The Soda Revolution – Snow Beverages

     Last night I read a press release about Governor Patterson’s new version of a soda tax proposal and I experienced a feeling vaguely reminiscent of what I think it felt like when consuming too much MSG.  My head felt like it was expanding, balloon-like, in a way that could lead to a potential rupture.

     David Patterson and Michael Bloomberg (a guy I used to respect) are lying to you.  That’s it, plain and simple.  To claim that this tax has anything to do with health is a blatant example of their lack of respect for the public intelligence.  As Patterson redrafts and repositions and kneads and molds this thing into different shapes, trying desperately to find a format acceptable enough to the opposition that it will diminish the fervor of their response and somehow thereby squeak through an unreceptive state legislature so he can get his hands on a billion dollars in new tax money to try and plug the bleeding hemorrhage in his mis-managed state budget, his latest proposal comes down to this:

     They are going to drop the EXISTING taxes on diet soda and ramp UP the tax on regular soda, in an effort (so they claim) to try and force consumers to switch from regular soda consumption to drinking diet soda.  You may wonder if that wouldn’t just equal a financial trade-off, but it wouldn’t.  It would generate substantial revenues because the current breakdown of regular versus diet soda consumed in this country is still about 70% regular and 30% diet. 

     Here are my two questions (and therein lies my opposition and anger): 

1.  Even if they succeeded in causing people to switch from regular soda to diet soda, would that really cause a reduction in obesity?
2. Even if that somehow caused a reduction in obesity, would it really be better for the public health?

     Answer # 1:  It is questionable (at best) that adding a tax to sweetened soda and removing the existing tax on diet soda would even create a meaningful reduction in obesity.  There are many who claim that drinking diet soda messes with the sweetness receptors in the brain, confuses the metabolism and, in the end, actually causes the opposite of the desired effect—it CAUSES additional weight gain.  Put it this way:  have you ever noticed anyone sort of heavy drinking diet soda?  Furthermore, where is the hard science that proves that this might work?  Even those supporting the tax, at the end of the day, acknowledge that it is theoretical.

     Answer # 2:  Trying to address obesity by motivating people to consume large quantities of a beverage with artificial sweeteners (not to mention artificial, chemical preservatives, artificial flavors, and other unhealthy chemicals) is kind of like telling someone with a cold to cure it by sitting out in the snow butt-naked.  Sure, the cold will be cured—they’ll end up with either the flu or pneumonia.  Weight, BMI, and obesity is not the only measure of one’s health!  Do Governor Patterson and Mayor Bloomberg not know this?  Of course they do.  But they are simply acting like the worst kind of politicians and hiding their real agenda in a phony claim they are trying to spoon feed to a public they obviously think can’t read or reason too well.  There are tons of scientists and important anecdotal information that suggest potential links between artificial sweeteners and cancer.  Would it really serve the “public health” to trade off one health crisis (obesity) for another (cancer)?

     When is SOME politician going to step up to the plate and acknowledge these three simple things:

1.  The proposed soda tax is myopic, arbitrary and amounts to taxing an ingredient (high fructose corn syrup—after all, there is no real sugar in the vast majority of soda) that is made very cheap, in the first place, through government subsidies—i.e. “taxes.”  Maybe Patterson should spend some time trying to get the federal government to remove subsidies that make HFCS so cheap in the first place.  Then, instead of double-TAXING New Yorkers, he could REMOVE a tax in the first place—but still achieve his alleged objective of causing a tax increase on soda to force a reduction in consumption.  But again, this isn’t really about health, so don’t expect him to waste his time….
2. Obesity is not the only measure of health and if anyone really cares about the “public health” we need to have an overarching conversation and examination of that in a way that is much more comprehensive as well as responsible.
3. This soda tax is purely about money.  Let’s just be straight about it already.

     Like many “problems” or “issues” this current media attention and this dialogue is not just a “challenge” to overcome, but rather, it’s an opportunity.  For us to get anything out of it we need some common sense and real concern for the public at large, and less of the old politics of money and mis-direction.

-Stu Strumwasser,

CEO of Refreshiliciousness

Snow Beverages, Inc.