Four cities has been reported Tuesday night to have passed another controversial taxation law; which aims to regulate every resident's consumption of sugar sweetened beverages. The concerned cities were allegedly from Boulder, Colorado and the Northern California territory, namely, San Francisco, Oakland, Albany.
Taxation Law Imposed On All Sodas
According to The Verge, it was reportedly said that the new law in these three Northern Californian territories will apparently level a one cent-per ounce tax on beverages that contain an extra amount on calorie sweetener content and morethan 25 calories in every 12 ounces of liquid. This taxation law were believed to be applicable to all sorts of sodas, energy drinks, sweetened tea as well as in sports drinks. On the other hand, it's a bit of a different story in Boulder, Colorado as the taxes in these beverages are found to be higher. The law states that for beverages with at least five grams of extra added calorie content sweetener in 12 fluid ounces, two cents per ounce will be also be added.
Sodas Or Sugary Drinks Are Said To Be Greatest Contributors To Lifestyle Diseases
Supporters of the taxes highly emphasize that sugary beverages are considered as one of the greatest contributors to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay which is specially found among children, whom experts say the beverage industry targets most with its advertisements.
As per Bloomberg, research shows that since 2009, there were already more than 40 cases of known attempts to enact soda taxation in cities across the US. It was found that more than $40 million were already spent on the fight against these sugary drinks in the San Francisco Bay Area and $20 million of these funds actually came from the American Beverage Association.
In one of his statements in a WHO report, Dr. Juan Rivera Dommarco, director of the Mexican Research Centre in Nutrition at the National Institute of Public Health has claimed that the soda tax is part of a comprehensive strategies developed to reduce obesity and type 2 diabetes. He highly notes that although it aims for a decreased number of obese and diabetic people, real time reduction on these kinds of diseases and an increase on healthy diets will not show immediately.
