Causecast

by JEFF FOSTER, Contributing Writer, Stand-Up Comedian and Editor of TheLean.org

Dr. R. Craig Lefebvre, a public health communication and marketing research professor at The George Washington University, contested a direct consumer tax on high fructose corn syrup at the Center for Disease Control’s National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media earlier this month. According to Lefebvre, taxing consumers on food and drinks containing HFCS at the checkout lane is just “blaming the victims.”

Instead, Lefebvre proposed a tax on manufacturers who produce consumables that contain HFCS to make it more expensive to use than natural cane sugar.

Food manufacturers love HFCS because it’s cheaper, mixes better, and has a longer shelf life than natural sugar. Thus, the synthesized sweeter can be found in nearly everything on the grocery shelves.

However, recent nutritional studies have specifically linked HFCS to faster weight gain, organ failure and even dangerous mercury levels.

Assuming the emerging data on the dangers of excessive HFCS presence in the national diet is credible, it’s important to do something about it. Nevertheless, a “punishment tax” seems like a convenient way to increase government revenue (which it will quickly become permanently dependent on), giving the feds an incentive to keep the offending substance on shelves. Think about it: the government assault on the tobacco industry has endured for many years, but most jabs have involved taxes and money. If public health were really the primary concern, wouldn’t it be illegal by now? Of course, as we’re well aware of thanks to the ominous examples of drug and alcohol prohibition, banning things doesn’t stop use—it just keeps government paws out of the revenue stream.

If the tax made natural sugar cheaper for manufacturers than HFCS, it would undoubtedly lead to a less overwhelming HFCS presence in our food stores. But if that’s the ultimate goal, why not just ban the stuff to begin with? Unlike drug prohibition, HFCS “prohibition” probably wouldn’t result in a comprehensive black market.

Nonetheless, I’ll defer to the libertarian argument: let us be in charge of our own health. Government has a long history of being wrong about things, and the best policy is to keep Big Brother out of our collective digestive tract, even if he’s right about this one.

In a perfect world, everyone would want to do the best thing for their health. Everyone would spend time reading, doing research, and refining their habits to optimize their life experience. In the real world, people depend on government and big corporations to tell them what to do. That doesn’t make it right.

Social manipulation is always bad, even if it means fewer fat people in line at the post office.

Photo by Kichigai Mentat, flickr