8 - Tuesday, April 2, 2019 - Malvern Daily Record

MAGNET COVE SCHOOL DISTRICT

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Have a wonderful safe prom!

INDIANSPOYENPOYEN

Why take a chance of turning a night you have looked forward to into a nightmare? Each year, hundreds of teenagers intent on celebrating this occasion, die in alcohol and drug related accidents. The lives they planned to enjoy are over before they

have begun. Hundreds of others are disabled, making success more difficult to attain. Don’t be among those numbers.

FOR ALL HIGH SCHOOL PROM ATTENDEES:• BISMARCK • POYEN • MALVERN • MAGNET COVE • OUACHITA • GLEN ROSE •

Prom Night Pledge Form

Sign & submit your prom pledge before 5 p.m. April 12, 2019.

Two people will be eligible to win a $5000 cash prize each!The drawings will be held on Monday, April 15, 2019 and the

winners will be announced in the Tuesday, April 16, 2019 edition.This prom night pledge form will run in our paper throughout the prom celebrations. No duplicate forms accepted -

Entry must be on original copy. Employees of Horizon Publications and their families are not permitted to enter.

This pledge represents my care and concern for myself, my family, and my friends. I pledge that I will not drink or use drugs on prom night. I will also encourage my friends to have an ALCOHOL FREE and DRUG

FREE prom. I pledge to make this a safe prom celebration. This pledge is my vow to celebrate life wisely.

Student’s Name Student’s School Student’s Signature

By SuSan HaigH Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Nearly three de-cades after a U.S. state last imposed a special tax on sugary drinks, Connecti-cut's governor is pushing for one to help close a bud-get deficit — and bracing for a fight.

Taxes on soda and other sugar-loaded drinks have taken effect in recent years in several cities around the country, but lobbying from the beverage industry and its allies has been credited with helping to block state-wide proposals that emerge annually in state legisla-tures around the country.

"The industry lobbying is going to be pretty fero-cious. I don't know if the legislature can stand up to it," said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, who included 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweet-ened drinks in his budget proposal.

Connecticut is among several states likely to see debate renewed this year over taxes that advocates endorse as a way to reduce consumption of liquid cal-ories blamed for contribut-

ing to health problems such as obesity and diabetes. Opponents argue the taxes hurt stores and supermar-kets as well as beverage producers, while inflicting financial harm on consum-ers.

"The challenge for these taxes, whether it's a state or a city, but typically a state, is they're very unpopular with working families and small, local businesses," said William Dermody Jr., vice president of media and public affairs for the Amer-ican Beverage Association. "These people are vocal to their representatives that they dislike this tax."

Statewide taxes on sug-ary drinks were proposed this year in states including New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont and California, but the last state to impose any such tax was Arkansas, which adopted an excise tax on soft drinks in 1992. Three other states have had sugary drink taxes on their books for decades — Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Dozens of other states apply sales tax on at least some soda purchases.

Revenue from the taxes is used for purposes rang-ing from a medical school in West Virginia to litter and recycling programs in Virginia and Tennessee. Revenue from Connecti-cut's proposed tax would go to the state's main spending account but Lamont said he hopes the tax also will ul-timately reduce health care costs.

Last week, the Ameri-can Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association called for ed-ucation campaigns and raising prices through tax-es to reduce consumption of sugary drinks by young people.

Advocates on either side have cited studies with dif-ferent conclusions on the effectiveness of taxes for public health. A 2017 re-port from Healthy Food America said sugary drink sales in Mexico dropped 9 percent two years after that country imposed a tax, while they dropped 10 per-cent one year after Berke-ley, California, adopted such a tax. But the Amer-ican Beverage Association says other research, includ-ing a 2017 study of Phil-adelphia's soda tax com-missioned by the industry and conducted by Oxford Economics, challenges that argument. It notes consum-ers shifted grocery buying trips outside the city to avoid the tax, or purchased untaxed substitute items, such as drink mixes.

In Connecticut, which is facing a two-year bud-get deficit of about $3.7 billion, Lamont's office estimated the tax on sug-ary drinks would generate $163 million in new annual revenue.

One Connecticut soda company that dates back to 1904, Avery's Beverages in New Britain, has print-ed its opposition to Lam-ont's proposal on its labels. The company has produced a limited edition "Don't Tax Me Ned!" soda brand, which has been selling fast. General Manager Rob Metz said many of his customers buy cases of soda, choos-ing from more than 50 fla-vors ranging from sarsapa-rilla to kiwi. He says this tax will increase the retail price of a case from $16 to more than $21, and he's fearful it will also apply to his wholesale customers, increasing the pallet price by $250.

There's no special fla-vor for the "Don't' Tax Me Ned" sodas.

"If we did create a spe-

cial flavor it would be so bitter you couldn't drink it," he said with a laugh.

Cities have had more success passing taxes. Mu-nicipal taxes on sugary drinks were implemented in four California cities, in-cluding San Francisco and Berkeley, as well as Phil-adelphia, Seattle, Boulder, and the Navajo Nation, ac-cording to Healthy Food America. The most recent are San Francisco and Se-attle, which took effect in January 2018. A penny-per-ounce tax in Cook County, Illinois, was repealed in 2017 following lawsuits, a warning that millions in federal food stamp bene-fits could be lost and com-plaints by store owners about plummeting sales.

The beverage industry has tried to slow the ex-pansion of local soda tax-es by supporting efforts at the state level to ban local taxes. Arizona, Michigan, California and Washington each passed legislation or referendums that banned local taxes on drinks. In Washington, the Yes to Affordable Groceries cam-paign, funded almost en-tirely by the soda industry, raised more than $20 mil-lion to pass a measure last year prohibiting new local taxes on soda or groceries.

In California, a group of lawmakers recently un-veiled a "re-think your drink" campaign. Besides a tax on sugary drinks, the legislative package calls for barring restaurants from selling soda in cups larger than 16 ounces (.5 liters) and banning soda discount coupons.

"The goal of our bill is to make people think twice about their choices," said Assemblyman David Chiu of San Francisco, a Dem-ocrat, and "to hopefully steer them toward healthier choices."

States renew push for taxes on sugary drinks

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