...In other words, excessive consumption of soda kills twice as many Mexicans as trade in the other kind of coke that Mexico is famous for.
Amazing story of grassroots groups fighting the soda industry's control of the Mexican government (including the health department).
The decline started slowly but accelerated: by December 2014, soda sales were down 12% from December 2013. And the drop was greatest among the poorest Mexicans – by December they were buying 17% less sweetened soda than the year before. (Terrazas was right – the tax does affect the poor disproportionately. But so does diabetes.) In September, Mexico’s national statistics institute released data on beverage consumption showing that Rivera’s findings actually slightly understated the soda tax’s success.
The battle continues. At the end of October, the lower house of Mexico’s congress, the chamber of deputies, passed an amendment that would have halved the tax for beverages with less sugar. But the political climate has now shifted; after the vote, all the parties scrambled to deny responsibility for watering down the tax – “The industry did it,” said one PRI deputy – and the senate quickly overturned the amendment.