US trade body the Natural Products Association (NPA) has strongly criticised a decision by the City of Philadelphia to designate stevia as an ‘artificial sweetener’ as part of its recently introduced Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax.
Under the newly enacted legislation stevia is taxed as an artificial substance.
“Calling stevia artificial is as wrong as calling lime juice artificial – it’s like an alternative fact,” said Dan Fabricant, Ph.D., President and CEO of NPA. “We’re hoping the commissioner will see this gross error and remove stevia from this undeserved status and tax hit. It appears the City of Philadelphia thinks it knows more about a naturally occurring alternative to sugar, used by millions of people worldwide, than the World Health Organization. While certainly this is the day and age of interpretation, I am unaware of any part of common law where words and their meanings don’t matter.”
“Stevia is a natural sweetener, so we’ll be working to ensure that any law accurately reflects that,” added Dr. Fabricant. “Additionally, as it is a natural, non-caloric, non-cariogenic sweetener, we don’t believe it should be included in the tax as that would seem to be at odds with any sort of public health concerns that we are aware of that need added revenue for Philadelphia or other jurisdictions to offset healthcare costs.”
The Natural Products Association (NPA) recently launched a grassroots campaign calling for the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue to remove stevia from the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage tax.
More information about NPA’s campaign can be found here.