DRUG CZAR SKIRTS S.F. PROPOSAL TO GROW ITS OWN

Moment worthy of Cheech and Chong: Thursday morning the Bush
administration's drug czar, John Walters, pulled up in front of The
Chronicle with a CHP and Secret Service escort. Two minutes after the drug
czar went into the building, a homeless guy staggered by smoking a joint.
The CHP and Secret Service guys didn't bat an eye.

In his meeting with The Chronicle editorial board, Walters avoided the
issue of whether he'd scramble the helicopters and special forces if San
Francisco becomes a marijuana-producing nation within a nation. Walters is
no mindless brute or puritan, but a knowledgeable guy who can cite scary
statistics on teenage marijuana use and the ill effects of weed as shown by
brain scans -- something that might be given to some of our city officials.

Walters said he only knew what he'd read in the papers about Supervisor
Mark Leno's proposal that San Francisco should grow its own pot, perhaps
using poor people and homeless as cultivators.

"I've seen a lot of bad things done to poor people in my time," said
Walters, "but to turn them into drug producers . . ."

This bud's for us. There are too many jokes about drugs, as Walters said.
Not all are great, but what the heck. Alan Tobey says San Francisco's
municipal marijuana should be called "Willie Weed." Where's Caen when we
need him? They always said this was the city of Herb. Baggies, dad, by the bay.

Richard Lewin writes from British Columbia to brag about its highly potent
"B.C. Bud" (Walters recently was in B.C. trying to figure out how to keep
it from finding its way here.) Lewin says, "Maybe I can help. Hydroponics
on every high-rise!"

Except that pointy one, of course. But there's already a garden planned for
the roof of the Academy of Sciences' new building, and Yerba Buena Gardens
means "Good herb gardens."

Enough jokes. The serious question for voters, as a headline writer at this
paper once wrote, will be: "Doobie or not doobie."

Not much grass in this park: Merchants got a chuckle from Mayor Willie
Brown's remark the other day about the redesigned Union Square: "In the
world of mayors, I'll get credit for this square," he said. "It's up to my
successor to figure out how to pay for it."

He was joking -- I hope and Gavin hopes. There was an ingenious
public-private scheme to pay for it through the parking garage, and some of
the ancillary work was done pro bono by local firms. It was an
old-fashioned barn-raising, hold the barn, raise the handrails and raze any
place the homeless could sleep.

Brown said the pigeons are having their own opening of Union Square, but "I
have 18 months left to keep the pigeons out." I don't think he was joking.
Micromanaging may be for the birds, but he loves it.

Let's give credit to Bill Maher (the former supervisor, although he enjoys
being politically incorrect). Maher, who was out front on issues like
tearing down the grotesque Embarcadero Freeway, went to Linda Mjellem of
the Union Square Association and said something had to be done about Union
Square.

"First you have to tear down the condos," Maher said. What condos? "The
hedges the homeless sleep behind," said Maher.

Working on the Cheney gang: Scoop Nisker says that even if George W. Bush
isn't guilty of insider trading, he's guilty of insider governing.
"Oil-Qaeda" has taken over our government, says Scoop.

"Whatever happened to Ken Lay?" asks an angry reader, who had seen pictures
of cable mogul John Rigas being pushed into a car by federal agents. "I'd
like to see Lay pushed into a car. He probably hurt more people than that
guy did."

As Al Franken said, referring to the late Paul Tsongas' statement that no
man on his deathbed ever said he wished he had spent more time at the
office: "It's quite possible that some former Enron or Arthur Andersen
executive will use his last breath to say, 'I wish I had spent more time at
the office and less time in prison.' "

We're still waiting.

This just in. I've been leaked a copy of Republican gubernatorial candidate
Bill Simon's education plan: Every kid in California gets a copy of "Moby-
Dick" and has two hours to read it and write a report. Call him fish meal.