In 2014, Berkeley, Calif., enacted the country's first soda tax to curb rising rates of obesity and diabetes. Shortly after the tax took effect, the city's consumption of sugary drinks dropped by more than one-fifth, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.
The penny-per-ounce tax, applied to soda and other sugary drinks, took effect in March 2015. Four months after the tax was enacted, Berkeley residents reported drinking 26 percent less soda and 21 percent less of all sugar-sweetened beverages, according to the report. In Oakland, Calif., and San Francisco, researchers noted consumption of sugary drinks increased by 4 percent.
"From a public health perspective, that is a huge impact. That is an intervention that's more powerful than anything I've ever seen aimed at changing someone's dietary behavior," Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, senior author of the study, told Reuters in an interview.
While the soda industry has pooled millions of dollars lobbying against soda taxes in a dozen U.S. cities, the tax passed easily in Berkeley in a 76 percent majority vote, according to Reuters. Boulder, Colo., and the California cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Albany will vote on soda taxes Nov. 8.
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