Your professor is teaching a class on public health. Write a post responding to the professor's question. Express and support your opinion and contribute to the discussion in your own words. An effective response has at least 100 words.
Dr. Ingrid Solberg
Some cities have introduced taxes on sugary drinks in order to reduce consumption. Supporters point to falls in sales and argue that the burden of diet-related illness justifies the intervention. Critics answer that such taxes take a larger share of income from poorer households, that people simply buy the same drinks outside the city boundary, and that the state should not be pricing individual choices. Should governments tax sugary drinks? Why?
Hugo
I am in favour. We do not treat this as an unacceptable interference when the product is tobacco, and the argument is the same: the person who becomes ill does not pay the whole cost of that illness, so the price of the product does not reflect what it actually costs. A tax is a way of putting that missing cost back into the price.
Sofia
The tobacco comparison is too quick. Nobody needs cigarettes; everybody needs to eat and drink, and a tax on one category of food shifts consumption towards whatever is untaxed rather than towards anything healthier. Meanwhile a family on a low income pays a larger share of what it has for the same bottle. If the goal is better diets, reformulation rules would do more and cost the poorest less.