Los Angeles Times' columnist George Skelton usually is a sensible guy. But not his latest piece, which calls Proposition 31—a referendum on a law that bans the retail sale of flavored tobacco, including most vaping and smokeless nicotine products—one of the "easiest 'yes' votes you'll ever find." That's because, in his view, it benefits children.
Protecting people from themselves isn't easy—and sometimes the "sensible" policy doesn't make much sense upon closer scrutiny. When it comes to this statewide ballot measure, I prefer the advice of the far more cynical journalist, the late H.L. Mencken, who declared that, "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."
