Calling critics of the plan “ridiculous,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is defending his proposed ban on large-size sugary sodas. I have long been a critic of such measures, but this one is particularly presumptuous in my view. People should have a choice as to what and how much they wish to eat and drink. The ban is particularly illogical since it would simply require people to buy multiple cans of soda unless Bloomberg will next impose a drink limit for New Yorkers. You can have as many Manhattans as you want but do not reach for the super-sized soda. I am waiting for the next bumper sticker: “If Big Gulps Are a Crime, Only Criminals Will Have Big Gulps.”
I agree with critics that this is the ultimate example of the “Nanny state” where the government dictates the the proper lifestyle choices and risks for adults. I have no problem with banning sodas in school as many district have done. However, Bloomberg has decided that educational programs and warnings are not enough because adults are not meeting the expectations of the government. Bloomberg is quoted as saying “I look across this country, and people are obese, and everybody wrings their hands, and nobody’s willing to do something about it.” The solution therefore is to take away choice and to dictate Dr. Bloomberg’s diet for all citizens.
The soda ban will be introduced on June 12 at a New York City Board of Health meeting. It is expected to pass.
However, Bloomberg insists that when you are told that you cannot have that soda, “Nobody is taking away any of your rights. This way, we’re just telling you ‘That’s a lot of soda.'” Really? Sounds a lot like “you can’t have that soda.”
Honestly, if prohibition did not work for alcohol, it is likely to be even less successful for sodas. What is unclear is why Bloomberg is not also banning french fries, onion rings, and other unhealthy foods eaten in excessive quantities. How about requiring proof that a large stuffed pizza has no fewer than four persons willing to sign for it? I think people have a right to an unhealthy lifestyle. This is not like second-hand smoke that harms others. You can be around someone with a large soda and remain perfectly healthy.
There must be something to occupy the Mayor’s time beyond soda drinkers like serial killers. Forcing people to buy two ten ounce sodas rather than one twenty ounce soda is hardly a public interest triumph. However, it is not the sheer stupidity but the sheer hubris that I find remarkable about this proposed ban. Perhaps the good Mayor should stop “looking across the country” like some stern Satrap and focus on those harms that people do to others from crime to pollution.
In the meantime, I will soon issue a new bumper sticker for the soda patriots: “You Can Pry My Big Gulp From My Cold Fat Fingers.”
Source: LA Times
Gene,
I’ve been keeping mine to myself lately.
Anon loves the nanny state, eh?
The vast majority of New Yorkers are similar to this smug mug who think that their shit doesnt stink. They are so smart as citizens that they have to move out of the state and region because their property taxes on even a small home are too high–they exceed the entire year’s social security benefit. So the know it alls move to North Carolina and proceed to tell the others how to do everything and that includes farting. They buy homes in flood plains, boats that they give up after three years and the golf cart becomes a vehicle not for the golf course but to get to the bar without fear of getting a dui. When they die the grandkids dont even come down for the funeral. They never came down to stay in the four bedrooms bought just for that occasion. Then when their offspring retires its the same old pattern. Went in dumb, come out dumb too, shufflin round Manhattan in their alligator shoes….
ANON
Thanks. For Robinson, for wirehead, for sugar overdosing, for the facts, for being different. For this 15 second period you’re on top.
But Bloomsbury won’t solve it.
I predict we will see such bizarre inventions as backpacks
for carrying your 2 gallon sugar solutions, re-fillable at your corner 7-11.
We a bit later will see status models, even 5 times the size with a wheeled cart to bear it. It’ll be avaiable in models of FAVO ONE to FAVO FIVE depending on the number of different flavored drinks you want to Style with for your friends. FAVO chain shops will miraculously appear equipped with the latest jingle-bangles for the new public.
Dystopia, yeah. Don’t spend much time there myself. The one we have bemused me enough—-more than well..
On the same day of his snide, whining news conference about a soda ban, Michael Bloomberg attended a donut festival…. So much for health concerns. Or perhaps Mike just didn’t want to upset cops by clamping down on donuts.
New York is wimping out on its ban on smoking in public parks. But smoking has clear and indisputable negative externalities. The same cannot be said of soft drink consumption.
I think there is another, grossly under-appreciated element in Bloomberg’s dictatorial tendencies. He and many like him just look down on the vast majority of people. Plenty of wealthy moneygrubbers like Bloomberg smoke. Plenty drink. Destructive behavior isn’t really Bloomberg’s concern. He has defended the most vile behaviors of Wall Street robber bankers. He has opposed any increase in taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers (some 70 of whom are billionaires — the highest number of any American urban region, and perhaps the highest in the world).
