Alcohol we don’t ban because the entire purpose of drinking it is its toxicity ;)

-Assuming there is no price change and refills are free then all it really becomes is an inconvenience.  If all this does is make the large a 16oz beverage then some people may buy multiple drinks (for a to go order as an example)…I’d still wager not many would, but a few will.  Habits can be hard to break, and if having 24 or 32oz of drink with your lunch is what you are used to then many will find a way to continue that (refills, multiple drinks, or bringing drinks from home.)

-Thanks to all the subsidies for corn, HFCS is cheap, and people already like sugar.  The down side to that is we can buy 2l sodas at the store for $1 instead of the $2 or $3+ price a free market system might require.  All that means is more people see soda as a daily drink instead of a treat/occasional thing.  Much like steak.  If it was subsidized by the government and could be purchased for a couple dollars a pound I’d eat it a whole lot more than I do now, simply because I like it.  (Yes my self control is weak…)  But I haven’t won the lottery, so to have a nice steak is a treat, not a daily thing.

The problem isn’t directly the soda.  It’s the fact that the government makes corn/HFCS super cheap, and thus soda cheap.  Taxing it isn’t the answer, because you are already spending tax money on the subsidy…  Just eliminate the subsidy and see if the farmers have a market for it.  Everyone would bitch, but at least I see that as a fair trade off to what we have now.

This.  To a googolplex power.

The scene in SuperSize Me where he vomits from his car, that only happens once in reality as well.

Of course you could always buy a bottle and take it home, just like you can buy your 3L coke and take that home.

Firstly you say people aren’t going to drink less because all they’ll do is spend more money. Then you point out that you don’t eat prime grade steak every night because its expensive.

A fit healthy person that lives to retirement age will likely have paid taxes for about 45 years (assuming working life starts at 20 and retirement is 65). A person that gets sick and dies at 45 due to diabetes complications or lung cancer or whatever is likely to have have paid taxes for 25 years.

I’ve read that argument before, never does it address the fact that healthy people generally contribute to society for a longer time before becoming a drain.

Lead based make up is probably fine if you only use it on special occasions*.

Just like 20oz soda’s are probably fine if you only drink them occasionally.

*I have no idea how dangerous lead based make up actually was, but people used it for centuries so presumably it wasn’t killing the majority or users.

But I do have a sweet tooth, and I’m always thirsty.  I’m blessed with a pretty high metabolism, so my lifelong consumption of gallons of soda somehow hasn’t made me obese, or even actually fat.  Unlike Bloomberg, who half-guiltily confesses to sipping small diet sodas on hot days, I drink two 12 oz cans of the 150-170 calorie sugary stuff on my lightest days in winter.  Come summer, while working in the yard, I can swallow a half gallon in an afternoon, though I more usually will drink as much or more water than soda in a given day.  Maybe I share a gene with Warren Buffett, unless you believe his prostate cancer (at the age of 81!) can be blamed on his 60 oz daily consumption of Cherry Coke.

But Jeez-o-Pete, America’s gotten chubby, so let’s pass a high-profile local ordinance that will succeed only in pissing people off, and will lower the average New Yorker’s weight by, I predict, precisely zero ounces.  Halfway through typing this post, I stopped to watch tonight’s Daily Show, and was heartened to see Jon Stewart spend the entire first act railing about the stupidity of this act.  I won’t rehash his points, but it’s worth watching when you get a chance.  Suffice to say that though you’ll have no problem at all buying several-thousand-calorie plates in NYC’s delis, and the beers at the ballparks are in no danger of being shrunk, if I want to see a movie in Times Square next year, I’d better tuck my small popcorn under my armpit since I’ll need both hands to handle my drinks.  I’ll be damned if I’m gonna dash out for a refill halfway through the second reel.

If America has a weight problem that needs to be addressed through legislation, this is not anywhere close to the way to address it.

In response to the “get your government hands off of my Medicare” style comments: no one’s personal decisions affect only themselves. The only people I’ve met who truly believe that are teenagers…..and people who act like teenagers.

Citizens and taxpayers shoulder the broader costs of personal indiscretions that accrete into mass actions. If we don’t want a “nanny state”, then we should stop acting like children.

Now when the article blurb says “outside of grocery stores”, do grocery stores include 7-11, Circle K and the like?

There is a reason it’s regarded by non-smokers as a “disgusting” habit, because quite frankly, I am disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke.

As you are likely addicted to cigarettes, I imagine it’s regarded by you very similarly to an essential biological need, like eating or going to the bathroom. I understand that you have a *need* to smoke and attain relief doing so, much like I get a certain amount relief urinating, but in consideration of those around me, I don’t do it just anywhere, like behind a tree in the park, because most people don’t enjoy the smell of urine.

Nailed in ONE.

Drinks are make out of highly subsidized HFCS and your body wasn’t evolved to dispose of it so it encapsulates it in fat and deposits it right on your waist.

The problem is that it didn’t matter.

As long as HFCS is a heavily subsidized sweetener, and one that your body only knows how to encapsulate and deposit as fat on your waist. you’ll get obese.

Even an 8oz glass is too much.

The problem is the heavily subsidized HFCS that EVERY FRIGGIN’ soft drink maker in the US uses which nobody’s body knows what to do with except to isolate it in fat and deposit on your belly.

Corn products, aka pig slop, is the problem here.

The USDA and the FDA are not your friends.