[drivebycomment]

> Which is why I defer to my anac-data, which admittedly biased illustrates that its just not effective but is entirely moot without addressing the core of the issue and principal of the matter as a whole: body autonomy.

Can you explain how sugar tax is an issue about body autonomy ? As far as I can see, you are free to continue putting sugary water into your body. Is the argument that even a small increase in tax is an encroach upon bodily autonomy ? Do you consider farm subsidies (e.g. maintaining US corn production) as a bodily autonomy issue then, since it lowers the cost of corn / fructose and making them available in more food ?

[Melting_Harps]

> Can you explain how sugar tax is an issue about body autonomy?

Simply put, you are arbitrarily punishing those who consume these products (which I will repeat I do not purchase myself) in often high cost areas (eg Seattle, San Francisco, Boulder) to align with a specific ideology that these areas ascribe to, at least on the surface.

I feel like a boomer saying this and it seems like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, because it's something that on the surface makes sense to a degree--relying on the old adage of tax it and you get less of it--and even appears to be well intentioned way to make people make 'healthier' choices, but from what I've seen in practice is a bureaucratic way to modify behaviour in people's everyday lives that ultimately only causes a minor inconvenience/friction for those resolved to circumvent and the initiative's results seem dubious at best and over-reaching at worst.

I genuinely don't think in practice it's about health either as you can easily go around the other aisle and buy all the high sodium, poly-saturated chips with as much or more HFCS and MSG and countless amounts of dyes and food preservatives to your hearts content with no tax implication and are often encouraged to be purchased in bulk, so it seems perplexing that this is really the success they make it out to be.

It seems to me like a bike-shedding initiative if I have ever seen one as it avoids the much bigger issue of how un-healthy the American diet really is.

> Do you consider farm subsidies (e.g. maintaining US corn production)...

Because as you have mentioned, the obscenely lucrative farm subsides of corn for mega farms is the crux of the issue here and by extension all of the lobbying by big business that takes place for these chemicals that are actually shaping what the American diet itself is; I believe we would be better served addressing that obvious and glaring problem, and forcing producers of these products to have to do without these highly subsidized and addictive chemicals in their products and letting consumers decide whether to consume them of their own volition at actual market rates rather than this window dressing approach.