950.
1
Liberals have an insatiable desire to control the behavior of people they deem beneath them. The soda tax is merely the latest manifestation of this.
19
Important work! Fight on!
2
What's wrong with drinking water?
2
"Big Soda"? And your solution is to impose a regressive tax on the poor souls upon whom you want to impose your vision of health? How about a heavy tax on the expensive wines and spirits that i'm sure your editorial board drinks with elitist abandon, even though, if misused, those alcoholic drinks create serious health problems? How about heavy taxes on your vacation homes because you waste fossil fuel in getting to them? This editorial illustrates the Progressives' micromanagement and authoritarian approach to every problem. And because i disagree with your dogma, you'll probably refuse to even publish my comment.
15
It's all about educating the consumer and ALLOWING them to make a informed decision. The overwhelming pov from many of you is that the consumer is too stupid to look out for themselves. Pretty much your pov about folks that voted for #45. What's next, ban Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, how about Double Stuffed Oreos? Good try but the Chicago consumers don't want to be dictated to re their consumption.
3
I took close to 21 days to kick sugar and straighten out my system. It was one of the most - maybe THE most - difficult things I've ever done. I can tell you near eleven months later how much better I feel, how drastically different my nutritional choices are, but most of all to anyone thinking of getting out from that Sweet Tyranny - it gets easier. You adjust and grow used to it. You will not have those deep cravings once you're out of the woods.
As a former tobacco user and connoisseur of vice, I can tell you that sugar was by far the hardest thing to dump. It's not even close.
When you read about the collusion and misinformation between industries that have a vested interest, it's a lot easier to angrily quit this stuff. I suppose the only thing that could compare would be if the Cartels had lobbyists in DC.
And if you're thinking "I don't think I could do it," you CAN. Trust me, if I could, you could. And if you're thinking you need a replacement, aside from water, then I second the many suggestions of seltzer. You may not like it now but when your palate adjusts away from the sickly sweet it's used to, the flavors of the seltzers get a heck of a lot more satisfying. Carbonated water - no sweeteners at all.
8
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
I have not read past your first sentence, "The soda industry won big in Chicago this week when county commissioners voted to scrap the 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks...."
I was in favor of this tax before I went to my grocery store and discovered that it also applied to all zero-calorie drinks that used sugar substitutes. Why oh why do lawmakers - and opinion piece writers - make stuff up?
17
"How to Win Against Big Soda"?
Apparently the answer, according to the authors, is to let the nanny state tell you what is or is not good for you because we are are too stupid to figure it out for ourselves. We shouldn't be allowed to make choices unless it's for things like abortion or marriage. Then the nanny state will say that "choice" is important. But not for sodas...no...
8
Or just stop drinking soda.
2
Why is it dietary fanatics want to ban, restrict, or tax everything that tastes good or makes food taste better? Salt, dairy, meat, & now sugar. Could you be anymore controlling? This column is so biased. There's another side. People looking for balance should read last year's NYT article : http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/is-sugar-really-bad-for-you-it-
It’s very hyperbolic & misleading to claim that sugary drinks pose a major public health threat. There's no conclusive scientific evidence that proves sugared drinks cause obesity, diabetes or heart disease. Responsible scientists know obesity, can be caused by several factors including genetics, socioeconomic issues, total calorie intake, portion size, the rise of fast food, and sedentary lifestyles. Sugared drinks have become the left's new demon food: thus the predictable hysteria. In moderation sugar provides the source of energy. If your body runs out of stored energy, it begins to look for other sources of energy to use, such as protein. If your body uses protein as a source of energy it could damage to your kidneys. Risks & rewards.
Lets be honest. This so called movement is quack science & nothing more... laced with a overbearing political agenda. These people intend to compel the overwhelming majority to do what they the tiny minority deem medically necessary. Americans are never going to stop eating sugar. Never. We're not buying that drinking a Coke is the same as smoking a cigarette. Give us a break.
5
Drink water.
110
Well, that advice doesn't work out so well for the people of Flint.
1
"Taxing" drinks to raise revenue under the disguise of "helping people to lose weight" is just stupid. Are Americans really that dumb? If you want to eat yourself into oblivion, which many Americans seem to be doing, then let them do it. You can't legislate stupidity.
13
It's sad that these two women don't have real, fulfilling lives!
Obviously, they are heavily invested in this topic and are passionate in their beliefs. But, as is all too common today, the two of them define themselves by their activism, and now want to use the force of government to make the rest of us see things their way. You can just picture them scowling and gritting their teeth every time they see a soda commercial or witness big cup purchases at the local convenience store.
I have no quibble with them working to educate people on the risks associated with soda consumption. I resent, however, their efforts to control personal choice and wish there were governmental authorities more willing to tell them to just "bud out." There have to be at least some things that are simply not the business of government.
A short time ago, there was a group of mommies campaigning to make mass retailers offer girls' shorts with longer inseams. Really? Again, it's sad that these people do not have real fulfilling lives. Relax ladies and have a refreshing cup of mineral water or herbal tea.
8
The sugar industry is a lot like the tobacco industry. Health facts be damned. They will sell you whatever they can get away with, wrapped in a blanket of "personal liberty."
5
The domestic sugar industry is subsidized by taxpayers. They don't believe in capitalism, only protectionism.
Thanks again to liberals, who think every problem can be resolved by legislation, regulation and taxation. How's everything going in Chicago, by the way?
9
"Thanks again to liberals, who think every problem can be resolved by legislation, regulation and taxation."
Well, they haven't regulated the having of too many babies by people who like making them but have no interest in rearing them to responsible adulthood. No, that's for the rest of us to take care of -- schoolteachers, social workers, police officers.
A badly-written article (no stranger to the Times Opinion Page these days) in that it does not contain a single word on diet sodas, which contain no sugar or calories, even though many proponents of taxing soda refuse to differentiate between the two, which is patently ridiculous when it comes to their effects on health. Most want to tax both in exactly the same way. I have been drinking diet sodas since they came out and would be happy to be the first one on my block to cause a scene at the first supermarket that tries to charge me a tax on them. So would millions of others, I think.
4
Bravo to Chicago for repealing this nanny tax. It's too bad these "advocates" think the solution to obesity is to substitute their judgment for that of the consumer.
2
-- how to win against big soda? -- drink tap water -- less expensive, better for you (unless you live in flint, of course) --
This subject is possibly the dictionary definition of a nanny state. We need a tax to "remind" people that soda is full of sugar, and that a lot of sugar isn't good for you?
34
Well, some people need an incentive to do the right thing, otherwise you are going to have more people sick with diabetes and heart trouble and in some cases the taxpayer will end up paying for their care. And even if they pay for their own care such diseases still lead to a lot of suffering and problems for the patient and their families.
1
The skyrocketing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes would seem to indicate we do.
2
I understand taxing cigarettes and alcohol because those things are addictive. Sugary drinks are not addictive, last time I checked. At what point does government retire from being society's mommy and daddy? I find it quite condescending, really. It fits right into the basket of deplorables narrative.
6
"At what point does government retire from being society's mommy and daddy?"
In this country, never...
Just Google:
Subsidies that the US sugar and fructose industries
https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=subsidies+that+the+US+suga...
2
Taxation is theft, or more precisely extortion. It is an uncivilized, cowardly way way of mulcting your neighbor. All taxes depend on force, violence and/or coercion to ensure collection. While it may not seem so if you live in South Chicago, violence around the world has been in a steady decline as civil society has spread. Slavery, which was long thought to be indispensable to progressive societies has generally been abandon, and human sacrifice to ensure the crops come in is extinct. Violent governments and violent taxes will pass away too, and with their demise, so too will Real Food Media, thank heaven.
2
"A 2010 study found that consuming just one .. sugary drink a day increases your risk of developing diabetes by 26 percent."
Raise your hand if you believe that nonsense.
4
The sad truth is that people will consume what they want to consume. The authors are lying to you, by telling you that ONLY "Big Soda" (their clique-y catch phrase) is the culprit, those bad evil corporations, spending all their evil money on their evil campaigns. The truth is: If they want a sugar high, they'll find one. If "Big Soda" isn't available, it'll be "Big Candy".
I wish the wonderfully gifted and intellectually blessed "Big Journalists" at the "Big Paper" would be smart enough to write something that isn't Yet Another "Big Screed" against "Big Business". But maybe the authors "Big Public Education" didn't grant them "Big Brains".
4
The picture linked to the article shows the hands cuffed by the rings of plastic - the rings of plastic that will never ever go away, that drift forever like some kind of extinction trap choking birds and other wild creatures in the oceans....when do we ever give up those stupid plastic cuffs along with all the sugary toxic drinks that will never leave our waistlines......i suppose we could argue that at least someone has a good job manufacturing and delivering all this stuff to us.....(good for continued economic growth and excellent show on the GDP estimates?)
2
The left never tires of finding new ways to tax the working class.
7
"All the armies of the world cannot resist an idea whose time has come!"
BIG SODA, BIG SUGAR, BIG PHARMA, BIG GMO, BIG GROCERS, BIG FOOD PRODUCERS ... we have your number and its name is ...PROFIT ... regardless of how you achieve ... even to the extent of firing staff to keep overhead down ... and thus profits up in a failing economy. Cut quality of ingredients to dilute/shortcut production costs. Look at the packaging! These ingredients are common to almost all processed food ... sugar ... soya .. soya emulsifiers (in chocolate) ... palm oil ... unhydrolized vegetable oil (usually cheap oils used like cottonseed or soya). The list looks like a chemical lab.
WE, THE PEOPLE MUST STAND AGAINST CORRUPTION BY BIG ANYTHING. IT IS CORRUPTION WHEN COMPANIES MISREPRESENT THEMSELVES AND THEIR TRUE INTENTIONS ... TREAT THEM LIKE BIG TOBACCO!
1
Sugar is highly addictive and just might be the ultimate gateway drug. Sugar is responsible for more heath issues and deaths than any banned substances. Yet, while we vilify, hunt, and arrest (illegal) drug lords, the drug lords pushing sugar get away with pretending they’re pillars of the community and smart businessmen (protecting shareholders’s interests) while bribing depraved legislators who allow these reprehensible drug dealers to use children’s cartoons to seduce and addict vulnerable toddlers.
5
It is not the government ‘s function to tell us what to eat. What is next? Are they going to tax us if we don’t exercise the amount they think we should? How about a body tax? You are taxed $1 for every pound that you are overweight. That should bring in some revenue. The founding fathers believed in limited government, and for good reason. This sort of foolishness would make them turn in their graves.
1
I don't drink soda, but I live in a red state and my coworkers do. All of them are fat. I see them walking around with the 64 ounce containers full of soda all the time. They don't exercise, so I always wonder how they can be dehydrated enough to drink 64 ounces of anything, much less soda. And yes, my boss is diabetic.
I guess Americans need their soda to wash down their opioids...
And we wonder why the healthcare system is under so much strain.
