this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Raising the price of sugar-sweetened sodas, coffees, teas and energy, sports and fruit drinks by an average of 31% reduced consumer purchases of those drinks by a third, according to a new analysis of restrictions implemented in five US cities.

“What we measured is how consumers change their consumption in response to price changes,” said study author Scott Kaplan, an assistant professor of economics at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

“For every 1% increase in price, we found a 1% decrease in purchases of these products,” Kaplan said. “The decrease in consumer purchases occurred almost immediately after the taxes were put in place and stayed that way over the next three years of the study.”

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 47 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Or you could stop subsidizing sugar.

[–] HipHoboHarold@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Gonna pay taxes to give to the sugar companies to get taxes more when we buy the sugar to discourage us from buying so much of the sugar we are already paying taxes for

This seems like such an efficient ways to run things.

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I'm FOR taxing soda.

But taxing fruit drinks? Prune juice, carrot juice is good stuff.

And teas and coffees? Getting weird here.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fruit juices still have the same issues as sodas where it's still liquid carbs.

[–] BloodSlut@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (4 children)

fruit juices can also have actual nutrition like vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

straight up taxation of drinks, carbs, or calories isnt a smart or viable solution. instead we should be looking at taxing highly processed foods and foods with excessive added sugars, stop subsidizing unhealthy foods like corn used for sugars and factory farmed beef, and start subsidizing foods with redeemable nutritional value

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

A bit better than soda, but fresh fruits have those elements without it being liquid carbs.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Have you read the ingredients on most fruit juices? When’s the last time you had fruit juice with bits of actual fruit? I don’t think I’ve noticed fruit in anything besides orange juice and lemonade, and not most of those

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 0 points 10 months ago

You know what else has nutrition like fruits? Actual fruits.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

“Sugar sweetened”. They’re not talking black coffee, they’re talking venti mocha latte - are they really any different from a milkshake?

Have you looked at the ingredient list on fruit juices? Most of the cartons in my grocery have water first, then high fructose corn syrup as the second ingredient

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Anything to increase taxes! You're for taxing things you disagree with, well be ready to embrace them taxing things you agree with too, since supporting sin taxes places the government as the arbiters of judgment between appropriate and discouraged, and they have a vested interest in everything becoming discouraged.

[–] Duranie 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Where I live they tried this tax, but eventually repealed it. I think part of the problem is that it wasn't applied in a way that makes sense. It was referred to as a "sugar tax" on sugar sweetened drinks, yet it taxed artificially sweetened/sugar free drinks under the same umbrella.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago

They're going to tax as many things as they possibly can. They are motivated to increase tax revenue.

[–] Fleur__@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Fantastic, I'm always for taxes that encourage people to live healthier lives! Healthier population means less has to be spent on healthcare for those people

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] lemonuri@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

For a moment I thought you were yelling to try and stop a taxi for overweight people.

On a more serious note, they were going to introduce a sugar tax here in Germany a couple of years ago but politicians instead decided to ask companies nicely to please reduce sugar in their products. It's been going great, so far.

[–] crsu@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago

We did it! We taxed something, we're fucking geniuses