Perhaps smokers are considering swapping to P or Heroin or crack cocaine. They may well be a more economical addiction, and help take the mind of the craving for smokes.
Who knows? Meanwhile, flushed with the success of the smoking tax, the call for a tax on sugar is looking sweeter each day.
In the 2000AD comic series, the cities of the future were regulated by Judges with the power to convict on the spot. I remember a scene where Judge Dredd breaks into an apartment to find an elderly couple having a cup of tea. It all looked pretty normal, until Dredd tasted the contents of the sugar bowl. Was the evil white substance cocaine? Nope, sugar. But sugar was a banned substance in the future, so the couple were hauled off for a stretch in the iso-cubes. Those writers were pretty much spot on.
I link to an article which continues the theme of fighting obesity with taxes. Lots of taxes.
It may work, or it may spawn a whole new set of products that use artificial sweeteners -the type that don't cause obesity, just bowel cancer and ruined taste buds. I hate the stuff - it leaves a bad after taste.
It also leaves me wondering if old people wanting a cup of tea with a spoonful of sugar will likely opt for euthanasia instead. It's probably the one thing that wont be taxed.
Sugar Tax: Miracle Cure
So, a guy from a company selling bottled water and water coolers would like the government to handicap his main competition, the manufacturers of sugary drinks? I guess that shouldn't be surprising, but the Herald publishing it as an op-ed piece about health is.
ReplyDeleteWell spotted.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere, some-one in the fracking industry is thinking that if plastic bottles of water could be taxed, there would be more fresh water for fracking.
Although, surely there is a market opportunity to pump diet cola into the ground instead?