California’s nanny state comes out in two proposed laws. One makes sense | Opinion

The new legislative session is underway in Sacramento, and already two Democrat-sponsored bills have the nanny-state factor.

Assembly Bill 1136 would put the state in charge of a new pension fund. Nothing surprising there. But it is the beneficiaries of the fund that are unexpected: retiring MMA fighters.

The other proposal of note is Assembly Bill 935. It would ban the sale of tobacco products to any person born on or after Jan. 1, 2007. The ban would continue indefinitely. Like, forever. Today’s 16-year-olds could never buy any tobacco product, if this bill becomes law.

Here are more details:

MMA pensions

Mixed martial arts, as it is formally known, pits two men or two women in a tight ring wherein they try to pummel each other into submission, or “tapping out” as it is called. MMA involves a lot of punching, like boxing, but also allows kicking.

California already manages a pension fund for boxers. Unlike boxing, there is no pension awaiting MMA fighters once they hang up their gloves.

So Assemblyman Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, has proposed a bill to extend pension help to fighters in the MMA ring. His means for funding the pension is a $1 surcharge on every MMA ticket sold. It is only right that fans who want to watch MMA fighters knock themselves silly should also help provide some retirement assistance.

So what seems at first blush as yet another California special-interest deal — a pension for the small world of MMA athletes — is actually a well-focused tax, not a general one. The Legislature should approve it.

Tobacco ban

Assembly Bill 935 would prohibit sales of any tobacco products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007. Sellers who violate the law would face an escalating scale of fines and possible suspension or revocation of their license to sell tobacco products.

A tobacco product is defined as anything “derived from tobacco or nicotine that is intended for human consumption, whether smoked, heated, chewed, absorbed, dissolved, inhaled, snorted, sniffed, or ingested by any other means, including, but not limited to, cigarettes, cigars, little cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, vaping liquid, or snuff.”

To be clear, there is nothing commendable about tobacco use. Smoking tobacco is highly addictive and causes various forms of cancer. About 30% of all cancer deaths are attributed to smoking, the American Cancer Society said last year.

Even so, the freedom to choose as an adult is a sacred right. Californians should still have the right to decide if they want to smoke or not. If they do, they will encounter myriad rules governing where they can light up, which is a proper role of government.

Besides, the number of Californians smoking cigarettes — the dominant form of tobacco use — has steadily declined since 1998, according to the state Tobacco Control Program. Now about 10% of adults are cigarette smokers, compared to nearly 25% in 1998.

Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, is AB 935’s sponsor. He is a former Marin County supervisor who in 2018 led an effort there to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products. Connolly has said his intention is to make sure young people do not become addicted. The price alone should do the trick: the average cost in California for a pack of cigarettes is $8.14.

At a time when it is legal to smoke marijuana in California, banning tobacco by age is going too far.

Both bills carry the specter of California as the ultimate nanny state. But one makes a lot of sense. Yes to pensions for retired MMA fighters; no to an overreaching tobacco control measure.