I'm all for this tax. Sure I may be old now, and sugar doesn't interest me much anymore, but the reality is that sugar is a poison when consumed to a large degree and continuously. It's horrible for your body (after certain amount) though it may make you feel emotionally good.
Now you are all free to think otherwise, free to not take care of yourself, and you are all also free to kill yourself at anytime, but the reality of the situation is that your health (or should I say, your lack of good health) is a burden to society when it's the law that you must be seen in an emergency room when your diabetes destroys your body to a point that you need medical attention; the cost ($) of treating patients in the emergency room is why it becomes everyone's problem, and not just yours.
Soda has a lot of of hidden sugar in it. It's not good for you. Sure you were probably raised with it, but so was I. Soda was more expensive where I am from than anything else, so we only had it on special occasions. Here in the USA, soda is very cheap; It is sometimes cheaper than water in some places or they are sold in a package easier to carry with you. It's marketed as go to drink for consumption with food, but it's really not good for you to drink it regularly, especially when you get older.
If you think a tax on a poison (soda) is an invasion on your civil liberties, it's not, you still have many choices available to you to get diabetes if you so choose to do that, The tax is a way to let people know that consuming the product now carries a higher price because it places a burden on society. If you don't want to interpret it that way, suit yourself, but thats what it's trying to achieve. Now how they misappropriate those newly tax funds is another matter and it really has to do with how involved you are in your community, After all, the effectiveness (how well it doesn't waste your money) of a government (local/state/federal) has a direct correlation to the people's involvement.
