Los Angeles judge orders warning labels on coffee, which is the natural result of an initiative process unmoored by common sense.

'As civilization “grows more maudlin and hysterical” it tends “to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes,” argued H.L. Mencken. He added that “the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” It’s hard to argue with those points, especially in light of the latest court battle over California’s zany public-health laws.

Last week, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled that Starbucks and other coffee retailers are in hot water because they don’t slap labels on coffee warning that drinking it might cause cancer, birth defects, or risks to drinkers’ reproductive health. The effects could be severe: California coffee companies face penalties of $2,500 for every person who has been exposed to unlabeled coffee since 1986, when voters approved something known as Proposition 65."

Story by Steven Greenhut at the American Spectator