6
We already know that Americans, when they have the choice vote against their own best interests. Why? Because they want to believe what they are being told by those who really do not care about anyone else's interests but their own. Americans believe politicians who lie to them. Americans believe preachers who tell them what God wants, even though the preachers don't know any more than their parishioners what God wants. Americans believe what they see on Fox News even when they know they are being lied to. Why? Because we want to believe what we are told because we are afraid of the alternatives that we don't know. Why fear sugar? sugar of all things! When we are surrounded by guns and drugs and all sorts of violence why worry about getting fat. You are lucky if you live long enough to get fat become diabetic and have to go on dialysis. The alternative is dying as a teenager in a drive by shooting. Money not spent on taxes is available for crack or heroin. Down with all soda taxes.
3
Diabetes does not (by itself) cause one to go on dialysis.
Kidney failure is what causes people to go on dialysis, and kidney failure comes from many sources -- kidney disease, accidents or other ailments and yes, sometimes ADVANCED diabetes will cause kidney failure. BTW: many of those with acute kidney failure are Type ONE diabetes -- juvenile -- blameless, thin and unrelated to eating or weight.
The exaggerations about diabetes are ridiculous. For most people, it is a manageable chronic disease treated by oral medications. Most Type 2 diabetics NEVER take insulin by injection. Most diabetics of all kinds do NOT lose limbs to amputation and only a tiny handful ever lose kidney function and require dialysis.
1
It won't soon happen in my semi progressive southeast, taxing would (probably) be equated with sinfulness instead of the less irrational opposite.
Furthermore, diet soda, is unhappily also allegedly bad for health too, perhaps even worse than sugary, according to some sickening articles, which I suppose many/most of us are now well-aware, gosh-darn-it.
When so-called purified city water and spring water are debunked, if not already, then it'll be time to concede ... futility.
Yes, I'm a wet, jaded commenter overdosed currently on plastic bottled spring water of which I cynically semi suspect.
Diet sodas are one of the MOST tested and examined beverages on earth, because of the "scares" in the 70s about cancer from sweeteners (disproven BTW).
They are harmless, except of course that they are acidic and if you overdo it, they can weaken tooth enamel.
Now -- diet soda will NOT help you get thin, and it is pretty worthless as a diet device. But if you want a soda, and don't want the calories or sugar....they are an OK alternative once in a while.
For diabetics who must count every carb...it is a huge blessing to have SOMETHING you can consume with fear or adding to your carb count.
For the obese, it is often a "crutch" - the one sweet thing they can consume without guilt.
Overall....in the context of "bad things in life that hurt you"....diet soda is a very, very small player.
3
That's fine, but a better solution would be to eliminate sodas, including diet sodas, from being purchased with food stamps. Maine tried to do this during the Obama administration, but they were stopped by his administration.
5
The Chicago tax was misconceived and intellectually indefensiblE.
Applying tax incentives to promote better health or civic behavior is fine in principle. We tax tobacco products heavily, and nobody in Chicago complains much about a new mandatory fee/tax for grocery bags. But a tax that imposes a steep surcharge on zero-calorie fruit-flavored spatkling water while ignoring donuts, snack cakes, sweet rolls, and all the other consumables that fatten and eventually sicken you? Ridiculous.
If you really care about childhood obesity, go after Little Debbie and Entenmann's, not sparkling water.
8
Just as we did for cigarettes, we must force Big Soda companies to put something like this label on their rotten product: "Consuming this sugary drink will harm you physically and will degrade the quality of your life with time." Big Soda is as bad as Big Tobacco and Big Coal, only worse. Imagine how many Americans, particularly children and teens, are unable to fulfill their potential because of diabetes and other illnesses that accompany the consumption of soda. This is a national crisis that we can confront head-on and win through sensible and strategic policies, only one of which is to increase the tax on these silent killers.
2
Toni Taxwinkle, the Chicago official who spearheaded the ill-fated soda tax, is no one to emulate. But the damage of garbage food and drink, that seems to be mostly what kids eat in our day and time, may still be stemmed with or without a tax. The assertion of parental control is all that's needed. My coworker who has had her 3 kids raised by a cousin while she pursued a high-powered law enforcement career is now faced with the youngest. He weighs in at over 300 pounds and is 13. He's very upset because famiy vacations cannot include trips to the nearby Wisconsin Dells where he loved to spend days on the water rides. Because with a 52-inch waist he'll get stuck in the tubes and is banned from them. She blames some of the massive weight on her cousin plying the children with sugar soda instead of water, but at this stage, they're talking lap band for this kid. Parents are responsible for what their children consume and what shape their bodies take, whether through their genetic contributions or through eating habits, and may even be a solution if an aberrant situation results.
2
Thank Heaven we have these Warriors to save us from ourselves with their regressive taxes.
4
" A 20-ounce Coca-Cola contains 65 grams of added sugar"
I have type 2 diabetes and I drink Coca-cola every day. My glucose meter shows no effect on my blood sugar. How can this be? Because I drink the Diet Coke variant, which is not mentioned in your article. If you did better research, maybe you'd have more success persuading the public to support your "sugary drink" tax proposals
2
I am not a fan of sugary soda, but there are millions of morbidly obese people who have Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, joint and bone problems, and/or other health issues, buy only drink diet soda.
You want to lower consumption of sugary soda? Post the number of teaspoons (not grams, which nobody in the US understands) in big print on the front of the can.
A 12-ounce can of Pepsi has 41 grams of sugar. There are 4.2 grams of sugar in a teaspoon. 41/4.2 = 9.76 teaspoons of sugar.
The label will do the trick. Stop trying to tax everything you don't like.
6
At the end of the day, liberals don't trust people to make what they think is the right choice. Coercion to force compliance and submission are always necessary. A Big Gulp becomes a symbol of freedom against the forces of the state.
4
I wish we could somehow bring back the bottle and can deposit laws since they increase the cost of sugary drinks and flight litter.
Tax it! It's the only way.
Leave diet sodas as is...the poor soda junkies have to have their fix.
Sad to think how little water some people drink. Yes, all the sugar and junk food adds up to diabetes, obesity...it's a massive health crisis and guess who's footing the bill? The American taxpayers through subsidized health care for all these unhealthy folks.
Soda like cigarettes has no redeeming value and is a major contributor to many health problems. Those who produce and consume it should pay the costs associated with the health consequences and the environmental consequences of all the plastic used to package this junk.
2
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis
4
When the corrupt Congress fails to punish the opioid makers, distributors and sellers, and Trump puts the most corrupt official he can find in position of drug tsar, how do you expect any regulation against sugary drinks.
Almost as many people die of needless opioid overdoses as die by guns every year, and you can see how much Congress and Trump care. Can you recall when Trump declared a war an opioid epidemic? It was some time ago, and, as in everything else, nothing has happened.
Nothing will happen under a GOP government with or without a nutcase as its head.
How to win against big soda? Don't drink it!!
2
As a former public health administrator (now retired), I'm well aware of both the health impacts of consuming sugary sodas as well as the aggressive tactics used by the soda industry to defeat soda tax initiatives. It's often hard to convince folks to support a new tax based on health benefits alone. But showing people how they're being manipulated by Big Soda and how their consumption of sodas benefits the richest shareholders of food conglomerates at enormous expense to the public health sector and the poorest among us is an approach that may help generate support for soda taxes.
If you want a true "pie in the sky" solution that works, the only way to really reduce soda consumption is to take a couple of basic attitudes about soda back about 60 years. Back in the day, sodas were a treat. Soda was not consumed on a daily basis, and when you got it, it was definitely not in the quantities sold today. Note that for years, the soda you got with the basic burger, fries, and drink meal was around 8 ounces (one cup)-including the ice. Now a "normal soda" at the burger joints is at least 16 ounces. (The normal portion sizes were smaller for the burger and the fries, too.) Back in the day, the typical sweet beverages at home were lemonade and iced tea. Sodas only made their appearance around holidays and birthdays. The lifestyle encouraged less consumption of sugary drinks.
One thing that really encourages the home consumption of sodas is the convenience factor. Soda comes in a (nominal) one serving container that is disposed of after the drink is consumed. Lemonade (and until recently iced tea) requires you to prepare the drink, store it in a pitcher, and then clean up the glass afterwards -- in other words, a bit of work. Far easier to just grab a can out of the fridge and chuck the can.
Soda tastes delicious, weaning the public off of it will not be easy.
1
People who resent taxation of their dietary choices seem to assume that having huge soft drinks available for purchase is an inalienable right. But I remember when soft drinks were an indulgence and came in small, redeemable glass bottles.
Is your right to eat and drink yourself sick being infringed by a tax? Or is your right to be healthy being infringed by companies that profit from unhealthy drinks and snacks playing you with insidious advertising and big-time lobbying?
95
So glad you know what's best for us who, although able to hold down jobs, pay mortgages,marine children are mere dupes in your eyes.
1
The authors make this thing seem only like a battle between bad corporate greed and good nutrition activism, but they are not telling another part of story.
African-Americans in Chicago were upset that this legislation was being foisted upon them by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who financed the campaign for its passage. African-Americans felt rich white folks were lecturing down to them about soda, while no one ever interfered with Mr. Bloomberg's mom to decide which nutrition choices were the right ones for young Michael in his middle class white childhood.
The fact that Ms. Lappe and Ms. Bronsing-Lazarde are themselves upscale white folks (graduates of elite private colleges Brown and Boston College, respectively), is further evidence that the "foodism" activists are seen as snobs and interlopers by the poor communities they claim to protect.
5
While taxing soft drinks might help fund health care, it is not going to stop people from buying big gulps.
1
Why does the government get to make money...lots of money off of the things that will kill us, like sodas and tobacco?
1
Berkeley is a VERY poor example -- it is the most extreme left wing city in the entire nation -- "The People's Republic of Berkeley" -- and very unlike even liberal cities immediately adjacent to it.
I suspect folks in Berkeley who want to buy soda without a tax, simply walk down the street to...Oakland.
4
Marketing/Lobbying all in the end to support the one CEO up on the hill in his mansion. Of course sugary drinks are bad for you, everyone knows that. Moderation is the key. All this money spent from both sides. How about take all that money and do something useful with it instead?
Sorry, but I believe that the writers of this article "How to Win Against Big Soda" have the whole concept of what happened in Chicago's Cook County completely wrong. This wasn't really a fight against big soda. It was an attempt by the county to find another thing to tax and another pocket to pick. Cook County, along with Chicago and the State of Illinois itself, has historically been financially mismanaged. Having already tapped out most traditional sources of revenue, such as property taxes, and with the State of Illinois unable to help because of its own budget issues, the county saw that other areas of the country have tried to tax soda and added that to it's list of places to get a drink for its own insatiable thirst for money.
In a presentation, days before the repeal of the soda tax, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle admitted that the tax was all about the money. She said: "We chose as a revenue generator a sweetened beverage tax, which had been enacted around the country, both for the revenue and because of the health benefits,” she said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “But first and foremost, because of the revenue.”
4
Big soda?
Please.
Is the left creating another villain to demonize and extort?
9
Only the "left" like the ones who want to legislate religion and "family values" and take away a woman's control over her own body, and who claim that Trump's sins are nothing compared to Weinstein's. Sound like anyone you know?
