Certain behaviors adversely affect society but are not bad enough to be made illegal. Our society might be healthier without cigarettes and alcohol, for instance, but outlawing such activities would do more harm than good. Instead, we make up for the harm done by these vices through excise taxes.

Virtually everywhere in society where harm is done that government is obligated to remedy, the users of such services pay their fair share through taxation. In this sense, they are less like taxes and more like user fees.

One industry, however, has privileged status. In spite of the billions that are spent caring for the people this industry has made sick, it has enjoyed immunity from any kind of tax that might discourage people from engaging in it to the peril of their health.

Even worse is that this industry uses special interest groups to muscle enormous subsidies for itself through Congress. The meat industry forces others to foot the bill while refusing to pay their fair share.

Two reasons stand out in the argument for taxing meat. Lifelong over-consumption of meat leads to poor health, and the meat industry is one of the worst polluters in the nation.

Something that should be intuitively obvious is that, according to www.TaxMeat.com, the link between heart disease and meat consumption is just as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer.

No one would ever suggest that non-smokers should be forced to pay for a smoker’s lung surgery or that non-drinkers pay for an alcoholic’s kidney transplant. Likewise, vegetarians and those who eat little meat should not be forced to pay for the high blood pressure medication, angioplasties and everything else that meat-eaters need just to stay alive after a life of artery-clogging flesh consumption and decades of meat rotting in their colons.

Only a communist would force people who do not eat meat to pay for the health expenses incurred by the consumption of animal flesh. The solution is to either tax meat or stop all Medicare spending for meat consumption-related illnesses.

The second reason meat must be taxed is to compensate for the enormous environmental damage done by raising meat for food. Many meat industry insiders like to point out that some of the land used to raise animals for food (almost always cattle) cannot be used to raise vegetable crops.

They ignore the fact that, according to the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, 90 percent of all grain crops are cycled into the meat industry. In addition, they point out that an acre of soybeans feeds 60 people whereas only two people — usually from wealthy, industrialized nations — can be fed if the same acre is used to raise cattle.

This means that we could have an instant and substantial increase in land returned to its natural state of pristine forests and prairies and a subsequent decrease in the use of nitrogenous fertilizers and pesticides that pollute our rivers and lakes, if we made a small sacrifice of only eating half as much meat as we do today.

The meat industry has already thumbed its nose at the environment. The only solution is to levy a tax on their product that encourages less consumption and helps make up for the damage done.

I have no doubt that eating meat is here for the long haul. It is a nutrient-dense source of fat and sodium which are necessary, in limited amounts, in a healthy diet.

The issue is not whether or not people should eat meat, but if the meat industry should pay their fair share when it comes to the health and environmental consequences of the consumption of their product.

It is time to cut the subsidies that keep the price of their products artificially low at the expense of the American taxpayer and for meat consumers to pay their fair share for the damage caused by the consumption of flesh.

It is time to tax meat.