Gag reflex on junk-food tax idea

Re “Forget smokers, tax snackers,” Opinion, Nov. 12

As a smoker, I of course applaud Tina Dupuy’s article. However, intellectual honesty demands that I point out its one small problem: Stopping the persecution of smokers via tax after tax would deprive the majority of the population of its self-righteous satisfaction at sticking it to what they’ve been taught are a bunch of evil addicts.

What’s needed, then, is a concerted health establishment and media effort of proof by strong assertion that obesity is a sin. It worked on smokers after all, and overeating has the same objectionable-to-Puritans property as smoking: Those who do it get pleasure out of it. To start the ball rolling: Have you heard it’s harder for a fat man to get into heaven than to get through a Camel in a California bar ... ?

Michael A. Padlipsky

Los Angeles

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Dupuy calls herself a comedian, yet I do not find anything funny about a child watching a parent die of lung cancer. While she rightly points out the toll obesity takes on society, she neglects the fact that tobacco costs California taxpayers billions a year whether they smoke or not -- twice what obesity costs.

If I fall asleep with a Twinkie in my hands, I do not burn down an apartment building and roast my neighbors alive. My eating a Twinkie will not contribute to anyone else’s heart or lung disease. Eating a Twinkie while driving may be inadvisable, but at least it will not cause lifelong respiratory problems for a child passenger. People do need to eat; no one needs to smoke. Smoking is a voluntary expense that sucks the lifeblood out of everyone. It’s time that the costs of smoking were included in the price of a pack.

Andrea Portenier

Oceanside

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Comedian Dupuy’s article on snack taxes reads more like a punch line than a viable health initiative. Studies show that junk-food taxes are arbitrary, regressive and ineffective. Even Yale professor Kelly Brownell, the man who coined the term “Twinkie tax,” admitted there was no evidence to show that such a tax would affect the American diet. Weight gain is a symptom of total lifestyle, not just diet. Rather than worry about eating less, Americans should really think about moving more.

Trice Whitefield

Senior research analyst

Center for

Consumer Freedom

Washington