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The state Senate Health Committee will vote today on a bill to tax sugary beverages after a hearing on the measure earlier this week in which the committee’s chairman told industry representatives he believes sodas are a public health problem.
State Sen. Josh Green (D, Milolii-Waimea), who is a physician, said, "My contention is bill or no bill today, this is becoming a very serious question in society. I’m not hunting down Pepsi and Coke; I’m just saying this has become a public health problem."
Senate Bill 3019 would tax sugar-sweetened beverages, syrup and powder with revenues going to the community health centers and the trauma system special funds.
Green put beverage industry supporters on the hot seat questioning them about the nutritional value of soda, whether the industry would be willing to participate in health literacy and health messaging, and stood firm on his belief that big corporations market soda to children.
According to the National Cancer Institute, sugary drinks accounted for 50 percent of added sugars in diets of U.S. children between 2 and 18 years old in 2005 to 2006.
Many of the bill’s supporters cited a statistic that nearly 1 in 3 children entering kindergarten in Hawaii is obese.
"Coke sells, what was it, polar bears, right?" Green said, referring to Coca-Coca’s ads with the animated creatures enjoying the beverage. "No adult gives a crap about a polar bear, but when polar bears are cuddly and smiley …"
Green could not finish his comment because the audience erupted in a combination of laughter and disapproval.
"I think it’s very much a subjective comment on your part to say that nobody gives a crap about polar bears," Gary Yoshioka, general manager for Pepsi Beverages Co. in Hawaii, said. "Generally speaking, we advertise to be relevant to our target (audience). It would be a waste of a company’s money to try to create a piece of advertising that markets to a different target than what we’re going after."
Green said after the hearing, "There’s no question that the soda industry does target young people. They know it, we know it and they better be careful or they’re gonna be the next tobacco (industry) of this decade."
BILL Comerford, a spokesman for the Hawaii Bar Owners Association and an opponent of the bill, said it would be difficult for businesses to comply with the requirement that calls for detailed reporting of sugary drinks sold.
"Forty percent of my drinks include liquor, and most of them are mixed with soda," Comerford said. "At the end of the night, how do you determine what you sold as soda and what you sold as beer?"
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