WASHINGTON -- The president of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council challenges critics of President Obama's Ukraine policy by saying "What are you going to do, send the 101st Airborne into Crimea?" Not exactly subtle. And rather silly, considering that no one has proposed such a thing.

Florida Republicans must come to grips with a bill introduced by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, and Rep. Katie Edwards, D-Plantation, to legalize a strain of marijuana effective in helping children with certain conditions as well as a constitutional amendment placed on the ballot by Orlando lawyer John Morgan to legalize medicinal marijuana as prescribed by a doctor. Republicans should support both.

WASHINGTON -- In September 1958, a future columnist, then 17, was unpacking as a college freshman when upperclassmen hired by tobacco companies knocked on his dormitory door, distributing free mini-packs of cigarettes. He and many other aspiring sophisticates became smokers. Six years later -- 50 years ago: Jan. 11, 1964 -- when the Surgeon General published the report declaring tobacco carcinogenic, more than 40 percent of American adults smoked. Today, when smoking is considered declassee rather than sophisticated, fewer than one-fifth do.