Soda Ban

Our recent class discussion about tobacco got me thinking about how it is related to the soft drink ban proposed by mayor Bloomberg of New York.  The ban, which was rejected by New York city council in March, would have prohibited the sale of soft drinks larger than 16 ounces.

The ban faced a lot of public scrutiny.  Many people said that the government has no place in trying to protect people from themselves.  However, Bowdoin professor Sarah Connelly said in a recent New York Times op-ed that the belief that people can make healthy decisions amid all the marketing of our world is “clinging to an illusion”.  She believes that it is the government’s job to help people with bans like the soda ban in New York.

Smoking used to be a much bigger problem in the US then it is today.  The percentage of adults who smoke is less than half of what it was in the 1950s.  Much of this is because of government action in the form of taxing.  Hannah DePorter found in a recent blog that it costs less than a dollar to produce a pack of cigarettes, but the government takes $4.66 in taxes for every pack sold.  It seems to me like this huge tax has had positive effects on the general health of Americans. 

Right now 35% of Americans are obese while less than 20% are smokers, and a lot of the blame falls on sugary drinks.  I think it would be a great idea for the government to step in to help people make healthy choices on things like soda, but maybe instead of the ban that mayor Bloomberg proposed, we could take a lesson from how successful the government has been at diminishing smoking.  Maybe if soft drinks were just made more expensive, people would be more likely to make healthier choices.