Gimme Some Sugar Baby

In case you have been living on the Moon this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his budget to Parliament. Part of it entailed a tax on sugar in drinks, an annual fee to listen to Def Leopard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me and a pay-to-view charge for each time Evil Dead’s Ash asks for some sugar. Baby.

We know how this is going to pan out. First they wanted to limit our tanks, then they wanted to limit our juice bottles – and just around the corner you’ll only be able to vape during the weekends after lunchtime. Clearly, sugar users can face further restrictions on processed food, donuts and the sickly smile breakfast TV presenters use.

But we’ve been making plans for the bans and we’ve got dedication to beat the legislation. We’re ahead of the curve. For a starter, and most obviously, Fasttech will no doubt be launching cloned fizzy drinks. Get your carbonated fluid friends up to speed with ordering from the Far East. All they need to do is anticipate when they are going to be feeling thirsty and make sure they order three weeks before that point.

Such a process cries out for an implementation of the back-up to your back-up plan and an inventive soul will be busy beavering away making a bandolier that takes drink tins.

We also know that buying the components separately is key to circumvention. Oddly, the thing not carrying any surcharge as part of the sugar tax is, err, sugar. Probably, once public health experts realise that bags of it are more dangerous than nic base combined with live ammunition, it may be banned or restricted to single serving sachets. In the meantime, why not consider setting up a Drink Shop where the public can pop in to buy their own glass bottle, a bag of carbon dioxide, a vial of brown sludge and a bunch of sugar cane sticks.

You know what the response will be: “but I can’t be bothered to make my own drink.” Aha, you’ll reply using your juice knowledge, but you can make it yourself for pennies. Not just that but you can go on to add how much fun it is to wear plastic gloves, the ecstasy of measuring things with a syringe and how the whole family loves it when you fill the fridge with mixing products.

The trouble will come when people begin to try to take their homemade fizzy liquids onto planes or when bottles explode during the night. Welcome to our world, sugar lovers. Welcome to our world!