Tiffany Jenkins: Fizzy drink ban not just a storm in a soda cup

First they came for the smokers, but I said nothing because it is a filthy, dirty habit. When they set a minimum price for alcohol, I continued to swig, but quietly. But now, it’s gone too far. Fizzy drinks are to be targeted by the fuzz and it is time to speak out.

In New York City, it will soon be illegal to sell a certain size of what they call soda. The Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has announced a ban on the sale of large sugary drinks in restaurants, theatres, sports venues and street carts, in the name of combating obesity. Nothing over sixteen ounces will be permitted. The NYC Board of Health gave the go-ahead this week, and the limit will be enforced from next March.

A sixteen ounce cup of cola is unquestionably a very large amount to drink. In the 1950s, the average size of a soft-drink was 6.5 ounces. Today, it has bulged to 16.2 ounces.

But New Yorkers are in a fizz about the plans. Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said an American ought to be able to drink nine Mountain Dews a day if he wants to. It’s not the call to arms that I expected to join, but I am with him on this one.

I don’t visit New York as often as I would like, and when I do I spend next to nothing on sugary pop. It is the illiberal outlook that I object to. This is far more than a storm in a soda cup. It is important because of what New York was: a city with the Statue of Liberty – a monument to freedom – to greet new arrivals, that was once diverse and dynamic, but is becoming increasingly sanitised.

It matters because it’s not all that different here; indeed, these kinds of policies traverse the Atlantic with ease. In the last decade, in the UK, and in Scotland in particular, politicians of all political persuasions have excelled in regulating our vices in the name of our own good.

They have spent time and money passing laws designed to change or curb our behaviour, rather than concentrating on macro issues, and they have intervened in previously no-go areas, leading the way – not on the economy, or foreign affairs – but in advising us on what to eat, drink and how much to exercise. Forget a political project, it seems they want to turn our personal predilections into their cause.

This wee nation stands out as a trail-blazer in moralising and meddling. In 2006, under Labour, over a year before the smoking ban was implemented in England, smokers were evicted from public places across Scotland. Only recently, the Scottish Government became the first in Europe to crack down on alcohol consumption through a minimum price for alcohol – at 50p per unit, in the Minimum Pricing of Alcohol (Scotland) Bill, which is currently awaiting Royal Assent.

Opposition north of the Border came in the form of a diluted challenge from Labour, who refused to back the Bill because of concerns that minimum pricing could generate profits of more than £125 million for alcohol retailers, without any way of clawing back the windfall – not for any concern about our liberty.

As with the ban on smoking in public spaces, the UK Coalition government has taken a lead from the Scottish Parliament. David Cameron looks set to introduce a similar policy down south, at the rate of 40p per unit.

There is a runaway element to these encroachments. Bloomberg’s time in office has seen the curbing of smoking, salt, and trans fat. It’s forced restaurants to include calorie counts on their menus and forbade the use of food stamps on unhealthy food. Whatever next?

That’s not a rhetorical question; commenting at the meeting about the soda ban, a member of NYC Board of Health pointed out that “popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda.”

In Scotland, as well as the ban on smoking in public spaces and minimum alcohol pricing, we are seeing restrictions on where material promoting alcohol can be displayed, as well as a “Think 25” policy for sales of alcohol and other age-restricted products. I doubt that’s the end of it.

I appreciate there is a serious alcohol problem, that obesity isn’t good for you and smoking causes cancer. But something is wrong when politicians spend so much time on our personal behaviour instead of social questions, as if they are too ineffectual to tackle big issues.

In my view, these measures are unlikely to make a real difference – experts certainly disagree on their likely efficacy. Destructive drinking, for example, is an expression of deeply rooted social problems, which cannot simply be dealt with by the regulation of price, “carding”, or advertising.

There is also a class element to these punitive policies; more than a whiff of snobbery. After all, the upper middle classes can still afford their claret – it’s the poor that are most affected. In NYC, frappucinos – though full of sugar – are safe, for now. The yummy mummies are let off the hook, but it is, apparently, perfectly acceptable to target the fat working classes.

For anyone to make meaningful decisions about their lives, to improve them or turn them around, they have to be able to make their own choices, and that includes the wrong choices. Even if our behaviour was the main problem facing this, or any nation, and even if the proposed solutions work, which I doubt, I still cannot swallow them.

These sorts of measures remove peoples’ ability to make their own judgements – about what they eat, drink and do to their bodies. Bloomberg should back away from the soda pop and Scottish politicians should look across the Atlantic to see where their meddling may take us next and, as they say over there, butt out of our affairs.