CRASH-TEST DUMMIES CAN'T INHALE

Shocking news from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
"Marijuana & Alcohol Combined Increase Impairment." The stunning
revelation--finally dispelling the collegiate myth that a beer and a joint
cancel each other out--comes from an NHTSA-backed study conducted by the
Institute for Human Psychopharmacology at Maastricht University in the
Netherlands.

The study is "the second of a series of studies . . . to assess the separate
and combined effects of marijuana and alcohol on driving," a June NHTSA
newsletter says. The three studies will cost a total $620,000, and that's
"money well spent," NHTSA spokesman Timothy Hurd said yesterday.

And why was the Netherlands selected? The official word is because that
university has the equipment and experience to conduct such a test under
real conditions. Or could it be that Dutch laws on dope are more amenable to
this form of research than U.S. laws?

"Eighteen subjects between the ages of 20 and 28" participated, the
newsletter said. "Each participant was dosed [not doused] with marijuana
alone, alcohol alone, a combination of marijuana and alcohol," the
newsletter said, or given a placebo.

"On a given test evening after dark," we are told, the drivers smoked some
weed, drank some booze--or placebos--and "then waited 30 minutes to begin
driving tests."

But this is not one of those "simulated" studies. These wasted characters
"drove each of the two 25-mile-long tests on real roads with real traffic"
[emphasis added] at speeds over 60 mph in order to test control, braking and
general reactions.

Not to worry. They were "accompanied by a driving instructor with separate
dual controls." Talk about bravery.

The conclusion, which boomers may have suspected all along, was that while
alcohol at a blood-alcohol level of .10 percent, which had been the
traditional legal limit in many states, is far worse than a bit of weed
alone, the combination of the two, even in small amounts, is exceptionally
deadly.

So don't do it.

In case you're wondering, the third study is underway and it's unlikely more
volunteers are needed.

Go, West

Nothing is worse in a humid Washington summer than a lame duck. Take
Veterans Affairs Secretary Togo D. West Jr. A day after White House
officials said West had told them he plans to leave the Cabinet, he called
the veterans service organizations together yesterday morning to assure them
that word of his departure was premature.

"I'm not going anywhere," one aide quoted him as saying. Washington
translation: It could be several months before West departs from his Vermont
Avenue digs.

VA officials said that West, who never really wanted the VA job but took it
because President Clinton insisted he move over from his Army secretaryship,
did say he would "consider his options" after the fiscal 2000 budget is in
place and plans for the 2001 VA budget have been drafted. Such a delay is
troubling, no doubt, to Bobby L. Harnage, president of the American
Federation of Government Employees, which represents thousands of VA workers
and has bitterly warred with West for many months.

Harnage's public advice to West: "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Quotations of Chairman Tony

Gore 2000 campaign chairman Tony Coelho has by now settled into his new,
decidedly downscale, digs in the headquarters on K Street NW. Even if he
tried to spiff it up, his new office could never be as sumptuous as the one
he had when he was a senior official a couple of years ago at
TeleCommunications Inc., the cable TV giant just bought by AT&T.

Big offices are commonplace in Washington, a town of very, very big people.
But Coelho's, sources recall with awe, had two extraordinary features.
First, Coelho, who was in charge of TCI's high-tech educational and training
venture, had an enormous saltwater fish tank and filtration system--with
weekly cleaning service--that effectively separated his office from an
elegant conference room.

And there was a lovely carpet with famous quotations about education
custom-woven into it, so you could gain wisdom by reading them walking in or
going out.

Now that's something worth doing in the campaign office. Famous quotations
about politics? What could they be? "No controlling legal authority"? Or
maybe Vice President Gore's impeachment day offering that Clinton "will be
regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents"?

It's going to be difficult to replicate the old office. Coelho's new one has
some cheapo, grayish-purple carpet squares that would be hard to weave
anything into, a campaign spokesman said. Probably have to silkscreen.

And the fish tank? Sold when he left the old office.

It's Official . . .

Clinton has nominated veteran intellectual property lawyer Q. Todd Dickinson
to be assistant secretary of commerce and commissioner of patents and
trademarks. Dickinson has been deputy assistant secretary and deputy
commissioner at the department, and has been acting patent and trademark
czar since Jan. 1, after Bruce A. Lehman left.