1
I would suggest rather than taking the contents, tax the container. It is ridiculous that millions of tons of plastic are polluting the seas so that people can drink water. Water the stuff that comes out of taps and the same stuff that in many cases is municipal water supply water put into a plastic container. I remember thinking people were nuts in the 70s when the deli I worked at on second Ave sold water for 75¢ a bottle. Water, you know the stuff that's essentially free and comes out of the tap. I felt guilty buying bottled water during Irma when my well failed for lack of electricity, but at least I made sure every empty was in the recycling bin.
1
All of this talk of "Big Soda" winning in Chicago is insulting to those of us that live in Chicago. We're not mindless drones that watch a TV ad and shift our view. We saw far more Bloomberg funded ads supporting the tax than "Big Soda" ads, yet the public remained outraged.
The fact is, people in Chicago are sick of tax increases. We've had repeated increases of property, income, and sales taxes, yet our services keep getting worse. When people bought a 12 pack of soda on sale for $4 and were slapped with a tax of $1.44 (on top of other taxes), they were genuinely upset. We're tired of the voracious city, county, and state governments mismanaging finances and asking for more and more money.
The tax was never about public health. It never made sense that a Barista made Frappuccino wasn't taxed, but the bottled version was taxed. Diet sodas were taxed, but plenty of sugary drinks weren't.
We've been pushed to the edge in Chicago and we're sick of it. This was a tax too far.
3
There are lost of ways to get obese. Eating giant bags of chips and pretzels, which have little or no sugar, will get you there.
We all know that soda is bad for you. But do you honestly think that taxing it will lower the obesity rates in the United States? And if you're really and truly anti-sugar, you have to tax cookies, cake, donuts, ice cream, orange juice, and hundreds of other products sold in stores and served in restaurants.
3
The beverage industry won this week not because of heavy lobbying but because the good people of Cook County are fed up with being taxed into poverty. Come live here on a middle class salary and tell me you think another tax is good for Illinois. Dressing it up as a life saving endeavor is ludicrous. Taxpayers aren’t buying it and if Coca Cola helped stop this legal thievery I say give em a round of applause.
2
First of all, soft drinks in the U.S. generally are not sweetened with real sugar, they are sweetened with U.S. government-subsidized corn syrup. If you are really serious about this, let's insist that lawmakers remove all corn subsidies, which will raise the price of sugared drinks automatically.
Secondly, if you are really serious about this, you will make sure that unsweetened seltzer and artificially sweetened soft drinks are out of bounds. If regular Coke is taxed, Coke Zero and Diet Coke should be exempt.
Thirdly, if you are really serious about this, then you would also argue that anyone lacking the intelligence to stay away from these sugared sodas is someone who probably should not be allowed to vote.
3
Why not tax poisons like Coke Zero and Diet Coke?
1
I live in Cook County and what bothered me most about this tax was that it applied to sugar-free beverages, like the one can of diet Vernor's ginger ale that I drink every day, as well as to "sugary" beverages.
56
Diet beverages are not a good choice either. The substitute sweetners are unhealthy!
1
Artificially sweetened beverages are possibly worse than regular soft drinks, not better. Wash Post 4/21/17: Study links diet soda to higher risk of stroke, dementia. The artificial sweet taste spikes your insulin (your body thinks it's real sugar) which then drives down your blood sugar. There's also evidence of brain damage. Stick to water or sparkling water with a little bit of fruit juice if you really need that sweet taste.
Diet drinks are the worst. I mean you know something is wrong with a drink when you feel thirstier after you drink it than you did before!
1
God, it's just like tobacco a generation ago. The problem now is that our healthcare system is being overwhelmed with people who stay sick for years, instead of dying quickly like they used to from lung cancer. No one needs sugary drinks.
4
This article is about learning.The Big Soda industry have learned well to turn each of us into sated-commodities.What have we learned?What are our options to being educated, as a diverse population, to begin to pay attention to create, improve, and maintain our health pragmatically Physical. Social. Psychological.Spiritual.Economic.Etc.Learning to look.And see,, as THEY have.Listen and hear,Learning to ask relevant questions,for which there may not be a factual,answer.Now.Not to accept a too-early-closure answer.1+1=2! What’s 2? Who,and what, are the existing sources of the “sugared” information being given to us about “sodas”?And more!What are their known agendas?Are there hidden ones for US to…? As we make necessary judgments for our daily well being?Who will help us to learn, and integrate, into daily decision making and implementation that “knowing” is not enough.We also need to learn to be able to understand!In order to develop and maintain our health and well being.To avoid the habits and certainties that either/or, linear choices offer.What can we choose to drink that is tasty,affordable and even healthy?In addition to non-toxic water.As the Big Soda industry satisfies its profit-thirsty-stockholders.What can we learn,and carry out daily,not to be targeted commodities?Learning to be personally accountable for our health.And perhaps, of others as well.The issue includes going beyond sugary soda and the complexities of community organization as a process and outcome.
Hm. As we do not buy any of the products the do-gooders usually rally against - tobacco, soda, fast food - one must wonder nonetheless at the contined popularity of poor food choices despite annoyance taxes and readily available
information on the abuses and sinister tactics of agribusiness. Let's see. Parents with several hundred dollars of tattoos who cannot put fresh vegetables on the table. Parents who permit soda with meals. Parents who do not provide breakfast. Parents who think opening a can is food preparation. Lazy, ill-informed, neglectful parents have led to a generation of obese, sedintary, diabetic, uncurious and slothful couch potatoes that the rest of us will have to support with taxes other than the ones meant to curb their poor choices. With the advent of affordable robotics, at least we won't have to hire these zeros.
3
I've seen the most awful things people feed kids -- just from family, neighbors, etc. -- and it is not just soda. In fact, I'd say soda is a pretty small part of it.
I could write a book on this. I live in a mixed neighborhood, an inner ring suburb in the Rustbelt -- so I have both middle class families around me -- single parent families -- those on welfare, food stamps and Section 8. I also know some people who are wealthy, and some who are upper middle class.
The overwhelming thing I see is parents (of all types) abdicating the normal role of a parent as a guide to good behaviors. Busy working parents are too stressed and tired to enforce guidelines or rules -- they don't want to fight with kids when they all get home from long, busy days at work or school. It is easier to give in, and have fast food, pizza, Chinese, frozen dinners. It is so easy to "shut kids up" by handing them snacks or juice boxes. Healthy eating and exercise take TIME, which people are VERY short on -- and dedication.
Once you get on this path, it is very hard to change. Children who are used to the tastes of fast food and pizza are very difficult to change into healthy eaters -- food preferences are made very early in life.
However: this is a complex problem, affecting multiple issues -- health, economics, poverty, stress, work, family -- and it cannot be reduced to something as simplistic as "soda is bad".
1
Big Corn, not Big Sugar, HFCS dominates sweeteners.
4
Thanks for this important article and great comments. This repeal of a soda tax is another blow against people by big money. It is another example of the at least 50 years of government selling out the American Dream. See http://www.legalreader.com/american-dream-sold/
1
What is it like to be a CEO of a company that poisons it customers??? It is just not soda, but any fast food chain, the candy/chip aisle, of course cigarettes...I know they go to sleep at night believing, at least they have to believe, that the research is faulty and that their own industry research paints a fairer picture...but, I do wonder, do their children eat at fast food places, drink a lot of soda, or even are encouraged to smoke???
1
The people of Chicago were told the tax was to improve public health, a lie exposed when the tax was repealed. Chicago officials had already baked the estimated revenue into the general budget.
Despite the progressive belief that there is no problem unfixable by a tax, perhaps the answer here is to simply stop buying their products. Nobody has ever forced a big gulp down my throat.
2
Yes, yes, yes. What Thomas said:
Remove the sugar subsidies!
Why push an unpopular tax when you can remove the senseless subsidies and have a similar effect, but with the additional bonus of getting rid of a subsidy that never made sense.
This issue if it's solved with a tax, by the way, is election poison, if Democrats nationally push it. It's one more tax and, worse, smacks of micro-managing.
2
So the enemy is something called "Big Soda"? How about acknowledging that the enemy is actual people who object to being penalized for drinking Diet Coke or Gatorade while rich people and corporations get enormous tax breaks? That's the case in Cook County and Philadelphia, where municipal legislators desperate for revenue will do anything to avoid taxing people who have money. It is beyond depressing to see pubic health zealots agitating for regressive tax policies in order to punish people for ingesting things that strike them as nutritionally incorrect.
6
COLA!? I was in a hospital recently when a young woman who was almost disabled by her weight entered a coffee shop and ordered a large mochachino piled high with whipped cream. It was 8 a.m. Starbucks = Dairy Queen. This is a much bigger issue than beating soda.
6
But Starbucks is hip and cool, and patronized by affluent liberals -- who adore coffee and fancy coffee drinks.
Notice that Starbucks and it's products -- many of which are nothing more than coffee milkshakes -- are entirely and completely exempt from such "soda taxes".
Taxes are for "stupid low class losers in flyover country" -- not rich liberals.
2
Bias and lies in the very first sentence of this piece, I love it. The soda tax in "Chicago," which actually was a Cook County tax, was an admitted attempt to raise money so the Cook County Board could try to make up shortfalls in their budget.
The tax included diet drinks, that is, drinks that contained sweeteners OTHER THAN SUGAR, and extended beyond soda to ANY drink containing ANY KIND of sweetener. So, if you are an adult dealing with weight issues and/or diabetes, or anyone of any age who needed to steer clear of sugar/corn syrup, you would be paying the additional tax, too.
The fact that the tax covered Snapple and Gatorade, and even waters that are enhanced with flavors and artificial sweeteners, made this tax blatantly hypocritical. It is why I, a life-long Democrat, protested this tax as loudly as any anti-government Republican.
IF the tax had ONLY been on sugary sodas such as Coke or Pepsi, I would not have objected. Yes, sugary sodas are bad for people. They are bad for kids' teeth, they contribute to obesity. On the other hand, there are better ways to keep them out of the hands of kids than taxing diet drinks. Don't sell them in schools, don't sell them to kids under 18. Let kids' parents regulate kids' drinking (of sugary drinks). Kids aren't allowed to grab their own food samples at Costco or Sam's Club.
Don't use phony health excuses to implement another regressive tax.
4
Take on Big Soda. All well and good. Now, how do we take on Big Pharma Distributors? After watching the 60 Minutes report on how the Big Pharma Distributors - and their pawns in Congress - are making money by enabling the opioid crisis, I'm irate.
1
Why not just not drink them? I am perfectly content to wait for big soda to realize that sweet is just one of many flavors... and that maybe they should do their part to keep the neurotransmitters out of our food supply.
1
It is not only sugary drinks that are unhealthy. Artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause insulin resistance and other health problems. Even the plain carbonated water, which was exempted from the Chicago tax, is very acidic and promotes tooth decay and, by weakening the lower esophageal sphincter, reflux.
2
Soda is nothing more than a global dumping ground for billions of tons of corn syrup.