Bloomberg views the average person with contempt — as an awful, abusive parent views a child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction
A 1987 study showed sugar acted as an analgesic drug whose effects could be blocked by a morphine blocker.[2] In her 1998 book, author Kathleen DesMaisons outlined the concept of sugar addiction as a measurable physiological state caused by activation of opioid receptors in the brain and hypothesized that dependence on sugar followed the same track outlined in the DSM IV for other drugs of abuse.[3][page needed]
2002 research at Princeton began showing the neurochemical effects of sugar, noting that sugar might serve as a gateway drug for other drugs.[4] The research group fed chow to the rats as well as a 25% sugar solution similar to the sugar concentration of soft drinks. After one month the rats became “dependent” on the sugar solution, ate less chow and increased their intake of the sugary drink to 200%.[5] The sugar industry asserts that similar effects have been reported for rats given solutions that tasted sweet, but contained no calories.[citation needed] However, some scientists say that caloric value may not be the issue. Researchers say that sugar and the taste of sweet is said to stimulate the brain by activating beta endorphin receptor sites, the same chemicals activated in the brain by the ingestion of heroin and morphine. [6]
In 2003, a report commissioned by two U.N. agencies at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization was compiled by a panel of 30 international experts. It recommended that sugar not account for more than 10% of a person’s diet.[2] However, the US Sugar Association asserted that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.[citation needed]
A 2008 study noted that sugar affects opioids and dopamine in the brain, and thus might be expected to have addictive potential. It referenced bingeing, withdrawal, craving and cross-sensitization, and gave each of them operational definitions in order to demonstrate behaviorally that sugar bingeing is a reinforcer. These behaviors were said to be related to neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur during addiction to drugs. Neural adaptations included changes in dopamine and opioid receptor binding, enkephalin mRNA expression and dopamine and acetylcholine release in the nucleus accumbens.[4]
All of you so certain Bloomberg should stay out of it.
What are your thoughts on Obamacare?
Here’s someone with similar thoughts re: sugar vs. libertarianism in 2006.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2006/11/obesity-wireheads-and-case-for-and_03.html
I am an academic economist who teaches at a law school and has never taken a course for credit in either field.
Obesity, Wireheads, and the case for and Against Paternalism
Suppose we come up with really good pleasure drugs, drugs that give us lots of pleasure without negative side effects such as hangovers or cirhosis of the liver. If we accept the economist’s model of the rational actor, their invention is clearly a good thing. It expands our choice set, provides us one more and possibly better way of getting what we want.
To people sceptical of the rational model, that conclusion is less clear. To see the problem, consider an extreme version. Larry Niven, in some of his stories, describes wireheads, people who have had a wire inserted into the pleasure center of their brain and stimulate it with a mild electric current. The intense pleasure that results dominates all other concern, making it possible for a wirehead to die of hunger and thirst because getting food or drink is simply more trouble than it is worth.
For a more homely example, consider a pleasure drug that many of us overdosed on a couple of days ago: Chocolate bars. If you have more elevated tastes, substitute dinner at a four star restaurant in Paris. While it is true that food is useful to keep us alive, sufficient food for that purpose–lentils, powdered milk, vitamin pills, rice or potatoes–does not cost very much or taste very good. Most of what we spend on food buys pleasure. In modern societies, calories, even moderately tasty calories, are cheap. People like to eat. Voila: An obesity “epidemic.”
…
For a different angle on the situation, consider a question I raised in another recent post: Does consumer sovereignty, the principle of accepting individual actions as proof of what we value, apply if we have good reason to regard the actions as due to evolutionary mistakes, adaptations to a past environment very different from the one we now live in? In most past environments, after all, eating when you had the chance, eating enough to get fat, was a sensible strategy, since next month might be famine. From an evolutionary standpoint, current obesity is simply one more case of humans being poorly adapted to their current environment.
Following out the logic of that argument, one would conclude that greater choice sometimes makes us worse off. If so, is that an adequate reason to abandon libertarian conclusions—to, for example, support government restrictions on fat in food, cheap junk food in restaurants and grocery stores, and the like. Is it a good argument, following out the line other economists have taken with regard to gasoline, to support high taxes on food, designed to force consumers to compensate for their irrational tastes?
If we had a government run by benevolent philosopher kings, that might make sense….
Google god is an iron site:deathwish.net
http://www.google.com/webhp?q=god%20is%20an%20iron%20site%3Adeathwish.net
Then read.
Then thank me.
He who controls the sugar, controls the universe.
Juris,
Don’t you have the balls to stand up for your attacks?
If that was attacking you, then so be it. For you then without offering proof say that I do it in all my posts. Were you waiting all the time to see my reaction to your rattling my chain, so you could launch that claim.
Now whatever that may be, I gave you straight answers, meant to inform on why Swedes are to large degree moderate in calories. That would have been much fairer and squarer if you had reciprocated in the same manner.
I have many there with whom I have good relations with (like you know, like I have many black/jewish/Republican friends). Just an old saw which seems applicable. I also have excellent and tight relations with minorities from the whole glove, can you say that?.
I am jaded when America is still fighting the war on minorities after 350 years.
I am still jaded when America still has a MIC after over 110 years.
I am still jaded when Congress is bought, as are the Presidents, and to a large degree the SCOTUS.
I am jaded when Americas are still fighting for their need for health care, and now have to fight with insurance companies, health care providers, and doctors whose primary concern is to avoid malpractice suits—–and still don’t get adequate healthcare in spite of paying TWO TIMES what Europeans pay for better care.
