Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That’s according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum.
Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. A claim the beverage industry disputes.
The cities studied were: Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and Boulder, Colo. Taxes ranged from 1 to 2 cents per ounce. For a 2-liter bottle of soda, that comes out to between 67 cents to $1.30 extra in taxes.
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Kaplan and his colleagues found that, on average, prices for sugar-sweetened drinks went up by 33.1% and purchases went down by basically the same amount – 33%.
A lot of people think “ah Ill nab a soda on the way, its only $2”
So when its “only” $3.50, $4.25, $6, it gets a lot harder to make those passing “ah fuck it” purchases while youre out and about doing other things.
Its not like alcohol, where you make a point to obtain it for a designated drinking time and so will go out of your way to fulfill an errand. Its a passing convenience that you do less often when it becomes less convenient
Sadly there is also a lot of people who buy it regularly. Was just with some relatives over the holidays and they have full stack packs of coke for the day to day.
This segment is who I would think go out of their way to avoid the taxes.
You bring an excellent point and probably it is in that segment where the reduced consumption is when the taxes are higher.