Soda Sales Fall Further in Mexico’s Second Year of Taxing Them

[McFurd]

New York Times - 2/22/2017 - Margot Sanger-Katz - In the first year of a big soda tax in Mexico, sales of sugary drinks fell. In the second year, they fell further, according to new research. The finding represents the best evidence to date of how sizable taxes on sugary drinks, increasingly favored by large American cities, may influence consumer behavior. The results could have consequences for public health. But they also matter for policy makers who hope to use the money raised by such taxes to fund other projects. Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Calif., and the Illinois county that contains Chicago have recently passed soda taxes similar in size to the tax in Mexico. Mexico’s soda tax took effect in 2014, and applied to all beverages that included added sugar, including carbonated soft drinks, fruit drinks and sweetened iced teas. The effort was pushed by public health advocates who argued that liquid sugar was contributing to the country’s high burden of obesity and diabetes. Read more @ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/upsh ... onomy&_r=0