And I am jaundiced, ie negative expectations based on history and the current system, that America will get a system which is owned by the people, for the people, and most of all, of the people.
And there are good stats that say that Americans are jaded by their many wars, the present ones, and of the prospect that new ones are being lobbied from.
DO YOU NEVER FEEL JADED BY THESE THINGS????
Your aspersions as to my abilities to compete in America i will leave in the same dung heap with such worn ones as “teachers can’t do things so they teach”.
My personal life is mine. I was valued commercially enough to be sent to 25 countries for representation purposes.
America is gross in that it produces people like you who put out challenges to me by saying we don’t have the right here to drink 64 ounce sodas. You don’t get it, as usual. We DON’T WANT to to make up a market for that size. BTW, 64 ounces quickly consume could likely produce water sickness (super-hydrations) and possible thermally induced shock—but drink away. America is the pinnacle of moderation—-so knows the whole world.
But if you say that’s an example of American freedom, I simply reply that we have many others you don’t have.
Like publicly challenging your boss, and retaining your job. But that’s another story. I’m sure you have many others which illustrates the lack of freedom there.
Like the power to negotiate your wages in a meaningful fashion. The lack of government agencies that actually represent you, and are not there for the sole purpose of protecting the industry they are regulating, and being staffed and lobbied to do as the industry will have done.
Get it?
Assuming that your culture and system is the norm of the world is just one more. But sadly he who pays the piper calls the tune, and in your control of international money the tune is sour for most countries.
I love America, the tourists that come here seem most often intelligent, slim, well-read, and culturaly oriented—as world travelers should be.
If you should come to Sweden as a tourist, remember that Swededs are shy, modest, and don’t readily talk to strangers—–but love to make exceptions for American ones. Try it, you might like it.
Now, I thank you again, Juris, for this oppoetunity.
And welcome you to challenge me further if you like.
There is much more to be written on the subject of beimg jaded with America. Just look at the JT blog if you haven’t before.
I am just as concerned this ban go into effect with a vote of the NYC Health board, as opposed to the City Council voting on it.
I do believe the only thing more hilariously retarded than Bloomberg’s proposal is is any reaction other than laughter at his proposal. Anyone who can take a proposal like this seriously, or worse, the need for a proposal like this seriously, needs to be checked into an insane asylum, where their vote can’t do others harm. I’m going to go by the nearest QT and get me a 55oz Mt. Dew and drink it all in his honor. My kidneys will be pissed, but oh well.
This is one of the more ridiculous things anyone has tried yet.
If he’s so concerned about our kids’ weight, why not look into the amount of SODIUM, etc, inside the school lunches they push on our kids? When I was in school we actually had COOKS who fixed food without all the unhealthy salt, sugar, etc, and it tasted better. It was also back in the days when we didn’t have such a rampant obesity epidemic… perhaps the mayor should look into WHEN they made the change from real cooked food to warmed food. That might give him a very good reason for our weight problem, since people crave through life what they’re used to eating.
How many people have mothers (and fathers) who actually cook any more? Look at the ingredients in all that instant food- no wonder people are fat. Sodas have NOTHING on some of that stuff.
is there a stiffer penalty if the cops take a16oz out of your pocket during a “stop and frisk”?
If Bloomberg is going to mandate that I get less Coca-Cola when I order my artery-clogging takeout pizza then he ought to mandate that they have to put the actual coke back into it. The consumer gets nothing out of this but the opportunity to pay more sales tax and that tax increase IMO, should met with a corresponding value in the product. Just say’n.
mespo,
I don’t think Bloomberg expects it to pass. He just wants to draw attention to the subject of obese kids and the Type II diabetes epidemic. That is real. If this tactic works, it’s a net good for everyone. A little hype over a doomed measure is no threat to the Republic.
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I’ll order a super sized combination at McDonalds if I want. It’s none of your business.
Idealist, as much as you wanted it to be, my question was not a “challenge.” I was just curious why you have such a jaded view of America. Sounds to me like you either couldn’t hack it in the States or are envious thereof. Or maybe you couldn’t find a companion so you took haven in Sweden where nature regulates sex. At least you found your release by “challenging” posters here. What ever blows your hair back.
Let me know if you ever get the courage to cross the pond and want a real challenge. I will be happy to personally show you just how “gross” America can be. I will drink a 64 oz. afterwards just because I can. I bet you would rather play it safe in Sweden challenging” posters online and doing all those fun things you mentioned, cracking jokes at the pharmacy assistant and such.
What about “more than 16” ounces of an artificially flavored drink that has no sugar in it?
What about ice, does the ice in the cup get counted in the “ounces”?
Can you just see all the amendments piling up on this bill? Go into overtime, guys, get it RIGHT!
PS: Can a person buy a bag of refined granulated sugar in a grocery store and just EAT IT? In public? Sell it in plastic baggies on the corner?
If a single mom has five kids and can’t afford five separate drinks for them, can she get an exemption to buy just one and make them share?
Why does Professor Turley say, “It is expected to pass”? Have the legislators been polled already?
What about at charity events, can you sell them at charity events?