The lobbyists control every Nations governments from the US to
africa and India.Unfortunately in many countries there is no safe drinking water for billions of people even where there are purification plants for soda makers.In other words Money controls what people drink instead of health or plain just like to drink water.
3
Perhaps not an easy one - but another interesting strategy to "win" against Big Soda is simply not to drink it or to drink it abstemiously.
1
Affix to a poster board or wall a lineup of bottles from water through milk, juice, iced tea, lemonade, sports drinks, colas, to Mountain Dew. Below the cans and bottles tape corresponding baggies filled with the amount of sugar found in each drink. Such displays work: kids (and adults) are horrified by the CUPS of sugar we unwittingly ingest and better understand why pediatricians say, "never, not even on vacation" to sugary drinks. We can't eat the way big food/beverage has encouraged us to eat. It's killing us.
In addition to a pervasive public health campaign we need to repeatedly names names, and not just of companies, of individuals. For example, the CEO of Pepsi, Indira Nooyi, is brilliant and seems cool but she must know she needs to move her company, and all the distributors and retailers who rely on it for income, to a new product line or business model. Her board's obligations to shareholders cannot come before the diabetes epidemic beverage dealers are fueling. Oh, and the bottles are an environmental disaster.
I am offended by the sugar tax and its defenders. Personally, I avoid all sugar-added drinks as well as "diet" drinks. But, that is my prerogative and my right. To see who is being hurt most buy these unfair taxes one should visit a convenience store at lunch time. Sweaty, hard-working landscaper, tree cutters, and construction workers are purchasing liters of lemonade and iced tea loaded with sugar. Their bodies need the liquids and the fructose because they are truly working. I will venture to guess that there is not a single laborer amongst the people who write laws, write editorials, or campaign for sugar taxes. These laws bother me for the simple reason that they are unfair.
4
I wonder if these soda tax crusaders ever think to fight for the abolition of subsidies to corn farmers. Abolishing these handouts (almost all of which go to large corporations and wealthy individual farmers) would do far more to discourage the consumption of corn syrup-sweetened drinks than arbitrary local taxes (which often target colas and sports drinks while ignoring equally fattening fruit juice and chocolate milk).
5
Don't be fooled. Cook county in Illinois only wanted to tax soda to raise revenue. The responsibility to consume healthy food is up to the individual, not any government. By taxing any product to prevent or diminish use of anything is just wrong. It is a way of the government to control our lives. Maybe it's just an axcuse to raise taxes.
3
Sure, we do need community coalitions---what else have we got? But they are climbing a steep mountain, up against entrenched, powerful, wealthy opposition.
Our whole political culture is based on big money tethering our politicians, influencing our media, and establishing norms. The main norm is that you don't fool with private profit in the USA---profit is equated with freedom, liberty and the American Way. Even if it causes sickness and death. Regulations on behalf of citizens are equated with the road to Big Govt Tyranny, if you’ve noticed. That's why our health care system still lags other democracies.
I rarely see anti smoking ads anymore and see many younger people smoking on the street. Amazing to see this after the huge anti smoking campaigns of past decades.
Why do you think Americans have so much obesity and diabetes? We have long been manipulated day and night by corporate food advertising and fed with fast food.
Along with citizen activism, it's essential to reform campaign finance. This would weaken the hold corporations wield over our lawmakers, and free them up to translate healthy political policies into action. But while they have to keep raising big bucks from big donors to keep their careers going, they’re fighting an uphill battle.
But we’ll keep organizing, advocating and marching, and who knows, maybe in 30 years something will improve.
The glut of sugary drinks exist because we subsidize corn and thus high fructose corn syrup. Stop subsidizing corn and let market mechanisms work.
219
Sugary drinks exist because too many people are gluttons and have no sense of self-control. Lots of us have a small glass of soda maybe a couple of times a week in the summer, and the liter we've bought (because it's cheap) goes flat.
Why not blame the potato chip or cookie crumb for falling on the floor, and not the person who stuffs too much into his mouth to fit?
Sure and corn only makes sweet drinks. Now I am in favor of eliminating all subsidies such as that on say corn.
We heavily subsidize sugar, including price supports for beets and corn. Plus we have import quotas on sugar. The sugar industry contributes thousands to just about every member of Congress. My congressman receives thousands of dollars from Big Sugar despite the fact that the only sugar interests in this district are about 2000 acres in sugar beets.
According to a Mayo Clinic survey, less than 3% of Americans live a healthy lifestyle, defined as:
Moderate or vigorous exercise for at least 150 minutes a week
A diet score in the top 40 percent on the Healthy Eating Index
A body fat percentage under 20 percent (for men) or 30 percent (for women)
Not smoking
People have priorities other than their long-term health. If they want, let them drink Coke.
1
If 97% of people do something -- whatever it is -- then maybe that thing is NORMAL and the 3% who do otherwise are the weirdos.
Just sayin'.
1
What is surprising is that in the face of the health assault on the vast amount of sugar that soda manufacturers push into a community, soda makers don't just reduce the amount of sugar in their formulations. They could cut the sugar in half over a period of time, one half teaspoon at a time.
Those sixteen ounce bottles contain a quarter cup of sugar. Can anyone imagine putting 12 teaspoons of sugar into a large coffee?
The battle has to be fought not through taxes and lobbying, but one parent at a time refusing to allow the kids to get a soda with their McMeal, refusing to buy it, providing other things to drink, developing a taste for less sugar, so that soda tastes cloying, like drinking a tall frosty glass of maple syrup.
I talked at work to a man who had recently been told he was diabetic, and had to give up his soda. He drank six cans a day - 54 teaspoons of sugar - more than a cup of sugar. Do you wonder how he killed his pancreas? But he had no idea of how much was in those cans, and for him? Soda is deadly.
1
I don't think the failure of this tax represents a win by "Big Soda." Instead, it's a rejection of Chicago's terrible fiscal management style. Sweeping, indiscriminate taxation shouldn't be a first resort.
The article authors have little sense of what mainstream Chicagoans felt about the tax. 90% of the population were opposed. A large portion of us are Democrats.
This wasn't about health at all. Chicago very much wanted us to drink soda, but just wanted to charge us for that privilege.
4
I'm pretty liberal but this bothers me. It's as if we are passing laws because people can't educate themselves or control their behavior. We allow people to drink all of the alcohol they want but we want to ban soda?
I can't tell you precisely why, but this just seems wrong. Plenty of people enjoy a chilly soda on a hot day and it's very refreshing to them. Personally, I don't drink soda. But we as liberals are trying to legislate personal behavior on an item that when used correctly has little effect on an adult human.
We have never had any luck as a society legislating personal morals. I'm not sure exactly what to do about this, but banning it seems outside our purview as a liberals.
You can OD on water too. And the result is death.
I struggle with this.
8
Forget it. I'm not in favor of any new taxes, especially a nanny tax like this one. Government should be there to preserve our freedoms not curtail them!
48
A soda tax does not interfere with anybody's freedom. The health problems generated by sugary sodas do interfere with the freedom of the afflicted individual and the health costs to society can be offset.
2
Let's not be shortsighted. $245 billion in diabetes medical costs in 2012. Who's paying for that?
1
Yes, however, if low income people contact diabetes or other problems as a result of consuming too many sugary drinks and require long term medical care, it's the taxpayers who end up paying for their medical care, which is very expensive! It is the same with excessive use of tobacco products. You can also get "runner's high" and "dancer's high" but of course that involves physical exercise and we wouldn't want to get out of our armchair and go for a walk would we ? That would asking too much!
This is a prime example of how the progressive movement burns critical political capital fighting comparatively unimportant battles. Sure Soda is a big big problem. But so is beer, potato chips, cheetos, candy bars, sugar laden coffee milk drinks (exempt from the tax) And more importantly, it simply plays 'into the GOP/TP's meme that the progressives want to control your life. If they want to control something as "all american" as Soda, imagine what else they want to control. Instead of wasting political capital on a Soda Tax, we need to spend our energy on the more important battles. Fight Big Soda later... after enough important battles have been won to show the value of the progressive system. We didn't "start the fight" against Tobacco with the high taxes. We started the fight against tobacco with advertising showing the hazards of health. We are administering the final "death blow" to tobacco with taxes, but that's only after decades of weakening it.
2
And yet, 1 in 4 people still smoke cigarettes.
The taxes simply mean they take money they cannot afford, and spend it on their "habit" -- vs. saving, buying healthy food or other improvements to their lives.
There is a superb story still on the front page, about a woman steelworker who lost her job when it moved to Mexico. The lady was a chain smoker, spending a couple hundred dollars a month on her cigarettes -- but has no savings or assets to survive unemployment.
So while public health efforts are laudable, they are far from perfect and never 100% effective.
1
How un-American, putting health above profits, tsk, tsk. The next thing you'll be advocating putting environmental protection over profits.
1
Not withstanding the health effects, what of the enormous pollution due to the spent containers and the wasted energy used to distribute product to consumers? Big soda displays avarice with a pugnacity that is very similar to the tobacco industry. Having children sing that they would like to save the world is simply over the top. The corporations that are responsible for purveying this swill need to have their charters revoked.
1
Seems to me, that the way to convince people to consume less sugary substances is better education, not higher taxes. While taxes may force people to do better for themselves in the short term, in the long term taxes only force an annoyance of "big government".
Most people who have let their weight increase and their general health deteriorate are those who have very little, if any at all, education in healthy eating or drinking. They are simply not taught -- in health, manners, appearance, or anything else which constitutes a civilized behaviour.
Sad.
5
You are correct about taxes fosters annoyance of "big government" but the tactic used by the industry targets the uninformed. Did you watch 60 minutes last night, the drug industry has so much control on the the overuse of pain killers and even owns the DEA now and got legislation written to cripple DEA enforcement and again we the people suffer.
1
"Most people who have let their weight increase and their general health deteriorate are those who have very little, if any at all, education in healthy eating or drinking."
What's your evidence for your "most people" claim? Or is it just your gut feeling?
1
Win the war?
First my doctor said to cut out soda together with a lot of other unnecessary garbage foods.
I switched to diet soda.
Next came the medical problems with diet soda, mostly the gas part.
So much for soda.
Water is the beverage of choice at most meals.
RIP soda.
I am not sure that taxing will defeat it? Does taxing defeat cigarettes?
Education might, but for that you have to educate.
Nobody would sell cigarettes in schools or hospitals.
Take soda vending machines out of schools, if there are, or out of any other public venues.
Sell water. Drink water. Drink coffee and tea (without overdoing it) without sugar or other syrupy additives.
6
"Big Soda" may have won, but so did poor people. There is no use pretending that sin taxes do not have a far greater effect on those with little money and that these campaigns are aimed toward the well off who can easily pay them.
It is a sad irony that those who spend so much time talking about their concern for the oppressed also expend so much effort in trying to control their lives. Yes, the informed elites know far better than they do what is good for them, but personal autonomy is perhaps at least as important in deriving a bit of satisfaction in their difficult everyday lives. Their pleasures are few. It is not our place to decide which of those they can have.
