The Coke Tax

yea, as i figured my friend this is a discussion and not an argument so lets keep it cool. if your offended by the fact that i used the word to explain something other than raceism im sorry, but, its true. its plain and simple Prejudice, thats it. i may choose to smoke just like people choose to drive and i should not be punished for it and, lets face it, thats what they are doing. if your offended by second hand smoke, well, thats up to you.

the way i see it, im pretty sure that smokes havnt caused anyone to crash into another car or a tree like drinking does and drinking kills people as well. i enjoy both because there is nothing like a good smoke and a great drink. everyone already got there way down here when they forced me to go outside and smoke at a restaurant so now they need to add another tax? well, atleast its not $10 a pack like in NY as its only about $4 here.
 
I'll repeat it again for the hard of thinking.

If you choose to do something and you get told off for it...

It.
Cannot.
Be.
Prejudice.

Quite right that smoking hasn't caused people to crash a car. But it does cause harm to people who have committed the heinous crime of standing near someone smoking. Hell, even shooting heroin into your eyeballs doesn't harm others like that.
 
I'll repeat it again for the hard of thinking.

If you choose to do something and you get told off for it...

It.
Cannot.
Be.
Prejudice.

Quite right that smoking hasn't caused people to crash a car. But it does cause harm to people who have committed the heinous crime of standing near someone smoking. Hell, even shooting heroin into your eyeballs doesn't harm others like that.

Wow, you win, ill keep within the rules of this forum and move on. ill leave you with this, if you are hiring people and you dont hire someone because they smoke, well, it is considered a violation of the equal opportunity act. if you want to continue with me then PM me, i respect your view enough to talk with you in private.
 
if you are hiring people and you dont hire someone because they smoke, well, it is considered a violation of the equal opportunity act.

Wanna bet?
 
Well drinking is taxed also, I can at least understand the smoking ban in some places, I can deal with smoking here and there but when you go to a concert and the people next to you smoke continuously for the whole damn concert it does get real fucking annoying fast. A little courtesy goes a long way. It's like loud music, just because you like your death metal at full blast doesn't mean every one else should have to endure it. I don't necessarily think smoking should be taxed though, but I can agree with it faster than taxing a non-addictive food.
 
I know you said that soft drinks aren't mood enhancing... what about all those energy drinks? Red Bull, Relentless, the sort of thing that are marketed so that you can keep going. I assume some sort of sugar high, with the resulting crash, isn't good for the system. (Nor is it good for keeping going on a drive through the night, for instance.) If that isn't unbalancing something in the average persons system, then I don't know what is.

Of course, it isn't that close to alcohol/tobacco for addiction, but with six spoons of sugar in every can, there is some serious metabolism hit going on.
 
Last edited:
You've seen the 5 hour energy commercials. There is no way there is six spoons of sugar in an energy drink. A typical 16 oz energy drink has less sugar than a 12 oz can of pop, the energy comes from caffeine and other ingredients like taurine. An energy drink is no more harmful to you than a espresso or large coffee at Starbucks and probably much less fatty.

Caffeine is slightly addictive yes, but nothing to the extent of alcohol of cigarettes and nowhere near as dangerous. Again if you tax caffeine you must also tax coffee, tea, tiramisu, Hershey's bars, chocolate milk, and we already know taxing tea doesn't fly.

Plus the AMA has this to say on caffeine, "Moderate tea or coffee drinkers probably need have no concern for their health relative to their caffeine consumption provided other lifestyle habits (diet, alcohol consumption) are moderate, as well."

And the FDA, "found no evidence to show that the use of caffeine in carbonated beverages would render these products injurious to health."
 
So Plissken can you name something that shouldn't be taxed? Anything can be used to harm someone, it isn't the government's role to babysit the population.
 
Tax HFCS instead, so my tax money stops directly going to fucking farm subsidies.
 
Tax HFCS instead, so my tax money stops directly going to fucking farm subsidies.

I wonder who promoted this idea in the first place?
 
What? No! I can barely afford it to begin with! Now I won't be able to have any anymore!


if you are hiring people and you dont hire someone because they smoke, well, it is considered a violation of the equal opportunity act.

Um, no. Not even close. Smoking discrimination is the same thing as if you get a noticeable tattoo and they decided not to hire you. Just because you can't stop smoking easily any more than it is easy to remove a tattoo YOU chose that at the beginning. Poor judgment and tough for you.
 
I'm curious as to what you're hinting at.

