The old prohibition movement sought to ban alcoholic beverages. The new prohibition movement seeks to ban soft drinks.
New York City is considering banning large portions; Cambridge, Massachusetts, is considering banning soft drinks altogether. See City Of Cambridge – CITY CLERK OFFICE, CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS.
What about diet soda? Is it necessary to ban those, even though they do not contribute to obesity and diabetics? If so, then I’m thinking the health reasons are just a pretext for some other agenda, I guess the impulse to ban things. But it seems odd that the wave of the moment is to ban soft drinks.
A 12 oz. can of Coke has 140 calories. A 12 oz. can of Budweiser has 145. The good stuff has more than that, with Big Sky I.P.A. having 195.
A 5 oz. serving of red wine has
106 calories, which makes it much more fattening, ounce for ounce, than soda. Distilled liquor has
105 calories per 1.5 oz., far, far more than soda. So why doesn’t Mayor Bloomberg challenge the consumption of alcohol? Why doesn’t the city of Cambridge, that ultimate college town, ban beer, wine, and booze if it is so worried about obesity and diabetes?
To be sure, the prohibition of alcohol didn’t work very well. So why do governments think it will work so much better with soda pop? (Can’t you just imagine the speakeasies and home-made seltzer operations that would open up, serving primarily 10 year olds?
There are other examples of people straining at gnats while swallowing camels when it comes to health issues. There are those who would like to hound the tobacco industry out of business who also favor legalizing marijuana. There are those who demand that their food be free of chemicals while they themselves use recreational drugs.
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