65
And, then, you might also say we, the taxed public, pay for the chronic ills of us all, but mainly, we are subsidizing the health of those who can't afford health
insurance. Sure, we don't want to control the lives of the poor, but giving them cigarettes and sugary drinks, isn't the answer either, anymore than popping an
opiod into their systems.
1
If medical researchers are an "informed elite," then so be it.
I have a friend whose mother had her leg amputated because of Type II diabetes, then she died a painful death because she could not afford the oxygen, My question is, what exactly was the pleasure this poor woman derived from drinking suagry drinks?
Big Soda and Big Food produce products they create in laboratories, not in kitchens, and their marketing campaigns employ psychologists and political consultants. Is this what you expect when someone serves you healthy food and beverages? No, it is what you expect when someone wants to bypass your will power and common sense and serve you products that are very profitable, but don't want you to know how unhealthy they are. All poor people "won" was the privilege of paying corporations to give them a higher risk of stroke, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
In the early 1960's when I was at the age where I was losing my baby teeth, my father took one of my newly lost teeth and put it in a glass next to my bedside. He filled the glass with Coke. He told me to look the next morning to see what happened to my tooth.
When I woke up, the glass was filled with Coke. But no tooth! When I told my father this, he said that this is what soda does to your body. I was amazed and never tempted to drink soda.
While I am unsure if soda really would destroy a tooth overnight, I am sure that it is one of the best lessons my father gave me.
PS. The Tooth Fairy came that night, too. I got 25 cents.
2
The “soda tax” was unpopular for a number of reasons. Mainly, the health of the children and it’s residents was the last thing the county commissioners were worried about. Also, the largest consumers of sugary drinks were exempt from the tax. Anyone paying with a Illinois link card (food stamp) would not be subject to the tax. I’m confident the county commissioners will come up with another clever way to generate the $200M this tax was expected to generate.
P. S. We have the highest respect for Mr. Bloomberg in Chicago but please ask him and his $ to stay the out of our business.
2
To be fair, for Public Health, we should tax consumer products only enough to pay for the COST of consumption. Sugar, Alcohol, Tobacco/Vape, and Bullets all have objective healthcare costs. We just want them to be paid for by producers and consumers.
Addicts have diminished capacity pertaining to their addiction and will support their addiction and their suppliers. Corrupt politicians will do what they are told by those who bribe them. What if scientists and health professionals presented clear objective correlation of addiction, addictive behavior, and. Health impacts and health costs and put their full support behind taxes and the abolition of all tax incentives and subsidies for addictive products? There are solutions.
1
How about ridding the soda tax entirely as well as the subsidies for corn syrup. If people want to drink an extra large sugary drink let them be without having to pay an extra fee for no reason. Government doesn't need to get involved with every piece of our lives. the soda tax is a pure revenue grab disguised as government "protecting us"
1
After people drink extra large sugary drink and suffer the side effects - diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, obesity, the American tax payer is responsible for the cost of that consumption. "As much as 818 billion on the direct medical costs of heart disease. By 2030, "245 billion on diabetes medical costs." 245 billion, "on diabetes medical costs in 2012"
1
The problem with this tax is it is unfair. Sugary drinks are not the only cause of obesity. Why not tax potato chips, Cheetos, ice cream, cheeseburgers, french fries, and the list goes on. Part of the problem is people don't exercise enough. Why not tax cable companies 48% so people won't sit around and do nothing? A 12 pack of pop typically costs $3.00 and this new tax made it $4.44 or a 48% tax. This is not like the cigarette tax where one item is the root cause of a major disease. Obesity has many causes. If the real goal is to curb obesity, than you need a comprehensive approach to the problem. That is not what a sugary drink tax is. This is a blatant attempt to raise money by targeting one vulnerable industry where government thinks it can win. This tax is so blatantly unfair, and applied so arbitrarily, I don't see it being a winning approach for most governments and as we have seen in Chicago, it is not likely to be perceived well by the people paying the tax, let alone the industry that is being taxed. It is the people that vote and in the end this kind of tax is doomed.
2
Stop taxing and put all your efforts into educating people about the dangers of too much sugar. Taxes like this are regressive and just build up resentment against government. These taxes also often discriminate irrationally because equally harmful ice teas, for example, which are the favorites of more wealthy people, tend to be ignored. I suspect it is overly-intrusive laws like these that helped to propel Trump into office.
1
Berkeley, being Berkeley, had an obvious advantage over other cities who have tried this approach. This is a highly educated community that is also engaged. Poorer and less educated communities where much of the diabetes problems exist will only see the tax as an attack on them. These are all well planned attacks against social improvement by the soft drink industries who rely on the uninformed to reap huge profits. Corporate money once again seeping into politics to keep the 1% in charge of the lives of the minions.
1
It is not breaking news that the soda companies spent money to oppose a soda tax. Every industry fights taxes that single them out. Nothing in the article described anything illegal or improper done by the soda folks, notwithstanding the hyperventilation of a "public health advocate" who claims that funding research, lobbying, "targeting" journalists and pursuing social media influencers is "duplicitous". It is no secret that soda is full of sugar and elevated sugar intake may lead to diabetes. It has been well known for years. Imposing regressive taxes on the "grass roots", which the advocates admit they ignored, may or may not be effective, but it is definitely punitive. While such consumption taxes made sense with tobacco, which caused third party damage, they are not justified for soda. There is a high risk that the taxes are ineffective and vulnerable to becoming mere revenue sources. The medical costs of diabetes care is a pittance within our capitalist healthcare system. We can't even provide guaranteed healthcare for large segments of our citizens, which are rapidly growing as our politicians daily demonstrate they cannot govern. It is though, of course, much easier to push well meaning local governments to increase regressive taxes than to address a large, grasping sector of our economy. So, make yourselves feel good but don't be surprised if the "grass roots" are not sold on your crusade.
I grew up in the Chicago area. We didn't call it "soda"; it was "pop". I haven't been following the "pop" tax story, but when I heard about it I thought, "oh, my, not another tax for Cook County." Residents there are taxed out the wazoo for everything, and I can understand why they would object, regardless of the product.
Here’s an idea. Spare us the social engineering and instead apply some individual and family responsibility around avoiding beverages that are unhealthy.
BTW, the tax was not on sugar content but on all sweetened drinks. Even artificial sweeteners and zero cal. It was about revenue. (And was highly regressive).
2
We all know that education is the best way to cut down on the consumption of sugary drinks. A tax would have to be prohibitive to have any effect, certainly more than a penny an ounce.
Why is it still permissible to purchase sugary drinks with "food stamp" money?
2
Soda, like tobacco is banned in our household. More people need to spend more time consuming healthy foods.
3
20 oz isn't a can, more like a bottle. I don't mind paying taxes, but don't want to be talked down to.
I couldn't agree more that increasing the tax on sugar sweetened beverages (SSB) works to improve public health. Many will roll their eyes, but obesity and diabetes are no joke- these diseases are swamping the medial sector and SSBs contribute heavily to their cause. It's not regressive to impose a tax that is earmarked to counter feel-good untruthful advertising. It needs to be accelerated.
93
How about letting individuals decide what they do in their life instead of shoving people to do what liberals want them to?
1
Responsible scientists know obesity, can be caused by several factors including genetics, socioeconomic issues, total calorie intake, portion size, the rise of fast food, and sedentary lifestyles. Sugared drinks have become the left's new demon food: thus the predictable hysteria. In moderation sugar provides the source of energy. If your body runs out of stored energy, it begins to look for other sources of energy to use, such as protein. If your body uses protein as a source of energy it could damage to your kidneys. Risks & rewards.
Lets be honest. This so called movement is quack science & nothing more... laced with a overbearing political agenda. These people intend to compel the overwhelming majority to do what they the tiny minority deem medically necessary. Americans are never going to stop eating sugar. Never. We're not buying that drinking a Coke is the same as smoking a cigarette. Give us a break.
2
"Taxing sugary drinks requires public education and grass-roots organizing."
It also requires suspension of the law of unintended consequences. With the price of everything on the rise, raising "taxes" on sugary drinks may be taking away one of the few pleasures the poor can afford. Just because some think that government always knows what's better for the masses doesn't mean all their "plans" should be fulfilled.
2
Change the popular culture through education and role modeling. A modest amount of taxation will not have a significant effect and is mostly a "feel good" measure. Cynics like me also see it as more of a revenue measure.
1
like guns, just because you can make money selling something doesn't mean it is good for individuals or the society as a whole.
Sugary drinks may make corporations rich, but they cost much more than the companies make in medical care for diabetes and other health problems.
2
The science regarding the deleterious health affects of sugary drinks are too numerous to dispute. Obesity and the resultant diseases such as diabetes and heart disease extract not only a tremendous financial and social cost, but a great one in terms of human suffering.
According to the Harvard School of Public Health, children and youth in the U.S. get upwards of 10% of their total calories from sugary drinks. This is thanks in no small part to companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, that spent more than $8 billion between them in 2013 on advertising and marketing activities.
Any measure that makes it harder for these companies to purvey their unhealthy products for the sole purpose of corporate profit to the detriment of the public good should be applauded, as should those willing to join the effort to help reverse the trend of poor nutrition in the face of an acknowledged national epidemic of obesity and disease.
2
The best way to "win" against Big Soda would be to exclude all carbonated drinks from eligibility under SNAP. No one who is receiving SNAP benefits should be wasting that money on soda when cheap tap water is readily available.
1
Well, most intelligent adults don't drink soda anymore, there's nothing really to win.
If you're still fighting this battle at 40, there's other issues at play
2
That's rather a silly claim. Plenty of adults, if not most, drink soda, and it has little to do with intelligence. Besides, plenty of adults over 40 indulge in other beverages...
The fact is, soda is highly addictive. As a lifelong Coke drinker, I finally kicked the habit a few years ago. And still crave it occasionally. I never looked at the price when I drank it. So I think the answer is probably not tax, but simply treating it like an addiction. Don't let young kids drink it.
We in Cook County easily recognized the tax for what it is: revenue enhancement cloaked in the guise of "daddy will make you healthier." If it was really about health, maybe they should've routed the tax money to the health system? The county runs many services for the medically indigent, most of which are woefully underfunded in the most vulnerable communities.
Besides, many towns in Cook County are no more than a stone's throw from the county line. My family shrugged, went across into DuPage County, and bought our diet iced tea and our rare can of soda pop there. Can't speak for city dwellers, but many of us in the suburbs did the same thing we do when our gas taxes in Cook make our gas twenty cents per gallon more expensive than in DuPage or Lake County -- we drive a couple miles further.
3
Sold tobacco stocks long ago and now thinking about unloading coke and Pepsi. Not sure if they produce anything of value for society other than dividends and diabetes patients.
