> This isn't the right definition of success. The first minimal requirement for this to be a successful initiative is that the community lost weight overall. Or even gained weight, but more slowly than other communities.

But if cigarettes are the thing preventing people from buying heroin with the money you deterred them from using to buy soda, that doesn't mean that the soda money is going someplace better than it was before your law, it only implies that "well then we just need a higher tax on cigarettes" wouldn't be a beneficial solution.