‘Sin’ tax should be applied properly

I don’t live in Santa Fe, and I don’t drink sweetened drinks 99.9 percent of the time. So it might seem like I don’t have a horse in the soda tax race.

I do get a bit concerned, however, that the craziness might spread. We live in a world of sweetened things, and I have to wonder why soda/sweetened drinks get picked as the culprit responsible for all the ills of the stuff. The number of things on the shelf in the store that has excessive sweetener in it would probably surprise some people, but I suspect not most. Pastry, jam and jelly, cereals, candy and all sorts of snacks are not only overloaded with the stuff, but many are labeled with unrealistic “serving sizes.” These so-called servings do keep things like carbs at a tolerable level if followed, but honestly, who opens a box of Cracker Jacks and measures out servings of the recommended size or only eats a third of a candy bar? And, surprisingly, you can find sweetener added to so-called staples as well.

Then, the question becomes why, if all this sweet stuff is causing massive health costs, is the expected tax windfall from the sale of sweet drinks going to be used for a totally unrelated, underfunded function?

It would seem to me that if you are going to apply a “sin” tax to a food item as has been done to alcohol and tobacco, then do it right. Force manufacturers and creators of sweet foods to disclose the percentage of sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup in every item produced and tax that. Then mandate that the tax revenues can only be used to fund research and treatment for problems the sweeteners have supposedly caused and to look for realistic alternatives.

And, of course, none of this addresses the overloads of carbohydrates we get from things like potatoes and most grains. These can, if you believe current theories on why people get to be diabetic, cause the disease without ever indulging in the pleasures of artificially sweetened foods. BILL KRIEGH Rio Rancho