Casting pebbles in the water: Why defeat in Richmond advances public health
by: Lori Dorfman
posted on Monday, November 19, 2012
Elections bring victory and defeat. But in the case of Richmond, Calif.’s bold effort to tax sugary beverages, defeat was also victory.
It’s true that Measure N’s defeat means that Richmond residents will not get the badly needed $3 million the tax would have brought, enough for swimming lessons for every child in the city, as councilman Jeff Ritterman told us.
And Richmond residents won’t benefit from the small but effective deterrent from drinking sugary beverages that a penny-an-ounce provides. Instead, children there will still consume 40 pounds of sugar annually just from sugary beverages, sabotaging their health.
Garnering support for any policy — especially taxes — takes time. Consider New York, which just two years ago proposed a penny-an-ounce tax on sugary beverages. That effort failed too, but in the same session of the legislature, lawmakers added a $1.60 excise tax on cigarettes.
Why would New York legislators levy $1.60 on tobacco but balk at 12 cents on a can of soda?
That New York refused a few pennies on soda but didn’t blink at $1.60 on tobacco has a hard fought history. For nearly 50 years — since the 1964 Surgeon General’s report that first linked smoking with heart disease and lung cancer — public health has pushed for policies to put warnings on cigarette packs and ads, remove vending machines, mount education campaigns, ensure smokefree air, and institute tobacco taxes.
Public health advocates have thrown many policy pebbles in the river of tobacco control, and now we can walk right across.
It wasn’t always that way. In the early days of tobacco control, proposals for taxes met the same fate as Richmond’s.
Many in public health are eager to mimic the success in tobacco control, where increasing excise taxes on cigarettes has proven the most effective way to reduce consumption, especially among youth. Research now indicates that the same may be true for soda. A strategy with such far-reaching potential warrants continued attempts. Given our tobacco experience, it will take several.
That is why the defeat matters. It’s another pebble in the water.
The more a policy is proposed, the more people discuss and understand it. Policy proposals create opportunities for news coverage that set the agenda for public discussion. Now, those discussions reflect more criticism than support for taxing sugary beverages. But each new attempt also communicates the fact that someone — and, as policy attempts mount, growing numbers of someones — support the policy. Supporters of taxing sugary beverages can embolden those who agree with the policy if they are vocal and visible.
That is the gift from Richmond and from El Monte’s defeat for a similar tax in southern California. Despite those defeats, residents there and elsewhere learned that sugary drinks are the largest single source of calories in American diets, the biggest culprit in the rise in obesity, and account for half the added sugars we consume.
Newspapers across the country reported the $4.2 million the industry spent to fight the taxes, nearly as much as the taxes would have brought in over a year had they passed.
Even more important, we learned that people are willing to speak up and do something about it.
As a public health advocate, I wanted the soda taxes to prevail. But even in defeat, I’m heartened by Richmond and El Monte. If we keep dropping policy pebbles in the water, before long, we’ll be able to walk right across to a healthier future.