The only thing Ralph David Abernathy III might be guilty of is hypocrisy.
I am no fan of State Senator Ralph David Abernathy III. But the
holier-than-thou war being mounted against him for attempting to
smuggle a tiny amount of marijuana through the Atlanta airport is
making me sick.

Gov. Miller has denounced Abernathy's act as "outrageous." Lt.
Governor Pierre Howard is working with other oh-so-shocked
legislators to craft new laws to punish lawmakers who commit
similar sins.

What's the big deal? Abernathy is an adult. What he chooses to
put into his own body should be his own business.
Some argue that Abernathy should be punished simply because he
broke the law. But bad laws deserve neither our respect nor our
obedience. The laws prohibiting the use, possession and sale of
marijuana are similarly idiotic and despotic.

Indeed, marijuana is far safer than the most popular legal
recreational drugs in America, alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol and
tobacco kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year.
Those who today enjoy beer or wine, yet condemn Abernathy for
possessing marijuana, should pause and reflect that, a mere few
decades ago, booze - not marijuana - was illegal. Alcohol was
outlawed between 1920 and 1933. Eventually the country came to
its senses, and booze was re-legalized.

Marijuana was perfectly legal in America well into this century.
The federal government didn't outlaw pot until 1937, and then
only after Congress was bamboozled by a sordid propaganda
campaign of outright lies.

Just as our grandparents rebelled against alcohol Prohibition,
today millions of Americans are rebelling against pot
prohibition. According to the federal Department of Health and
Human Services, 10 million Americans smoke marijuana monthly, and
about 20 million use it yearly. And many more Americans like me,
who have never touched the stuff, view the war against it as a
terrible injustice.

Rather than attacking Abernathy, we should be aiming our deepest
contempt at politicians like President Clinton, Vice President Al
Gore, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich - all of whom smoked pot in
college, suffered no ill effects whatsoever from it, and yet
today wage a savage (and politically-motivated) war against
others who merely choose, as they themselves once did, to smoke
the same substance.

Which brings me to the one good reason there might be for
attacking Abernathy. Does he favor keeping marijuana illegal? If
so, then he should indeed be booted out of office. Not for
smuggling dope, but for outrageous and disgusting hypocrisy - a
hypocrisy unfortunately shared by many other
politicians.

James Harris