While we all sympathize with the intent of making the world a better place, and healthier too, the problem you have to deal with on this very slippery slope is who decides what is bad? Is it science? A voting majority? Some committee or elected official? In an era where we are trying to foster new feelings of diversity and inclusiveness, doesn't such penalty taxes create instant new disenfranchised groups - and angry ones at that? Isn't such a practice really an urban intellectual elitist power play against lower socio-economic ostracized consumer groups? You may think everyone agrees with soda or junk food being bad, but what's next - extra taxes for meat? Carbs? Ice cream? See the problem? History shows penalty taxes generate additional revenue, but operate like a compressed spring and have a tendency to eventually explode into extreme polarization and revolutions.