Pretty much every bill has an agenda behind it. This doesn't mean elaborate conspires, but rather someone is trying to manipulate things (to be honest any big business which doesn't abuse our pro lobbyist government needs a better PR department).

Anyhow if the tax does hit sugar directly and ignores HFCS it could have originated from the farm subsidies crowd. Big businesses (small farmers have been destroyed due to farm subsidies and Monsanto lawsuits) would put pressure on senators/representatives to promote commodity corn.
 
Last edited:
^ Enjoy your +rep.

I wouldn't be surprised if this came from the corn subsidies crowd specifically, since their big ethanol circle jerk has basically blown up in their goddamn faces.
 
i feel the cigarette tax should somehow be illegal. in a way i guess its a form of prejiduce. think about it.

Prejudice: Personal / Individual Discrimination is directed toward a specific individual and refers to any act that leads to unequal treatment because of the individual's real or perceived group membership.

You are right, in a way. However, there are already a number of things which are prejudicial in the same way. The tax on drinkers, tax on drivers for gas, the higher tax on the upper class(ok you could argue it is equal based on how much the tax effects them but the %s are still higher), ladies' nights (which people have actually won court cases against), senior citizen discounts, etc etc. Increased property taxes just because your neighbors have nice houses.

Just because it is prejudicial based on the strict definition doesn't mean it is wrong; at least in my opinion anyway. Doesn't make all of them right either.

This tax on sodas seems quite high but I don't have a problem the idea of taxing sodas in general. They do need to be very careful about how much tax they apply though. These days I'd imagine a lot of people will be more likely to forgo buying sodas than pay the tax.
 
Cigarette taxes are far more than fair. If you're enough of a troglodyte to inhale that shit for fun, you will ruin your health and be a burden on the medical system later in life, which is where your tax goes - on keeping your dumb ass alive a little bit longer.

I guarantee the idiot who drinks 2 liters of diet pop every single day will be worse off than the guy who has a can of regular pop 4 or 5 times a week. Taxation will not teach a person discipline.

Seriously? Drinking a pop almost every day is still far more than anyone should do. Yikes.

I really don't think the pop tax is an issue at all. If you drink pop like it's water, you can reach your stubby little fat fingers into your pocket and fork out a few cents extra. To normal people this will be like little more than (very small) inflation, which is inevitable.
 
Cigarette taxes are far more than fair. If you're enough of a troglodyte to inhale that shit for fun, you will ruin your health and be a burden on the medical system later in life, which is where your tax goes - on keeping your dumb ass alive a little bit longer.

Not in this country. That money will be funneled into some politician's pet pork project never to be seen again. Then taxes will need to be raised again as we won't have enough to cover the health program that this particular tax was meant to support. And this will happen, see social security.

Seriously? Drinking a pop almost every day is still far more than anyone should do. Yikes.

I really don't think the pop tax is an issue at all. If you drink pop like it's water, you can reach your stubby little fat fingers into your pocket and fork out a few cents extra. To normal people this will be like little more than (very small) inflation, which is inevitable.

It isn't the government's job to babysit.
 
Here's the thing, Coke, Pepsi, they all offset they're slim profits on cases and 2 liters with new age drinks and bottled water. The pop drinkers wont take the hit, the people getting the shaft will be the people buying water and non-carbonated beverages. But hey classifying people by the amount of pops they drink seems like a great way to weed out the fat asses, fool proof. Smokers are scum too, lets make nasty comments loud enough so they can hear it but totally pretend like we didn't want them to hear it, fucking lepers.
 
Seriously? Drinking a pop almost every day is still far more than anyone should do. Yikes.

I really don't think the pop tax is an issue at all. If you drink pop like it's water, you can reach your stubby little fat fingers into your pocket and fork out a few cents extra.

Nice sweeping generalizations you made there.
I drink around 2 litres of junk a day, soda, flavored milk etc. and I have people constantly telling me how thin I am.

It is incredibly naive to think that drinking a can of soda a day automatically turns you into a fat blob. Conversely, not every overweight person is necessarily a glutton.

More to the point I think these types of "Health Taxes" are a joke. It is an easier way to justify new taxes by telling the public "It's for your own good and if you were not such bad people you wouldn't have this tax!". Well thats bullshit because if something really is that bad for society it should be banned completely not given a trivial tax.

However, gambling, alcohol and cigarettes are a good money earner for the governments. Will water with some sugar in it be the next one?:rolleyes:
 
Top