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Quote from start if thread said " total sugar sales are down by almost 20 percent, driven largely by falling soda purchases", so at least we know they didn't buy candy with the money.
We know they didn't buy only candy with the money. Maybe they bought candy and cigarettes.
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To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.
I don't drink sugary "soda" drinks at all, so I don't have a horse in the race, but I think it is a valid question to ask whether the tax really decreased sugar consumption or people just bought bunch of cookies instead.
>But the researchers didn’t stop there. They also wanted to know if shoppers might be getting sugar from other foods instead—a possibility that soda tax opponents have argued would become commonplace. Were Seattle residents simply swapping out Mountain Dew for candy bars? To find out, the researchers also analyzed sales data for untaxed drinks like flavored milk, sweets—which the team defined to include candies, desserts, and baked goods—as well as loose sugar. Over the course of months, Powell’s team painstakingly coded each product sold by its sugar content, and then calculated just how much sales of these products changed after the soda tax went in place.
>They found a slight increase in sugar consumed through untaxed drinks in 2018, which then dissipated in 2019. They also noticed a small, sustained increase in sugar consumed through sweets. In both cases however, those upticks were not large enough to overcome the significant reduction in sugar sold through taxed drink
So they did exactly what you asked for and found that while there was a small increase in sugar intake through other means, it was much less than the decrease from reduced sugar intake from soda.
Every time someone vocally claims that a well-targeted tax won't reduce the effect of something harmful, one can be pretty sure it will - those people would not be complaining unless it directly hit their wallets.
The saying goes that the price is right when the customer curses but still signs the contract. So I wouldn't be too sure about that.
Besides the effect is statistical. The reason people buy less sugary sodas might equally be attested to grocers and wholesalers simply filling their stores with more diet sodas, instead of sugary sodas, due to the tax—and not because consumers actually avoid sugary sodas due to the very slight price increase. So there still isn't a clear cause and effect.
This is important, because if it's the former, and the state claims it's the latter, then either they're clearly wrong about the cause and effect, or they're lying; either of which would be bad for public relations. On the other hand, the end result is pretty much the same, but if the effect is due to availability, then perhaps the whole thing could have been solved with regulation instead of taxation.
On the side comes the matter of what the taxed money is used for. Does it go towards better public health care in the region, or is it simply spent on covering various deficits. This is also important, because if the goal is to fight obesity, then how is it morally right to spend the tax profits on other things?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.
I don't drink sugary "soda" drinks at all, so I don't have a horse in the race, but I think it is a valid question to ask whether the tax really decreased sugar consumption or people just bought bunch of cookies instead.
Did they also study whether total sugar sales rose in the cities next to Seattle? I can imagine that some price sensitive soda drinkers just drove to the nearest store outside of Seattle to buy their sodas.
This makes zero sense. A gallon of gas is about $4.00, the idea that someone would spend all that gas money to avoid a tax of 1.75 cents/oz just doesn't pass the sniff test.
“I am uncritically accepting a study that says a 1.75 cents/oz tax was successful in changing consumer behavior because the additional burden it added to the cost of soda.”
You can’t have it both ways, claim the tax influenced behavior in terms of reducing consumption but not in terms of circumventing the tax.
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This makes zero sense. A gallon of gas is about $4.00, the idea that someone would spend all that gas money to avoid a tax of 1.75 cents/oz just doesn't pass the sniff test.
The tax is 1.75¢ per ounce ? That nearly doubles the price of a 12-pack depending on whatever brand is on sale that week. When I buy soda during my shopping trips, I usually get three 12-packs for $9.99. With this tax, the total would be $17.55. If I still drank sugary soda, I'd go out of my way to avoid this tax. I find the idea people alter their shopping habits to avoid it totally believable. probably not enough t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be honest your post sounds like it's coming straight out of the sugar industry PR book. 1. Increase burden of scientific evidence/cast scientific evidence in doubt by saying it's not conclusive enough 2. Assert that reducing sugar is not working because people will just get their calorie input otherwise. 3. Blame fat/daemonize fat, that's what the sugar industry has done very successfully over the last decades.
I don't drink sugary "soda" drinks at all, so I don't have a horse in the race, but I think it is a valid question to ask whether the tax really decreased sugar consumption or people just bought bunch of cookies instead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sparkling water is also a concern for dental health. Carbonation becomes carbonic acid.
I have a sodastream and use it daily, and I've read articles going both ways on this. It seems that carbonated pure water is not nearly as bad as soda for teeth, but that perhaps it's not that great (especially for kids). Have you seen definitive guidance on this? Does carbonating less make a difference? Using a straw? I've heard that drinking plain water after is a good idea, but don't know if that's grounded in sci…
> And that’s exactly what happened in Washington shortly after Seattle passed its soda tax: In November of that same year, soda companies campaigned successfully for the passage of a ballot initiative banning all future fees on sugary drinks across the state. Wow, this is nakedly self interested and a law purely for the industry at the expense of democracy, how on earth can that be allowed to happen?
Note that the initiative banned "local government entities from imposing any new tax, fee, or other assessment on grocery items" in general, not just from sugary drinks.
I guess people did not want more expensive groceries. This may in the future be compensated by more expensive healthcare, but such is the human species. Short term gain > long term loss.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes zero sense. A gallon of gas is about $4.00, the idea that someone would spend all that gas money to avoid a tax of 1.75 cents/oz just doesn't pass the sniff test.
You know people go to Oregon to avoid sales takes on various purchases, right? That’s 2-4 hours from Seattle depending on traffic.