Should government dictate how much pop you drink?

Shouldn't your government care if drinking this kills you?

Should the city of New York legislate how much sugar you consume?

There's quite the buzz around Mayor Bloomberg's thoughts on the soda ban. If this piece of legislation goes through, the health department can slap huge fines on establishments selling more than 16 oz of liquid sugar.

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out why this is a much needed policy but some  feel like municipal government has no room intervening in "consumer choice" decisions. 

I pondered this and reflected on lessons learnt from my public policy training days but I had to throw some of those lessons out the door and share my honest and not so eloquent opinion -"Swweeet Jesus - why did this take so long and why aren't more cities, provinces and nations not doing this?!?"

At the end of the day, I really don't give a rat's a$$ who legislates it as long as the policy is put into place. Soda consumption leads to some major health issues that are slowly but surely killing our society. In the past 30 years childhood obesity in the U.S. has tripled and more than one third of children are obese (holy crap - I just realized how crazy that is!!! One out of three kids being obese- this is scary!). Obese children are more likely to turn into obese adults and the risk of diabetes, heart attacks and cancers increases significantly as kids and adults shove 20 ounces of Pepsi and Coke down their throats! When consumption of a food or drink causes a health epidemic of all sorts, I think the government does have the right to intervene. The health care costs associated with obesity are insanely high and why wouldn't a government want to cut down on the billions it spends to clean up the after math of the obesity epidemic? 

Some may argue that we should place a ban on all junk food and you know what - as much as I love the odd Mc Chicken burger with fries and coke at 2 am on Saturday, I would commend local government for banning it. 

I think the least a government could do is place a junk food tax for all those awful foods and drinks that are slowly killing our society. I've always believed that policy helps impact major change and I fully support government stepping in to improve the health of a city and nation in crisis! So, Mayor Bloomberg - you have my vote on this one!