So I don’t see any risk at all of sugary drinks going the way of schedule 1 drugs (which, themselves, are also experiencing international wave of decriminalization). Is it impossible? No; but that’s no reason to fear de-advertising as a step towards a ban.

Bhutan, and the Holy See, not that the latter counts for much besides PR.

“Smoking areas are permitted in non-public areas of hotels (i.e., smoking floors or smoking rooms) at the discretion of the patron.”

The Holy See banned selling tobacco, but not smoking it. Considering the countries size it had minimal impact. The odd situation was prior to this it had much lower prices so people where buying them inside the Vatican for others. Which created something of a moral hazard.

That's the point. Change happens either through a revolution or a "slippery slope". You can call it a fallacy all you want, but think about how successful political change happens. Almost every instance starts small and keeps pushing the boundaries until the political change has happened. This is how you change people's values, so calling it a fallacy as though that's supposed to invalidate it isn't enough.

>And I don’t know of a country where smoking is entirely banned.

It has just been made exceedingly expensive, just like alcohol. To the degree that the vast majority of the cost is in taxes.

Furthermore, this is a long process. Just because they haven't been banned yet doesn't mean that it's not going to happen in the future.

>And I don’t know of a country where smoking is entirely banned.

Bhutan and Turkmenistan have banned the sale of tobacco. The aims of some countries, such as Finland, is to become tobacco free.

Countries are also doing things such as banning flavorings of tobacco. So would your argument then be that it's not a slippery slope, because they aren't actually going to ban sugary drinks, they'll just ban sugary drinks with flavorings?

... so you made a conclusion that political change happened because of small changes? That conclusion is incorrect. The change happened because of underlying need for that change. In case of smoking, because smokers are much more likely to die from cancer.

In case of sugary drinks, the need to change is not as strong. That is why restricting advertising is sufficient. Well, may be they will tax sugary products, but banning sugary products will NOT happen.

In any case, whether we need to do the next step or not -- we will decide based on analysis of previous step. That decision is much more likely to be correct if we do small steps, instead of allowing ourselves only do big changes.

But that's not true. We're talking about most cases of political change. A lot of it doesn't happen because it needs to happen, a lot of political change happens because it's beneficial (profitable?) for someone for it to happen. Do you really think that companies selling juice are unhappy with "sugary drinks" being demonized? Of course they aren't, because those sugary drinks are their competition. If society cared about the health impact of sugary drinks then juices would be right there next to soda on the chopping block, because they have the same sugar in the same amounts in the juice as the soda does. Yet essentially all of the bans on sugary drinks conveniently don't affect juice at all. The only thing juice has over soda is that it might contain vitamins. That's it. In every other aspect, even minimally processed juice (just fresh pressed fruit into juice), is as bad as soda.

When somebody tells me that this whole thing is for our benefit and that we make decisions based on analysis, then I don't believe them, because the decisions that have been made clearly aren't based on fair analysis. The decisions that have been made are clearly benefiting some people over others and crusaders carry out their will. Then decades later they will complain about how they were lied to.

>Well, may be they will tax sugary products, but banning sugary products will NOT happen.

MAYBE? This is already reality in a lot of places. That ship has already sailed years ago.

Of course they're not going to straight up ban sugary drinks, because that is literally impossible. What they can do and what they actually do, is target certain types of "undesirable" goods/vices to pick winners and losers in business.

That’s not really accurate: “No soda or juice to be offered with kids meals in California under new law authored by Central Coast senator”

Restaurants will still be able to serve soda or juice with kids meals on request, but those sweetened drinks can no longer be advertised, or listed, as part of any combo meal intended for children.

even though the apple juice contains no added sugar, it would be banned as a standard choice starting in 2019.

https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/10/06/stc-l-nikidsmea...

Law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Cigarette commercials have been banned in the USA since 1969[1], but smoking is still allowed. So I cannot agree with your concerns. The advertising ban and taxation of unhealthy products that impose externalities on society have proved far more effective than outright bans.

> If this doesn't alarm you yet, then will you be alarmed once they start banning ads for meat?

No. I'd even welcome that. The same applies to sugar, alcohol, marijuana and salt: Don't ban them, tax them and maybe restrict advertising for them.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20080305012949/http://tobaccodoc...

I'm just wondering, are you in favor of such schemes that would target things you like and enjoy too? Say, computer use. Extended computer use is harmful to people's health, so we should levy a tax on it.

Don’t forget we’re currently taxing income at obscene levels, in absolute terms. It means we disincentivise people from working, which is absolutely wild, considering. If you could start with a clean slate and tax anything, what would you choose? Sin taxes or income taxes?

Government revenue is fungible, and the more income from other sources, the less is needed from income. Until we have income tax (at least lowest bracket) down to 0%, I say tax the hell out of everything actually unwanted.

(Signed: a meat eater who would gladly pay meat tax)

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, or a good thing, it's just different. There are a number of ideas they've successfully implemented there that would never fly in other countries - ethnic housing quotas, for instance. It undoubtedly works in reducing residential segregation, but I don't know if it's worth the cost in not letting people live where they want.

It's a useful distinction because they've really banned some other things, and they're much more serious about those.

There are a whole bunch of materials in the natural world that we just assume are safe because they've been around 'forever'. If you're going to use science as your standard for bans, there are billions of dollars of tests to do.

There's some dark math to be done on the benefit of a human life vs the cost of saving it. Maybe ten guys drinking infinite soda are keeping 100 at work in soda companies, providing for their families.

I think we should pay for the consequences of our own choices, and agree the government is terrible at deciding what's unhealthy.

What follows is usually not bans but taxes. As an example, Sweden uses a rather significant tobacco tax helps to offset the increased healthcare costs. Same for alcohol and now they are considering the same strategy for sugary drinks and sweets.

Once culture has change and almost no one buys it anymore, and the cost makes the product completely uninterested for new customers, then politicians can start to discuss bans of the product itself.

There are signs that demand for sugary drinks are on the decline naturally e.g. demand for sparking water has increased as people look for alternatives to drinking a coke. And there was a recent article on how juice consumption has dropped to new lows...

For this specific case, or in general? Because there are certainly externalities that are larger than the internalized cost of a good.

Does it really seem like someone violating your choices because you aren't being fed certain advertisements? I haven't heard of anyone complaining that they never see ads for cigarettes anymore.

The only real question to me is which will be banned 'for the good of society' first: sugar, or meat? Meat has the extra argument going around of having an impact on the climate, and some studies say it can be bad for health. Sugar of course is bad for health in large quantities.

> cigarette ads are banned, in some places you’re not allowed to sell sugary drinks that are too large

It sounds to me the slippery slope has already started? Hate taxes on cigarettes are a thing everywhere, some places have a sugar tax already. It's not banned, but it is controlled already.

At this moment, there are more countries that subsidize them than countries that ban them or tax them extra.

So my tax money first goes to allow people eat more meat and sugar, and then to pay their medical expenses caused by excessive meat and sugar consumption.