~tasha~
Age: 124
Total Posts: 47628
Points: 0
Location:
United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Sugar is as dangerous as tobacco and, in terms of world health, far more important. Although the ill effects of tobacco are manifold (from memory loss to poor semen, damage to the fetus, and wrinkled skin) it kills either through cancer or vascular disease, and it usually does so from the sixth decade of life onwards. Sugar is an enormous burden throughout life: it destroys children's teeth, it leads to obesity, and it exacerbates diabetes, a disease that eventually destroys every organ.
In the West there will soon be more people with diabetes than smokers. In the developing world tobacco use is increasing but sugar consumption is increasing as well, not least because of the proliferation of soft drinks.
The campaign for the cessation of sugar consumption must not repeat the mistakes of the anti-tobacco crusade. It is not just a case of education, persuasion, and lawsuits—sugar should be classified as a hard drug, for it is addictive and harmful. Sugar production, trade, possession, and consumption should be legislated against internationally. In the spirit of coercive healthism sugar should be eradicated. German and French farmers can be compensated for leaving their sugar beet fields fallow. The sugar plantations in the tropics should be converted into rubber plantations to meet the growing need for condoms.
Non-compliance should be punishable by sanctions and through the destruction of sugar cane, if necessary by aerial spraying. It is likely that as soon as these measures are in place there will be an illegal trade in sugar. Inevitably the price of sugar will rise.
Sugar is currently the cheapest calorie in the developing world. This in itself drives consumption. Illegal sugar will become too expensive for the poor, yet it will be coveted, if for no other reason than because it will be illegal. Criminalisation of the sugar trade will mean the creation of antisugar agencies. The benefits of such bureaucracies will include not only curtailing illegal production and trade, but also adding to the price of sugar.
It is high time that the world learned how to deal with the risks associated with such an unhealthy diet. There will be a considerable cost attached to the cessation of sugar consumption, but this will be negligible in comparison with the cost of the disease burden attributable to sugar.
