Just to prove that it's not just our 'doctors' who are as mad a bag of rabid ferrets, get this from the USA.
Doctors press for 'cola tax' in bid to fight child obesity
The battle to contain the global obesity crisis stepped up a gear yesterday as American public health experts demanded a sugar tax on the country's most popular source of refreshment – sweetened carbonated drinks and fruit juices.
In what is certain to become a world-wide debate on the use of economic sanctions to tackle obesity, a group led by academics from Yale and Harvard universities proposed a "cola war", with a 1 cent tax per fluid ounce on sweetened beverages, raising the price of the average can of cola by 15 to 20 per cent.
Yep, that's correct. A war on cola.
An evil peddler of kiddie narcotics, pictured in December
We've had the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, the war on tobacco, the increasingly intensive war on alcohol. Now, the new front has emerged. And as usual, before anyone gets to discuss it, the evidence is overwhelming.
"The reasons to proceed are compelling. The science base linking the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to the risk of chronic disease is clear. Research suggests a tax... would have strong positive effects on reducing consumption. We believe that taxes on beverages that help drive the obesity epidemic should and will become routine," the experts say in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Boy! Thank God this is restricted to the land of the {cough} free. I know we normally get hysteria like this eventually, but there's usually something like five years lead time for us to fight it (like CAMRA and the drinks industry didn't).
Not so, I'm afraid, freedom-lovers.
British nutrition specialists backed the move but said other economic measures, such as a tariff on sugar imports, could have the same impact but be less politically controversial.
Yep, it's not about whether this is a good idea or not, they are past that already. They are now on to how best to approach it. Do you remember being consulted?
Tam Fry, spokesman for the UK National Obesity Forum, said: "We have got to start thinking very seriously about taxing unhealthy food and drink as part of the drive to improve the nation's health and cut obesity. The amount of sugar that goes into these soft drinks is staggering and it has a double whammy, increasing obesity and rotting teeth."
What a joyless carrot-munching cunt you are, Tam. If you came asking me for money to spout this shit, I'd tell you to go jump in the nearest car crusher. However, I've a nagging feeling that the government have already paid for your hectoring on my behalf.
Jack Winkler, professor of nutrition policy at London Metropolitan University, said: "I support this. It would be a massive public acknowledgement about the danger sugar poses to health."
Fuck my boots! The Fonz's bastard anglo brother is in on it too. We're totally shafted.
But he proposed raising the price of sugar permanently by reforming the world commodity markets. Imposing tariffs, which are invisible, would be much better than raising taxes, he said.
Now, I've heard about, debated with, and personally tackled, some nasty healthist fuckweasels in my time, but I really don't remember ever coming across one who advocated changing world commodity markets for their own small-minded, dictatorial ends with a view to making it less than visible to the public. In a country which laughably calls itself a democracy, no less.
It takes one hell of a brass-balled, hellbound goat-fellater to suggest such a staggeringly totalitarian approach, don't you think?
Almost as an addendum comes the still small voice of sanity and common sense.
The British Nutrition Foundation said that, instead of altering food choices, increasing taxes "could simply mean higher prices for consumers – especially those on lower incomes".
Like these mad, state-funded, scaremongering boggle-eyeds care.
I remember when "Stop the world, I want to get off" used to be merely a jocular repartee.
