Reply #62: It usually isn't at the level you indicate -

[haele]

When I didn't have enough to buy a bottle of Excedrine and the fall/spring Santanas hit here in SoCal, I used to nurse a 2 Liter Dr. Pepper (my Caffine of choice)for about a week - about 6 oz at a time with two asprin, morning and before I went to bed to keep me from getting up with that nauseous pounding headache or dealing with it during the morning drive. After the sun came up, either Vics Vapo-rub or home-made lavender oil would keep me from going down. As well as remaining hydrated. (Work tap water is f'n nasty, but if it had to do, it had to do...)
The ADD'er in my family used to down a two-liter Mt. Dew over a period of three days.
Coffee and Tea take about a half hour or so to get into the system, and for those of us who don't like to hang around the house for an hour in the morning while we get a caffine fix, a soda can get the same amount of caffine - and yeah, frankensugers, into the system in 10 minutes.
2 liters a day for one person is excessive and will usually make that person sick - and those who do it either need to see a psych or an ENT doc to get the proper meds. But if a person buys a enough 2 liters for a family of 4 or 5 to share during the day as well as for their morning quick caffine fix, that might not be an unreasonable amount.
Of course, we're discussing more of a reason someone might purchase soda instead of tea bags, a jar of coffee, or fruity sugar/sugarfree drink mix packets to mix with their tap water to give it a bit of palatable flavor. Not whether or not soda should be a food stamp item.

I'm of the school that just because someone wants to buy a cheap treat for the kids with their foodstamps, they shouldn't be punished.

Haele