We have it from Rep. Craig Frank, R-Pleasant Grove, that caffeine is a drug and kills babies, and therefore a sin tax should be levied against it ("Let's tax caffeine, legislator argues," Tribune , March 12).

So I looked up the studies. Indeed, a medical research team did identify a link between spontaneous abortion and consumption of more than 500 mg/day of caffeine -- about four cups of coffee or two to six 32-ounce soft drinks per day. Interestingly, the study concludes that an "increase in risk associated with caffeine is consistently present only among nonsmokers" ( New England Journal of Medicine 343:1849-1845). Perhaps, then, Utah needs a law requiring doctors to show expectant caffeine-drinking mothers pictures of fetuses and then to offer them a cigarette?

I have no objection to a "sin tax" on sugary, non-nutritional soft drinks, so long as those beverages favored by non-Mormons are not singled out for the honor. But once again it seems that religion is getting mixed up in governance -- and that, Rep. Frank, is the real sin.

Lee Kreutzer

Salt Lake City