TEMPEST OVER A SMALL POT

The storm of attention that broke over University of Connecticut basketball
player Khalid El-Amin for his marijuana arrest was really nothing but a
tempest in a trophy cup.

El-Amin had the misfortune to get caught buying his small amount of
marijuana a few days before the state's orgiastic celebration of UConn's
winning the national college basketball championship - a moment when the
spotlight was tightly focused. As a result, untold parents wrung their
collective hands and fretted about the fall of a role model. Latter-day
Billy Sundays pounded their pulpits and thundered about the dangers of
marijuana.

The problem with all of this righteous fuss is that America's primary drug
problem is not marijuana, but alcohol.

While drug abuse of any kind is not to be condoned, the hypocrisy of the
uproar must be observed. To treat El-Amin's arrest as a momentous, even
scandalous, event when high school and college athletes develop far more
serious problems far more regularly from alcohol abuse is absurd.

Without doubt, the largest drug problem facing us is alcohol. But we treat
this problem with less severity. We do not cast the same opprobrium upon it
as we do other drugs and, in fact, alcohol is seen by some as a natural part
of the machismo that accompanies the sporting culture.

When experts - law enforcement officials, social workers, and others - go
into school to lecture about substance abuse, the focus is on drugs like
marijuana and cocaine, not alcohol, which would almost invariably provide a
handy and tangible lesson.

One only need look to the case of Cheshire football star Jason Dellaselva
whose troubles stemmed from drinking. Very few at the center of that
incident spent any visible energy considering the harmful role of alcohol.
The Cheshire police have had far more complaints about noisy keg parties
than noisy bong parties, although the two probably intersect at various
points.

El-Amin's celebrity undoubtedly inflated the attention given his arrest.
While far from praiseworthy, however, it would have been best treated as
what it was: a minor arrest involving a minor drug that is a minor part of a
major problem.