THE WRONG SIGNALS

NEW YORK Mayor Michael Bloomberg probably wishes he had kept his mouth shut
last year when a New York magazine reporter asked him if he had ever smoked
marijuana. He responded, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it."

This is the essentially the same question that got former President Bill
Clinton in trouble when he famously claimed he hadn't inhaled -- a comment
that immediately passed into the lore of "Slick Willie." Mr. Bloomberg's
more forthright answer has also come back to haunt him. The National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws will use the mayor's remark
as the centerpiece of its campaign to urge the city to stop arresting and
jailing marijuana smokers. The mayor says the city will continue making
drug arrests, no matter what he may have blurted out in the past.

He could have helped himself last year by tempering his honesty with a
comment that he, like many others of his generation, did some dumb and
regrettable things when he was younger. He might have gone on to explain
that pot-smoking is irresponsible, illegal, a bad habit and should remain
banned except for a narrow exception for medicinal use.

Mr. Bloomberg is trying to enforce a zero tolerance policy for firefighters
who used to be disciplined but not fired after being charged with drug
possession or failing drug tests. That's one reason the mayor needs to set
a good example, beginning with what he says about personal drug use.

Yale University, meanwhile, has announced that it will reimburse students
who lose financial aid because of convictions for drug possession. Three
other schools -- Hampshire College, Swarthmore College and Western
Washington University -- already have adopted similar policies to
circumvent the federal "Drug-Free Student Aid" law. Enacted in 1988, the
law has been enforced only since President George W. Bush has been in office.

A Yale spokesman sidestepped the drug issue by saying its policy stems from
"a desire that Yale student not have their education interrupted because
they could no longer afford school."

Left unsaid is the message that this sanitized comment sends. Like the
remark by Mayor Bloomberg, Yale implies that the elite should be judged by
a more lenient standard. No wonder we're no closer to winning the war
against drugs.