One week from today, New York City’s ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces will go into effect.
From a health perspective there is logic to it. After all, the scientific link between massive sugar intake and an early death is becoming ever more clear, with each successive study.
Yet from the perspective of civil liberty, it could be argued that this is a slippery slope. At what point do we decide how much something being “bad for you” is sufficiently bad for you to be outlawed?
Here’s a modest proposal: Those same studies that have linked high blood sugar load to obesity, heart failure and Alzheimer’s disease could be used to do a cost analysis.
So rather than asking the question “Should you be allowed to purchase a 24 ounce sugary drink?”, we could ask the question “How much does your 24 ounce sugary drink add to the expected average cost of health care?”
A tax could then be imposed for that amount, but (unlike the 2010 NYS soda tax), there would be an important proviso: 100% of the revenue collected from this tax would go toward providing more affordable health care.
In other words, should you choose to slowly kill yourself, your choice does not pay for improving subways, adding park benches, or fixing up City Hall. It all goes toward increasing the average length and health quality of everyone else’s life.