NYC's soda ban rages on

Where do you draw the line, when it comes to public health? Just about everyone in favor of laws against the use of asbestos and lead-based paint. The dangers of asbestos and lead poisoning are so obvious that it seems only natural to have them banned at the federal level.

Similarly, most people are in favor of seat belt laws and cigarette legislation restricting the sale of cigarettes to minors, on the same principle. Not wearing your seat belt and smoking cigarettes are both incredibly risky activities that don't just harm the user; they also put undue strain on our health care and insurance systems.

But how far are you willing to take this line of reasoning? For some people, it should extend into the realm of large sugary sodas, which they contend (accurately, it must be said) contribute to America's twin epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Others think that this is a ban too far. On Monday, a judge ruled against Bloomberg's law banning sugary sodas of 32 ounces or larger, just one day before the law would have gone into effect.

Justice Milton A. Tingling of the State Supreme Court struck down the controversial law, calling it "arbitrary and capricious," and a lot of people agree with him. Mayor Bloomberg has sworn to appeal, and is convinced that he is defending "my children and yours," and that the link between sugary sodas and death by obesity poses a clear mandate for legislation.

A poll last year found that 60 percent of New York City residents are against the ban, and many pundits and columnists have declaimed the American right to "make bad decisions." Then again, the terms of this debate do sound an awful lot like the words of the pro-smoking lobby back in the 1950s and 1960s after the evidence linking cigarettes to cancer had just come to light.

Image courtesy Flickr/fabiwa