I really don't see how anyone with two eyes and a lick of sense was under the impression that Bill Bennett, the drug czar with the tobacco habit, was in any way allowing his virtues to overrule his desires in the first place.

I mean, really.



edit: Maybe I shouldn't leave it there. I haven't cited an authority yet.

...prevention involves more than simply teaching that drug use is wrong. It entails making drugs scarcer, more expensive and less pure. When drugs are more readily available, more people try them and more people become addicted.

Once users are addicted, we must do what we can to free addicts from the grip of drugs. We should make treatment -- effective treatment -- more available. But effective treatment entails more than just filling slots in centers. To promote truly effective treatment, we must first recognize that treatment doesn't always work and that even the best treatment works only some of the time.

Approximately half of all addicts fail to complete the treatment programs that they enter. For those who do complete a good treatment program, there is about a 75 percent chance they will still be drug-free in five years. In other words, of those who enter a sound treatment program, we can expect about 38 percent to be cured.

One clear fact about drug treatment is that success in treatment is a function of time in treatment. And time in treatment is often a function of coercion -- being forced into treatment by a loved one, an employer or, as is often the case, the legal system. People who are forced to enter treatment under legal sanctions are more likely to complete treatment programs and thus more likely to get well. If we treat drug use as a purely medical problem, and treatment as something that can be only voluntarily taken up, fewer people will enter treatment -- and those who enter treatment are less likely to get well...

So, contrary to Mr. Bennett's view that his personal sins (addiction, gluttony, gambling) are his own business because he can afford and handle them, we have this stern assertion that government regulation of personal behavior is necessary and good because of the people who have a vice, some will be addicted, and of those, some may be unable or unwilling to respond to treatment. The risk to that subset of a subset of the larger group makes it imperative that we take legal action against all users, to deter those who might fall into the smaller group.

The inflexible solon who does away with Mr. Bennett's situationally convenient ethical stance here is, of course, Mr. Bennett.

On the other hand, he assures us that only people who can't "handle it" should stay away from gambling (and, presumably, his other pet diversions).

It is rather a shame, I think, that there are no Good Things in this world that were more urgently in need of funding with eight million dollars than Mr. Bennett's need for an adrenaline rush, but we have to keep some perspective.

It's not as if he were a cancer patient smoking pot.