The Great Sugar Prohibition

COMMENTARY | Sugar is the enemy. The root of all evil. Mary Poppins was nothing more than a drug pusher. Sugar causes obesity, heart disease, diabetes and if your health is not a concern, how about an appeal to vanity: sugar also causes wrinkles.

Researchers from the University of California San Francisco published a commentary in the journal Nature stating that sugar and other sweeteners are so toxic that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide.

Regulations proposed that would ban sugar sales to those under 18, as well as a complete ban of sales in or near schools. Those who could purchase products containing sugar would be subjected to taxation.

While I agree with the fact that too much sugar is harmful, I cannot fathom how banning sugar would benefit the population at large. In fact, this entire scenario sounds eerily similar to prohibition arguments. Although the people behind this prohibition are not progressive Christians attempting to save society, instead they are progressive scientists are attempting to heal the nation's health problems.

Government action cannot save people from themselves.

Maybe they should take a peak back at how the first prohibition turned out. The irony of that era was that instead of creating a perfect society, where no alcohol was consumed and no one become an alcoholic, it produced one of the most violent, crime-ridden periods in American history according to the Times. To further the irony, during that time in the early 1900s, sugar houses were a valuable resource for illegal breweries. In fact, by 1929, illegal liquor was bringing in a profit of $215 million a year in Detroit, second only to auto manufacturing.

If history means anything, the only people the sugar ban will benefit will be the sugar industry itself.

Taking away freedoms will not create a better society. People will not suddenly see the light when told sugar is toxic. Society as a whole will not suddenly lose weight and get healthy. Those who want to sugar, who choose to eat sugar, will find a way.