Editorial: Drinking fizz will never go down well

My name is Kelly Makiha and I am a (diet) Coca-Cola addict.

These days I like to think I am reformed.

I've gone from drinking more than 10 cans of full sugar coke a day (about 15 years ago) to drinking one-to-two cans of diet coke daily. Nowadays, I'm down to treating myself on the odd occasion.

The first few days of cold turkey were the worst - shakes, headaches, lack of concentration.

I'm now in control of my addiction.

But there's no denying that when you hear the tab flip on a nice cold can, you can't wait to experience that first gulp that hits the back of your throat like a euphoric explosion.

Coca-Cola is addictive and potentially deadly - as revealed last week during the coroner's hearing into the death of Natasha Marie Harris.

She drank 7.5 litres of Coca-Cola a day.

The 30-year-old died from a cardiac arrhythmia but she also had severe hypokalemia, which is a lack of potassium in the blood. This was probably as a result of her coke-drinking habit.

Her family are furious with the fizzy drink giant and are calling for warning labels to go on the drink.

Yes, Coca-Cola is bad for you. The same goes for eating too much fast food, playing outside barefeet in the cold and working too hard. Most people know drinking fizz isn't a healthy option. We don't need a label on the bottle informing us. Where would we draw the line?

New Zealand's legal system denies us the right to sue for personal injury, including death, except in pursuit of exemplary damages for intentional or reckless negligence, which Coca-Cola clearly isn't guilty of. It's always easy to blame someone else for your own poor choices.