In our PH Policy class we recently had an excellent class presentation on the Sugar Sweetened Beverage (SSB) tax that is going to appear on the ballot (measure N) in Richmond in November. Dr. Wendel Brunner, the PH Department Director in Contra Costa County and a leader in state-wide efforts to address chronic diseases, recently shared with me the following statistics: "In Richmond, 52% of the elementary children are overweight or obese, and the typical Richmond youth consumes 150,000 calories of sugar a year from SSB alone. There are an average of nine major outlets for SSB within a five minute walk of every elementary school in Richmond."
When the city board of Richmond voted to put this tax on the ballot they also approved an ordinance requiring special interests groups to declare their funders in all publications. Big soda sued the city and a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco ruled in favor of the beverage industry stating that the ordinance went too far, violating first ammendment rights. The city of Richmond has acted quickly to pass a new scaled-back ordinance that still requires disclosure of funding sources on all mass mailings of political fliers. This is particularly important because the group acting on behalf of big soda is called "The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes", a misleading title on a couple of counts.
The disparity in spending on this campaign is huge with big soda spending over $350,000 compared to $7,335 being spent by the pro-soda tax side (see below). There has been national media coverage and big soda knows that cities, counties and states are watching to see what happens. A win for SSB tax in Richmond will encourage others to follow and a defeat will discourage others. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If you would like to donate to the "Yes on N" effort go to http://www.fit-for-life.org/
When the city board of Richmond voted to put this tax on the ballot they also approved an ordinance requiring special interests groups to declare their funders in all publications. Big soda sued the city and a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco ruled in favor of the beverage industry stating that the ordinance went too far, violating first ammendment rights. The city of Richmond has acted quickly to pass a new scaled-back ordinance that still requires disclosure of funding sources on all mass mailings of political fliers. This is particularly important because the group acting on behalf of big soda is called "The Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes", a misleading title on a couple of counts.
The disparity in spending on this campaign is huge with big soda spending over $350,000 compared to $7,335 being spent by the pro-soda tax side (see below). There has been national media coverage and big soda knows that cities, counties and states are watching to see what happens. A win for SSB tax in Richmond will encourage others to follow and a defeat will discourage others. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If you would like to donate to the "Yes on N" effort go to http://www.fit-for-life.org/
1 comment:
There is a really interesting article in NEJM about precisely this issue. The article provides a view against banning of sugar sweetened beverages and essentially recommends a libertarian paternalism solution. I thought you might be interested
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMclde1210278
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