Sodas should never have become part of anyone's diet ever, very clear. We all always knew they rotted teeth and had no nutritional value. And in fact, harmed us. How many times have I heard that leaving a tooth in a bottle of cola overnight makes it disapear?
Folks became addicted, and they created manufacturing and handling jobs. Is taxing sugary drinks, including sports drinks and no-calorie sweet drinks, as is happening in Philadelphia, the best way to get folks to stop drinking them? I don't know, but a lot of folks in Philadelphia City Council believes it is.
Taxing sodas should come with solutions for the problem that folks like to drink them, including athletes who should be drinking sports drinks during races, rather than water. Philadelphia City Council is taxing sweet drinks in order to pay for something unrelated to health, to fund universal pre-kindergarten.
The main problem with sodas (which is what we call sugary fizzy drinks in Philadelphia) is that sodas are permitted, were permitted, and even for years encouraged with sodas offered for sale inside schools. Generations of folks are addicted to these drinks, and because of the demand, manufacturers employ folks in Philadelphia to bottle and handle the drinks. Taking away jobs without replacing them with other jobs is a real hardship for a lot of folks. Or are they all going to be employed by the prekindergarten? Not including addiction counseling for folks addicted to sodas is another problem. Are the twin problems of addiction to sweet drinks and job loss being addressed? I do not know.
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