DRUG POLICY AND MY PAL, CAL

So what do you do with Cal Thomas? The man is one of the most widely
respected, widely read, widely controversial columnists around and has
been for years. I just wish I could figure him out.

Regarding tobacco, the venerable conservative columnist says that the
government shouldn't butt into our lives. "I do not like tobacco,"
confesses Cal in a July 18 column. "I choose not to smoke, inhale,
chew or dip it. But the Florida court decision awarding $144.8 billion
in punitive damages to 500,000 smokers is another example of big
government attempting to save us from ourselves."

"What ought to bother us as Americans is that, once again, government
has intruded on individual choice."

I'm with you, Cal. Nobody wants the government butting in with
messianic intentions of statist salvation.

Unless, of course, you're ... Cal Thomas.

What? The anti-buttinski supports butting-in?

Back in March 1996 Cal countered William F. Buckley Jr. and National
Review essayists for their work "declaring the war on drugs lost and
retreating from unsuccessful attempts to stop drug use" by arguing
that laws preventing people from damaging their bodies "have merit."
Apparently a lucky strike for the cigarette-smoking goose is a bad
trip for the bong-toking gander.

Cal defenders may counter that there is an important distinction here:
drugs are illegal, tobacco isn't. Been there, done that, bought the
hardcover -- to be specific, Thomas' 1993 book, "The Things That
Matter Most."

"The most popular drugs of choice (and the most addictive) are legal,"
explains Cal in part 3 of that book.

"Young people in the sixties responded to the condemnation they
received from adults from trying marijuana, LSD, and other illegal
drugs by pointing to their parents' liquor cabinet or refrigerated
beer, or the pack of cigarettes in their pockets or purses," recounts
Cal. "Parents argued, 'But alcohol and cigarettes are legal. Your
drugs are illegal.'" Apparently excited about the prospect of being
hoisted on his own petard, Cal follows that statement by adding that
the parents' "argument carried little moral weight. The kids saw drugs
as drugs, and they were right."

"...they were right."

Catch that? Cal says the government shouldn't tell you what to do
regarding tobacco, but then says it should regarding drugs, and then
says there's no real difference between tobacco or dope. "The kids saw
drugs as drugs, and they were right."

Does that make Cal wrong?

After all, if it's bad for the government to hound tobacco, why is it
OK to go after drugs?

In his March '96 column, Cal argues that if humans are "merely a more
complicated evolutionary product than a cabbage," then a utilitarian
standard should be introduced to see if we should ditch drug laws. He,
by the way, admits that the utilitarian arguments hold a lot of water,
specifically recapping problems with drug-law enforcement and
constitutional violations; that hard-core users are a small percentage
of the population; and that casual users are relatively harmless. But,
alas, for Cal, that's not good enough -- wanting instead a standard
more lasting and eternal than a cost vs. benefit analysis.

If "our bodies are 'Temples of God,'" he postulates, "and if laws are
for the purpose of restricting behavior that damages the temples of
those who are not constrained by a higher power, then anti-drug laws
have merit."

So anti-drug laws are good and justifiable because they prevent
godless people from abusing their bodies. Got it. But what about other
abuses?

"There are plenty of things not good for us and plenty more whose
manufacturers make questionable assertions in their advertising,"
writes Cal on July 18, defending tobacco companies and their
advertisements. "Dueling ads make claims that one product is superior
to a competitor's. The choice is left to the consumer." Unless,
apparently, that choice is drugs.

Considering Cal's previous statement about one drug being the same as
the next, I think that qualifies as petard shot No. 2.

Ready for No. 3? According to Cal in March '96, stuff that harms your
body should be restricted. Since in "The Things That Matter Most" Cal
points out that alcohol and tobacco kill more people every year than
"all other drugs combined," shouldn't that mean that Cal should
actually be supporting the tobacco suits? Possibly even pushing for
reinstatement of the Volstead Act?

Further, shouldn't he also be supporting federal drives to regulate
obesity? Fat kills and, according to a Sept. 16, 1999, Knight Ridder
report, some 97 million American adults (50 percent of us) are putting
more pressure on their floor joists than they should. So, if laws for
drugs are great, why not laws for gluttony? Why not have laws
regulating fat content in food and candy? Laws forcing diet and
exercise regimens? Imagine it: no-knock raids for contraband Twinkies;
beepers going off in high-school locker rooms because the five-crate
shipment of doughnuts just arrived; roaming wire taps looking for any
talk of cream-cheese Danishes.

Always wanting to stir up confusion, however, in his July 18 column on
the tobacco suit, Cal is worried about the same sorts of extremes. "If
the government will now determine whether a company deserves to be
punished when people use its legal products, we might reasonably ask
where this will stop," he notes, then specifically cites cases of
food, pornography, gambling and booze addictions.

So what's it going to be, Cal? If we don't want the feds going after
tobacco, booze, porn and chocolate mousse, then we shouldn't be urging
them to go after drugs. By your own argument in '96, after all, the
feds should do just that. Harm is harm and drugs are drugs -- type
hardly matters. How'd that go again? Oh yes: "Parents argued, 'But
alcohol and cigarettes are legal. Your drugs are illegal.' The
argument carried little moral weight. The kids saw drugs as drugs, and
they were right." If the kids are right, I don't know how you can be
too.

If you can think of any way to sort this out, I'd be very grateful --
because, and I think you'd agree with me, consistency is one of the
things that matters most.