1
The sugar tax in my town went down in overwhelming defeat. Why? Many people thought of it as regressive and funded by outside interests. It was never going to raise the amount of money needed to give free quality preK education to those who needed it no matter how many times the mayor repeated this canard. We also know that there was a lot of layers of bureaucracy involved which would siphon even more money off. And more importantly we cannot trust the city government to spend the money as designated. Our city government is a sieve for waste, fraud and abuse. We had a parks bond that was misspent. We know 10 percent went for salaries--which is was not part of the bond approval and that does not count what we do not know since many documents both in paper and digitalized form disappeared. That happened in 2009 and even today the city has "just" discovered that it has at least 63 possible points for fraud and abuse in its accounting procedures.
Instead of trying to deter people by taxes, let's just make the cessation of consuming sugary drinks a requirement for participating in the ACA. If an individual wants society to subsidize your health care, it's reasonable to expect them to conform to certain healthy behaviors. For that matter, we could also include not smoking as a requirement too.
As the only liberal soda drinker I know (quite possibly the only big soda drinker in all of Santa Monica) the idea of a tax makes me bristle. I'd still buy soda, don't get me wrong. But the idea that soda is this big awful bogeyman to be singled out - bothers me. I want the sugar out of my yogurt, cereals, catsup and all the other foods where it is hidden in the form of high fructose corn sugar and doesn't belong. When I drink a soda - I expect the sugar - it's where it belongs - in a sugary treat. To me the real problem is getting it out of food where it doesn't belong. Nobody mistakes soda for water - but they don't realize the excessive amounts in their everyday foods.
2
Tax coke and you have to tax orange juice - same amount of sugar and the orange juice has *more* calories. In fact, few non-diet drinks have fewer calories than Coke other than the various waters out there.
We had all the same drinks 40 years ago, yet no obesity problems like we have today. It can't just be about sugary drinks.
Please let's dispense with the nanny state restrictions and start finding out how we can sweeten our drinks without adding so much fat onto our bodies or sacrificing taste. If we do that, people will drink them and obesity will diminish.
2
There's a long way to go yet on public education. Even this article falls short, by saying that 20 oz of Coke contains 65g of sugar. Since the US remains non-metric, the people we need to reach don't even know how much 65g is. Better to say that a 6-pack contains over a half-lb, or show the equivalent in a measuring cup.
I recently had a houseguest who was subsisting on sugary drinks. Going through the containers in the recycling bin, I calculated that he was drinking almost 1.5 pounds of sugar a day! Most of this was not soda, but iced tea and sweetened fruit "juices". This friend is overweight, starting to have health problems, migraines, and depression. I'm starting now to sell him on refreshing water.
1
Diabetes is certainly a significant concern in society today, but the case for the tax on soda becomes less persuasive when the alternatives are also considered. The authors state 20 oz of Coca Cola has 65 grams of sugar. But this compares with 55-60 grams of sugar in a comparable amount of orange juice, and 65 grams of sugar in apple juice. Yet there is no call to tax these drinks.
One is left to conclude that the authors are motivated by some other animus against soda and are obscuring their true motives by this focus on sugar.
3
Again I do not understand this attempt to legislate healthy actions of citizens. My parents did not drink soda, but as children my siblings and I did. None of us are obese. None of us drink soda as adults.
When I went to college I stopped drinking soda. Now at 52 I have not had any soda in decades. My wife does not drink soda. My two teens do not drink soda.
That big cola companies offer soda does not offend or concern me any more than cigarette companies or alcohol companies: two more products that my family has not and does not use.
We are not health nuts with some agenda. Our tastes simply don't include these things. That does not mean that I am willing to let my government deny these things to others.
So much wasted money and effort expended to save citizens from themselves. Leave them alone and let nature take its course.
1
DURING THE ERA OF RONNIE RAY GUN School children were commoditized, meaning that corporations held kids hostage because schools wanted closed circuit TV systems. In exchange for that, the kids had to watch 30 minutes of infomercials before their lessons began. Lots of time to hawk sugary drinks. Next, vending machines were placed in the lunchrooms of public schools. They were loaded with junk food and--you guessed it--sugary drinks. It is scarcely surprising that the commoditization of children--preying on their development, preventing them from learning healthful dietary habits, resulted in a wave of childhood obesity accompanied by an increase in diabetes, in cholesterol levels and and lack of physical fitness. Soon after, with the advent of the personal computer and the Internet, kids were commoditized by the vendors of video games that kept them sedentary and absorbed in games that were based on violence and death. The rate of school shootings increased. Correlation is not causation. But tell that to someone who has lost loved ones in school shootings. Since that time, the presumption has been that schools in general and kids in particular are to be commoditized to increase the profits of corporate America. The requirement that corporations justify their existence by committing to improve life in communities where they're located. All that matters now is keeping the system gamed so that almost all new wealth goes to the 1% at the expense of the 99% ENEMIES!
2
Sugar, if it were brought to the FDA as a new drug would be a controlled substance with black box warnings. Sugar kills in many ways, diabetes, cancer, etc. Fortunately for the sugar cartel, most people don’t read medical journals. Who is paying for the diseases caused by sugar, tax payers and people with insurance (higher premiums). We are already being “taxed” by the effects of sugar. The 1 cent tax is nothing.
2
Sugar neither causes diabetes nor cancer. It just doesn't.
The beef against sugar is that it is mostly non-nutritive calories -- and because it tastes so good, people are tempted to eat too much of it.
Nothing is good for you in massive quantities. A glass of good wine is delightful -- drinking a couple of bottles a day, however, makes you an alcoholic. But that some people become alcoholics, does not mean that wine is "bad" or should be banned.
1
The problem with the Philadelphia tax is that it taxed both sodas with sugar or corn syrup and also those with artificial sweeteners.
It is no doubt true that no sodas are good for you but if someone is going to drink one the diet ones are a much healthier choice. Unfortunately the Philadelphia tax doesn't make any distinction so there is no incentive for people who are going to purchase them to make the better choice. It might have brought in less money to the city but giving people a financial incentive to choose better would have been a better public health measure.
6
Same story in Cook county. The heath argument falls on its face when corn surup is lumped with Aspartame. Looks like an excuse for a poor tax.
1
The important lesson we've all got to learn is that big money is used to shape public opinion about a lot of things. Faux grassroots organizations are part of it. Carefully constructed arguments obscure the real motives of the forces behind campaigns. It doesn't matter if it's the Russians, or the Koch brothers, or, even Bill Gates; the influence of the very rich and powerful go far beyond what people assume.
Even reporters are targeted and it's common for their objectivity to be compromised. It's not that they are being bought off; that's not how this works.
2
The success of the Berkeley campaign may have had less to do with amount spent on the campaign than on the capability of the Berkeley voter to understand the principles involved on both sides of the debate and to then vote for the one that had the most merit.
It is more important to have an informed voter rather than a reactive voter.
17
Many thanks for this information. We have to be more aggressive regarding soda. It is going to be a long battle, but at the end we will win. We have to remember the fight against the tobacco industry, and we need to convince authorities that advertising for sodas should not be allowed in any media. For example, during the last few months we have seen a lot of Coca Cola TV commercials during the transmissions of the Soccer World Cup qualifiers matches. That should be stopped in the future.
Fortunately, the United States team will not be in Russia, which helps the cause of the anti-diabetes activists, and at the same time is a blow to FIFA's close relationship with Coca Cola.
The comparative low TV ratings from the coveted younger segment of the U.S. market, during the 2018 World Cup, will help to assuage, a little bit, our worries regarding soda.
1
I am on your side, but the parallel with the tobacco industry is vulnerable to an obvious rejoinder. Passive smoking directly harms the health of those who choose not to smoke. There is no such thing as passive soda drinking (except perhaps in the case of the unborn). There is a parallel in that both smoking and drinking have repercussions on the health care system that affects all of us (at least a publicly funded health care system), but there are not clouds of soda floating around infiltrating our lungs (as was the case with tobaccco smoke until legislation contained it).
1
While a tax may feel satisfying, my concern is where does it and who gets to decide what industries are targeted? Donuts are one of the worst foods for you too. Is "Big Donut" next on the hit list? What about birthday cakes, pastries, ice cream, and Halloween candy? Soda has been around since at least 1886 yet only much more recently has obesity become such a big problem so there is no single smoking gun.
While soda might be symptomatic of the problem, the issue is more systemic. Curbing demand through education about processed foods in general seem like a more even handed approach and, if we are going to tax, then tax all of those entities that manufacture any products with sugar content or use of high fructose corn syrup above a certain level.
5
No other harmful junk food has achieved the ubiquity of soda, which some people consume with meals and in between on a daily basis. And it is much easier to over-consume a beverage than a solid food product. Soda is in a class by itself.
2
The "industrial soda" market survives, and "Big Soda" profits enormously, with direct subsidies from the public and taxpayer subsidies through the corn syrup and sugar industries. A consumption tax is a workable idea, better, I think, would be a tax on non-returnable containers, levied at the producers side of transactions (including "Big Gulp" containers).
Health concerns associated with sugar consumption are only part of the problem. Maintaining the disposal costs of "Big Soda's" containers as a "public cost" is another. Consumers, for the most part, pay little for the stuff in the containers. What they are buying is convenience. It's time to even out the public/private costs of those transactions with a tax to pay the costs of disposing of the containers.
10
Dr B, an abundance of states have container deposit laws in effect today. Can you prove those states have statistically significant lower medical problems AFTER implementation ? Since we already have residential waste management programs in place are you also suggesting we tax everything that is packaged everywhere ? Since it is about trash, why just pop bottles...coffee cups, condom wrappers, those pesky tubes from toilet paper and paper towels. The plastic meat trays and cereal boxes etc etc. EVERYTHING comes packaged. Your choice of sodas likely has an alternative justification. Care to share it ?
3
I have a suggestion: soda in small containers should be more readily available. There are "mini cans" in a 7.5 ounce size that you rarely see around and also small bottles that you find occasionally. They should be more ubiquitous.
I don't drink much soda, but occasionally buy seltzer that I sweeten with stevia and/or add fresh or canned juice or frozen undiluted juice concentrate. Yum. Great with lemon, orange, pineapple, etc. You could also add ginger syrup, made by steeping ginger in heated sugar and water.
Also, diet sodas are rarely available in restaurants with much selection, I find. Often, just diet coke--which has too much caffeine for me.
1
I am happy to drink mini-cans on occasion but they are often twice as expensive (!!!) as the standard 12 ounce cans. No, it doesn't make sense.
With some elderly relatives....they cannot drink a whole can of ginger ale or other soda....so the tiny cans are perfect. But they are such a rip off!
1
My personal approach to Big Soda: (1) Buy a Sodastream and save on healthy, no sugar carbonated, purified water, and (2) avoid the sugar and buy the "diet" version. A tax, which I also support, is really a substitute for changing our behavior to make healthier buying choices.
2
Philadelphia City Council's includes diet drinks in the beverage tax. Even public-health advocates were surprised because this is unstudied territory. A failure to include diet drinks would encourage a switch from sugar to diet substitutes - perhaps an unintended consequence of the nanny-state.
Most advocates have little regard for freedom from government coercion and no regard for unnecessary taxes that hurt the poor.
8
The poor cannot be hurt by taxes on soda if the poor are shown -- along with the rich -- that soda is nothing but poison.
