"The 'slippery slope' argument is one that the tobacco industry has routinely raised to oppose policies against its interests, including smokefree policies, decisions by arts and cultural organizations not to accept tobacco money, advertising restrictions, and other policies. These predicted subsequent problems simply have not materialized"
Sure they haven't, and especially not in Stanton Glantz's stomping ground of San Francisco...
Coca-Cola is out, and soy milk is now part of San Francisco's official city policy.
Under an executive order from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange are no longer allowed in vending machines on city property, although their diet counterparts are - up to a point.
Well, I'll be damned.
That includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water. Juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners. Diet sodas can be no more than 25 percent of the items offered, the directive says.
There should be "ample choices" of water, "soy milk, rice milk and other similar dairy or non dairy milk," says the directive.
"Ample choices" of the same restricted and not-very-popular products. Ain't choice great?
There is the usual dubious epidemiological study which ignores reverse causation...
The mayor's administration points to studies linking soda to obesity, including a UCLA one released last year that found adults who drink at least one soft drink a day are 27 percent more likely to be obese than those who don't...
And the usual, equally dubious, passive obesity argument...
...soda consumption is fueling the state's $41 billion annual obesity problem.
And here comes Mr Disingenuous...
"This is not about the soda police or a crackdown on soda," Winnicker said. "People absolutely remain free to choose to drink unhealthy sugary sodas anywhere they want."
Why does this remind me of John Banzhaf back in 1979?
"Bill, this isn't prohibition. You know it and I know it. We have no objection whatsoever if you and the other folks who want to smoke want to go into smokeasies and smoke all day long. We just object that you do it around us."
The San Francisco spokesman is right about one thing. You remain free to drink Coca-Cola wherever you like, even if you are no longer free to buy it anywhere you like.
But if giving people an ample choice of water, fruit juice and soy milk somehow fails to beat California's "$41 billion obesity problem" do you think that will be the end of the matter? Or do you, in fact, think that campaigners will complain about the "loophole" that allows vending machines on private property to sell these killer drinks? Is there any reason at all to believe that the war on "unhealthy sugary sodas" will end here? I suspect it has barely begun.
And let's not forget :
Even with no sugar added, fruit juice contains about the same amount of sugar as the same amount of soft drink. Because apples, oranges and grapes are naturally full of sugar. (No surprise there: Processed sugar comes from plants, usually corn or sugar cane or sugar beets.) The table below compares the sugar in 12 ounces of juice (no sugar added) with 12 ounces (one can) of Coca-Cola. If you look at the nutrition label on a can of Coke or fruit juice, the “carbohydrate” is mostly sugar. Four grams of sugar carbs equal approximately 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Click on the image below to enlarge:
