In two months, Berkeley voters will decide whether their city will be the first in the country to enact a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (or tie with San Francisco which has a similar measure on the ballot).
When Berkeley parent Erica Etelson heard about Measure D, the so-called Soda Tax, she immediately volunteered “to help the Healthy Child Coalition trounce Big Soda.”
In an Opinionator piece published today on Berkeleyside, Etelson explains why she was an easy recruit. Sugary drinks are the number one source of calories for low-income Americans, she says. “In addition to diabetes, sugar is now known to cause heart disease, fatty liver disease, hypertension, obesity and stroke. Once upon a time, drinking a Coke seemed a harmless enough activity, but now we know better. Soda kills,” she writes.
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