Are we whining about the taxes on tobacco products? Or furs? Or alcohol? Or any of the other goods that are unnecessary or destructive?
The problem with the Cook County tax was its unjustified inclusion of many products. Anything with added sweetener was taxed. Diet tonic water, any artificially sweetened drink, eg Gatorade, diet soda, etc.
This was not a health tax on large volumes of fructose containing beverages. It was a money grab.
35
How to win against big soda? Simple switch to aqua pura (pure germ free clear, chemical free water). As a parent, I fought hard to break the soda addiction of my offspring and the occasional soda drinking by myself after becoming aware of the harmful effects of sugary and diet sodas that you cannot miss if you follow the news. If we vigorously increase the awareness among our population about the harmful effects of sodas we could achieve the same effects as I experienced.
3
The Soda Tax might have worked here in Cook County if the money had been directed to fight obesity in children and if the Big Soda companies had not fought tooth and nail to repeal it. That is unfortunate as we do tax other "sinful" activities such as smoking, gambling, and now marijuana (in some states).
Most interesting is that this repeal comes at the same time that one of our City's brightest economic stars, Richard Thaler, has just won a Nobel Prize for research that shows that consumer behavior can be modified by "nudges" that push them to make rational decisions when normally acting irrationally.
The Soda Tax, by raising the price of these unhealthy drinks, would have nudged consumers to decrease the amount they purchased (assuming price elasticity). And that is why Big Soda is so afraid.
10
Hmmm, I think even more than the economic "nudge" (a few cents) is the mental nudge: "We are taxing this beverage you are about to drink because it is BAD FOR YOU, and we will need that money to clean up your health mess down the road." that you get every time you buy one is key to this kind of campaign.
I'm curious. Does Cook County tax fresh fruit and veg?
1
To the best of my knowledge, Chicago taxes ALL groceries -- with regular sales taxes -- something like 8-10%.
I remember the first time I went to a supermarket there, and was appalled to see taxes added to my bill -- where I live in Ohio, all groceries are NON-TAXABLE.
Taxing groceries is an obscene burden on the poor.
1
During my 40+ years as a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians I was impressed by the success of their program on tobacco cessation, Tar Wars. One unique aspect of this program was a discussion with children in the 4th and 5th grades (their target audience) about the nature and methods of advertising on molding their life choices. This approach would be useful in dealing with sugar and HFCS consumption. Just as the Marlboro Man did not ride into the sunset without his oxygen concentrator, no polar bears sit around drinking Coca-Cola in an icy wonderland. If children who most often grow up to become adults, learn about the manipulations of advertising, they will be immunized about many unhealthy and unwise choices.
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Yes; the tobacco wars are the blue prints for both sides: industry and health groups. Teaching children how to recognize advertising is a brilliant and much needed idea. I came across a poll that found young adults do not recognize advertising when it hits them; and hitting young adults they do.
I would take the lesson a step further. Teach children how to evaluate the validity of what they hear, read, see. One of the best classes I ever had in high school was on how to read the newspaper and how to spot biases. Today, of course, teachers would focus on social media and digital ads. (Although here we are, reading the NYT.)
I would also take these lessons into the medical setting. I'm also a primary care doc and, I'm appalled at the gullibility of the clinic workers. The drug reps, with their "free" lunches, teach the physician assistants and even the desk staff to push their products. These workers even take notes on the benefits of their brand! But docs are also gullible: we believed the ads that Tramadol had the pain relieving effects of opioids without being an opioid. We prescribed it freely even though we could see dependency in our patients. Then Big Pharma fessed up.
So let's expand the teaching of how to recognize ads, not only to children, but to adults and let's teach Americans how to evaluate whether information is verifiable. We would not only be healthier but wealthier (no big bucks to Big Pharma) and also be the informed voters critical to a democracy.
1
I personally gave up sugar and carbs, lost about 10 pounds and feel terrific. I drink only water. Having said that, the clinical data to support the proposed policy to tax sugar sweetened beverages is weak. Epidemiologic studies – like the 2010 study cited in this article – are only capable of reliably detecting 2-fold (200%) increases or greater in risk. So the 26% increase cited is meaningless. And the author forgot to mention that the Berkeley study found NO CHANGE in the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages despite the tax. So the science behind this policy is weak at best.
The Orwellian approach of trying to use taxes to shape eating behavior – on the backdrop of weak scientific evidence – should concern us all. And the evidence indicates that this is yet just another regressive tax that will have no effect on public health. The Cook County decision was correct and let’s hope it is a template for action across the country.
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Why not put a health warning on the label and require PSA's and show the devastating relationship between sugary soda's and diabetes?
When people become aware of just how damaging these soda's are then they will be open to restrictive measures like banning them from schools or taxing them.
Finally, we know sugar is addictive, just like nicotine in tobacco so people need to be able to gradually ween themselves from harmful foods and beverages.
One way to do that is offer an alternative that will at least satisfy the craving for a similar taste without the harmful effects. I'm sure there are beverage companies out there waiting to compete with a product that isn't so harmful.
2
Sugar is not addictive. Please, stick to real science. You do not need to 'wean' yourself off soda. Just stop drinking it, period. My kids don't drink soda now that they're out on their own. Why? Because I never had it in my house, along with junk food. It's just not that hard.
1
I am an occasional soda drinker but I don't believe what I am going to say is biased. The tax levies just don't work. At least according to my Philly informants. So the authors of this column are just being disingenuous.
This is not to say extreme soda consumption can cause health problems. But so is fatty food. And other excessive assumptions and addictions.
Trying to call it Big Soda is an emotional equivocation to Big Tobacco. But of course sugar doesn't cause second hand diabetes like cigarettes would result in second hand smoke. Here lies the difference.
It is true though there can be behavioral influence. It is hard for poor dietary choice parents to indoctrinate their children with healthy living habits. But unless it reaches the extreme in the form of abuse, government should not be the agent of parental control. Not only it is not good for the government but also it allows parents to neglect their responsibilities.
To be clear, it is good to build community, to live with healthy habits and to fight undue overreach of big corporations bent on addicting the masses with their products. However, when folks like the authors opts for the extreme end of the other side instead of moderations, it will invariably backfire leaving the middle 80% of sensible people paying
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The tax is 12 cents per can. How is that "extreme"? Remember, every time we don't charge users a tax on things like soda, we'll probably all end up paying for it on the back end in health care costs. An ounce of prevention = a pound of cure.
The position of this op ed is hardly the "extreme end". That will happen with mandated vegan diets. Today obesity is a larger problem than hunger. The health of our community is under threat from many sides including among the largest, the global sugar drink companies that have been making billions while literally peddling tasty sugar water. It is time that Coke, Pepsi, and the rest realize that their corporate responsibility rests as much with the health of their customers as it does with the profits of their stockholders.
I live in Cook County. The "soda tax" was wildly unpopular. It was repealed not primarily because of the efforts of soda pop makers. It initially advertised as a "health initiative", but was really only about generating more revenue for an unpopular, spendthrift county government which had just recently raised the overall retail sales tax. The "soda tax" not only nearly doubled the price of "sugary drinks", but all diet soda pops as well. As far as ad spending, the soda pop manufacturers were countered by millions in ads by the former mayor of NYC. Those ads touted the tax for health reasons: limiting childhood obesity, etc. Exactly how drinking a diet soda would lead to obesity wasn't mentioned. That did not help the credibility of the tax proponents.
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Don't you think Corn Products International (now Ingredion), the Illinois Corn Growers, ADM, Conagra, Kraft, Chicagoland area pop bottlers and the rest had their backs against the wall on this? My guess is that Ingredion won't stand up for homeowners if Cook County raises real estate taxes. We're on our own there. The beauty of Illinois industrial agriculture and big food distribution is they can make it all about the individual and hard working American farm families. Usually with the help of Chicago advertisers and public relations firms. My guess is that Bloomberg thought it would be fun to raise this issue in the high fructose corn syrup (sugar) manufacturing manufacturing capital of the world - where Cook County is the urban/rural nexus.
1
How does 1 cent per ounce double the price of a drink?
Note: 2/3 of the Cook County budget is for public health and safety.
Really? Wildly unpopular? How Silly!
Consider the fact that sugar is a dangerous addictive substance and any reduction in it’s consumption is a public health obligation of any rational government.
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I don't know if anybody shares my experiences, so I speak only for myself. I used to drink too much beer, which is carbonated. Now, I drink soda instead. That's better for my driving if not my waistline. My BMI is normal even though I like to eat. Carbonated drinks make me feel full, so I eat less. Finally, my supermarket sells a 12-pask of Coke for $4.99. That's 40 cents a can, which is cheaper than water.
The way I figure it, soda has helped me break my alcohol habit, has helped me keep my weight normal, and has put money in my pocket. There is the matter of an occasional cavity. Stil, I think. our drinking and eating habits are individual. And I think some things that are bad for you are good for me. me, Coke is a health and wealth drink for me. If it causes you to get diabetes, don't drink it.
10
Water is free and abundant, even in Phoenix. But you have identified the problem with soda. It truly is liquid garbage - but insidious garbage. The campaign against smoking worked because people saw their family members with raspy voices dying of cancer or coughed their way through smoke filled rooms - there existed a tangible, visceral connection to tobacco’s harmful effects. Drinking soda feels nothing like that. It’s much more difficult to directly correlate with diabetic leg amputations, heart attacks etc... So we’re left with Americans doubling down on, “it’s my choice”. It’s tragic and unnecessary because if you want to drink a great drink for your waistline and overall health, it’s free and abundant, even in Phoenix.
Where is water free in Phoenix? Do you not pay a monthly or quarterly water bill? My Mom's domestic water bills in Payson were minimum $30 a month. I pay about $100 a month here in NC for my domestic water bill. Water is cheap, but it is not free. Now, people can drink sodas responsibly, and taken from a macroview, for the commentator above, it seems coke is a better choice for him relative to beer. I only drink two liquids - watera dn Diet Coke. I am slender, fit with good biomarkers and am in excellent health. Some can handle soda, others cannot.
1
It's an immeasurably heavier life, but sugar should not be listed as "generally recognized as safe." Increase in consumption is directly linked to increases in every disease in the metabolic syndrome spectrum, from obesity to cancer.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but increases in consumption of just about anything results in adverse effects of some kind or another. The human body was not designed to handle anything in excess. Safe is a relative concept.
2
Also a suspected (not yet proven) contributor to dementia/Alzheimer's.
Why risk it?
1
Cancer? Do you have stats? Tell the WHO, then. They will list it as a carcinogen, just like they did with weiners.
2
Taxing the consumer is never going to be popular.
A better solution would be to remove the hundreds of millions in subsidies that the US sugar and fructose industries make every year.
Why should the government, particularly the Trump government, guarantee higher than world prices for US sugar?
Cancel these incentives and subsidies and watch the law of supply and demand take over. Win-win for everyone.
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If sugar prices were lower, even more would be sold and soda would be more profitable.
