THE VOTERS WANT HONESTY, NOT PURITY

Lies about puffing pot are seen as worse than the act

Susan Molinari, Bob Dole's keynoter, got more heat for admitting she
lied four years ago about smoking marijuana than for admitting recently
that she'd taken a few puffs in her college days.

That's not surprising. Bill Clinton defined his character inadvertantly
and indelibly when he said he'd smoked marijuana but didn't inhale.

Voters want integrity in politicians above all other virtues. A little
honest sin beats phony purity any day.

Molinari's double confession reflects the double vision of marijuana in
our society: Officially, it's treated as a criminal drug that leads to
addiction. Realistically, marijuana use is considered a youthful
indiscretion that leads nowhere in particular.

In a July 26 interview, Rep. Molinari, 38, said, "I did experiment with
marijuana less than a handful of times," while attending State
University of New York at Albany in the early 1980s. She added that now
she knows, "It was the wrong thing to do."

In a 1992 interview, Molinari denied ever ever trying marijuana, saying
it was "not really available" in college.

Molinari says she lied in '92 because she panicked. "It was an initial
panic to a question that I believe every person in America dreads."

She feared not living up to an unrealistically goody-goody image.

But youthful marijuana use is not a deep dark secret in American
closets. Everybody knows that lots of people have tried marijuana, and
that the vast majority did not become addicted to marijuana, much less
to heroin.

Among the former drug users in public life are Newt Gingrich and Al
Gore, neither of them the essence of "groovy".

In the course of defending the hiring of White House staffers with
recent serious drug use, Clinton's press secretary, Michael McCurry,
said "of course" he'd smoked marijuana in college. He was promptly
savaged by Republicans for offering the "everybody does it" defense,
thus normalizing the evil weed.

After the Molinari revelation "everybody did it" was advanced by none
other than Barry McCaffrey, the general turned drug policy director.
He called for an end to the "gotcha mentality" that got Molinari.
"Drug use was a generational thing, and we should just accept that and
move on," said McCaffrey.

The drug czar wants "people who used and rejected drugs able to talk
openly about this subject and say, 'I've seen the horrors of drugs, and
that's why I don't do them.'"

The horrors of marijuana? What about: Getting stoned is boring, stupid
and a waste of time. I don't do drugs because I have better things to
do with my life.

That would be accurate for most ex-pot smokers, and frankly a lot less
alluring than telling adolescents about forbidden "horrors". Horror is
a popular genre.

Perhaps the panic for most Americans comes when they're asked about
past marijuana use by their children. Baby-boomer parents don't want
their kids getting high on marijuana for the same reasons they don't
want them getting drunk on beer. It's a bad habit. It can be a symptom
of emotional trouble.

But parents, like politicians, should tell the truth.

Judging by the Republican Party platform, this will be an election
between the forces of absolute truth and the forces of drugs and
debauchery. Bob Dole, once the prince of darkness, is polishing his
halo.

It's nice to have a keynote speaker who can't pose as Virtue Triumphant.