Forbidding is conflicting with principles of liberty. Besides, there are things that are addictive but are fine (even good, useful) in moderation (I don't think

Forbidding is conflicting with principles of liberty. Besides, there are things that are addictive but are fine (even good, useful) in moderation (I don't think cigarettes are one, but sugar should be). I would be surprised if taxing had this effect (see research cited by others claiming otherwise), I think in particular low income people respond a lot to price incentives[0]. They are the most at risk from obesity. Moreover, you can redirect those taxes without much controversy into other efforts, like educational material, or just public healthcare (which is a "victim" of obesity epidemics). [0] I highly recommend the book from recent Nobel Prize winners, 'Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty', there are several experiments showing how extremely poor people respond to incentives (much more rationally than it appears), though I'm not sure how this generalizes to low-income americans.