7
Taxing the consumer is accepted for alcohol and tobacco. Things that create social problems should be taxed to pay for the amelioration of such problems. Using this logic, we should tax soda and packaging in general, just as we did away with the pull tabs on soda and beer that separated from the cans and were found everywhere.
16
Thomas' point is that if the government subsidies were removed then manufacturers would lower supply until demand drove prices to the point covering their cost/profit requirements.If Thomas is correct the sugar tax has become an indirect means of transferring Federal tax dollars to state and local government.
A good start would be banning high-fructose corn syrup outright.
After all, the obesity epidemic only took off after HFCS replaced cane sugar in sodas around 1980. The epidemiological case is overwhelming, even if some experts continue to insist there is no nutritional difference between the two sweeteners.
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I would be one of those that claimed HFCS is no different than any other sugar- honey, e.g.. What it does, though, is reduce sweetening costs so much that sugar can be added to everything without upping the price. And, I'm not sure sure I lay the blame for a cultural predilection for sweet things on manufacturers so much as on the people that consume them.
10
Causality! Also around the same time the Government decided that fat was the greatest enemy, not sugar and I think that has more to do with the obesity problem. Second, food prices have dropped sharply as a percentage of budgets, so food is cheaper to buy. Where is personal responsibility in all this? I never stocked my fridge with soda or my pantry with junk, yet everyone else is helpless against it? Please. There is no difference in HFC or any other sugar. It's all the same to the body. If we switched out all HFCs for sugar, the price would rise, but the overall calorie count would be the same.
4
I'm not sure. Take a look at what people are drinking at Starbucks - melted ice cream. All those mochaccino frappucino things with whip cream and caramel. Very caloric and extremely sugary.
1
Hard to rationalize the logic of tax policy being used in aid of realigning an already well-documented shift in consumer tastes. Soda companies, while still profitable, have diversified away from from high-sugar drinks into healthier products. They do so because younger consumers spend according to their preferences; taxation does little more than reduce the cash available for such diversification.
I am sympathetic to, if not supportive of, the argument that sugar-related health issues represent a cost that can be recouped by behavior-modifying taxes. Equally, we could tax alcohol, or lack of sleep, or anything that might summon the propensity for heart attacks. The reason that we do not levy these taxes is not that we fail to understand consequences of lifestyle choices, but because we predicate our culture on the acknowledgment that they are, fundamentally, choices.
Better education allows individuals to exercise more fully the right to choose their fates. Higher taxation requires that individuals pay higher prices, with little more knowledge than that some habits cost more than others. Many charities provide supplementary health education to public schools, and carry the additional benefit of allowing those of us who would prefer to see less sugar spend the money to prove our convictions, rather than coerce our neighbors into alignment with our own views.
31
We have federal and state excise taxes on alcohol. Tobacco is very heavily taxed. We do it because we recognize that these products are dangerous to health and completely unnecessary. Rather than ban them (that did go so well with alcohol), we discourage these choices with taxes and, often, use the tax revenue to educate people about why they shut cut down or quit consuming unhealthy products. It works especially well for tobacco. Several cities have demonstrated it can work for soft drinks, too.
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False syllogism. Alcohol usage is not effectively curbed by taxation; rather, it raises consumer costs in a market whose demand is borne not from rational desire but from emotional attachment (e.g. a need to relax). Increasing costs merely reduces the purchasing power for those who budget this consumption, particularly those of lower income households for whom the catharsis is worth incrementally more.
Similarly, declines in tobacco usage cannot be traced exclusively back to higher prices but to myriad factors, including societal trends, education and bans of usage in public places.
As encouraging as taxation efforts may be on a county level, there are as many examples of country-level sugar taxes doing little more than increasing the amount consumers are willing to pay (see Brazil for instance).
It’s not that behavioral taxes are morally flawed, it’s that they should be reserved for products whose market dynamics are out of sync with consumer preferences. If the goal is to change these preferences, there are better avenues: donate to a healthy eating educational fund, which you can do today rather than waiting for a legislative requirement that likely will not pass for most municipalities.
And to health cost vs. tax revenues - it is fallacious to state, as this article does, that all diabetes related costs are the direct result of soda intake. Some types of the disease are hereditary, others are based on a person’s life choices, which you seem to disdain.
17
lightspeed3r: You give no figures to back up your assertions. Now I will make my assertions: 1. Alcohol usage is reduced by higher prices. 2. Tobacco usage is reduced by higher prices. 3. Multifaceted efforts to reduce tobacco, *including* higher taxes, have been successful. 4. The success of multifaceted efforts does not imply that any one part of the effort is useless; on the contrary. 5. In particular, education is valuable and should be pursued in parallel with taxation and other effective methods. 6. The article never says, as you wrongly assert, "that all diabetes related costs are the direct result of soda intake." It states clearly that sugar from other sources contributes to costs of all adverse health effects of sugar consumption. 7. Finally, it is worth repeating that, contrary to your assertion, higher taxes can be effective in reducing soda consumption and can be more effective when combined with educational efforts -- as the article indirectly suggests.
31
As David points out, the Cook County tax applied to almost all beverages. Do you want organic lemonade? Pay the tax. Do you want a Diet Iced Tea? Pay the tax.
The head of the Cook County Board stated on many occasions that the primary reason for the tax was to raise revenue. Health was never really an issue. As a Cook County resident, I know we are already taxed to the limit. Looking at a property tax bill, even the mosquito abatement district takes property tax money. The water reclamation district takes money. The regional transportation district takes money. Township. Money. Library District. Money. City. Money.
Add to this the tollways (a local highway was converted to tolls since the state didn't want to spend the money to upgrade the road) and the sales and fuel taxes and we are tired. This tax was one more way to reach in our pockets.
Finally, I am at a loss to how adding taxes is a victory for anyone. If you believe so strongly in the need to cut people back on sugar drinks then educate the public. Regressive taxes are hardly the answer. Wealthy people won't feel the tax at all. The rest of us will.
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Sid: Let wealthy people drink themselves into liver ailments, heart disease, and diabetes. If they are too stupid or lacking in self-control to reduce sugary drink consumption, they asked for it.
As for the rest of your complaint, Illinois is certainly in a terrible tax situation, but you do have the option of not drinking sugary drinks. (I know it's a sacrifice; I sympathize; but it's under your control.) You don't have the option of not paying the real estate and mosquito and so forth.
As for the tolls, that is a revolting consequence of the pitiful state of the state of Illinois, and it ought to be fought. (I don't know whether the tolls go to the city, county, or state; it hardly matters, and either way, it soaks the people.)
6
I for one am happy to pay for such local and county services, including mosquito abatement and water reclamation.
Also, note that part of this tax provision was a cap on other taxes until after 2020, including property and sales taxes, so taxes will be going up anyway.
4
You missed the point. All beverages were taxed, not just the ones with sugar. Diet ones were too.
2
Surely you should mention that the Cook County tax was weakened partly because it was NOT a tax on sugary drinks, it applied equally to drinks with no sugar or calories at all. Overreach and misalignment are problems too, in addition to those that you stated.
135
It was a *sweetened* beverage tax. It was NOT on drinks like plain seltzer, but it *was* taxed on flavored seltzer. Definitely not simple, but that was the case.
It had NOTHING to do about the number of calories.
The county is going to suffer, but we won't know for another six months whether we can tell in what form.
12
Wrong--it did not apply to flavored NON-sweetened seltzer (yes, that's a thing).
There are two reasons why artificially-sweetened drinks were also taxed: first, because research has shown they prevent neither weight gain nor diabetes. Second, because it was impossible to distinguish between sugared and artificially-sweetened beverages in the fast-food restaurant setting. Soft drinks are sold by the size of the cup--the customer gets an empty cup and is directed towards the drink-dispensing machine, which contains regular and diet soft drinks. So there was no way to distinguish between the two kinds. Taxing only sugar-sweetened ones would require putting the machines back behind the counter and paying for the extra labor necessary to push the appropriate SKU keys.
Unsweetened drinks to which the customer could then add sugar weren't taxed. And snack cakes and sugared cereals--which are the second leading source of dietary added sugars in kids' diets (especially in poorer neighborhoods), and major contributors to childhood obesity & Type 2 diabetes--were not subject to the tax. But those on SNAP were exempt from the drink tax. Nonetheless, the soda lobby portrayed the tax as a penalty against poor people (and conservatives accused pro-tax liberals of being snooty culture warriors).
The fact that even Chicagoans here are misinformed as to which beverages were and weren't taxed was a testament to how ineptly the tax was implemented. I supported the tax, BTW.
23
No, it applied to SWEETENED drinks--research has shown that diet soda drinkers are more obese than those who drink only unsweetened beverages. Artificial sweeteners cause an insulin surge that leads to fat storage, just as does sugar. Unsweetened drinks--such as flavored seltzers without any kind of sweetener (sugar or artificial)--were NOT subject to the tax. I ought to know: I live in Chicago, drink unsweetened flavored seltzer, and can read my grocery receipts.
Surely someone outside of Illinois, much less Cook County, should defer to those who live here and had to parse what was & wasn't taxed.
And if you read my other replies, you'll see that in the case of fast-food restaurants, where customers are sold empty cups they can fill themselves at the drink dispensers, there was no way to distinguish between regular and diet sodas. "Overreach," my foot.
10
Here's an even easier idea: make water free!!! I've reduced soda consumption because my employer has a water cooler/dispenser. You save calories & money.
However, the problem with these anti soda campaigns is that most calories that kids intake aren't coming from soda. Even the kids have cut down on soda consumption because they think of it as "bad". What replaced soda is the consumption of other drinks, like fruit juices, sports drinks & coffee drinks. These beverages contain the same amount of sugar as soda. And many of these other beverages are bottled by the soda companies. So the fight against sugar has to be a comprehensive one, not just against one type of beverage.
149
Is the conceit here that water costs nothing to produce, or that we should all bear the brunt of distillation, bottling, distribution and other operating costs? Within the parameters of your workplace anecdote, a cost is paid by your employer but the underlying commodity cannot reasonably be considered free.
Very few of us would prefer to see our compatriots suffer under the weight of diminished health. We also operate under the dual pressures of ecology and affordability; free water does not work within the framework of California droughts and the global challenge of demand exceeding supply. Hence the existence of a purchase price. Taxation in pursuit of free goods does virtually nothing to balance the scales but does much to obscure the genesis of the ultimate payers.
1
lightspeed3r: "Bottling" costs? Do you not know that water doesn't have to come in bottles? Bottled water is another one of the ways the soda companies are taking us for a ride.
As for free water, well, maybe that is a bit over the top. Oh, but NYC has free water. It seems to work. It doesn't come in bottles, of course.
35
Lightspeed: I basically only drink water: tap water. Tastes great, is refreshing, costs about $2.00 per cubic meter in Switzerland, or about $0.002 per liter. Yes it costs something, but the cost is very modest.
No bottles to carry around, no recycling, I use a fancy glass carafe at home that looks really elegant. At work, I refill my liter plastic pitcher twice a day - yes, my employer pays it, but it will not go broke.
28