Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That’s according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum.
Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. A claim the beverage industry disputes.
The cities studied were: Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. Taxes ranged from 1 to 2 cents per ounce. For a 2-liter bottle of soda, that comes out to between 67 cents to $1.30 extra in taxes.
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Kaplan and his colleagues found that, on average, prices for sugar-sweetened drinks went up by 33.1% and purchases went down by basically the same amount – 33%.
So, I’m in favour of sugar taxes, but lots of studies have found that healthy people actually cost more in the long run, because they actually live into their old age where they start costing a shit ton. For the most part unhealthy people just end up dying young.
Can you share the studies you base your argument on? Those who live longer might also pay more tax, so it’s not a clear cut for me.