DRUG TESTING IDEA A SOLUTION IN SEARCH OF PROBLEM

Finally, someone has had the courage to tackle the scourge of drug
abuse at the Statehouse, where legislating under the influence is a
problem of epidemic proportions.

Senators, stoned.

House members, half-baked.

It's like Woodstock, except with suits and comb-overs. Shoot, did you
see that a committee approved a bill last week naming an official
state grass?

Clearly, it's time for an intervention.

OK, enough kidding around. None of the above is remotely true except
for the part about the official state grass, and that designation
would go to little bluestem - not to anything you might find on
Willie Nelson's tour bus.

The reality is that a good many legislators probably wouldn't know
Thai stick from a Popsicle stick and would be surprised to learn that
those tiny glass "flower vases" sold at some convenience stores are
actually crack pipes. And even if lawmakers did have a taste for
narcotics, it would be hard to get away with drug use for long in the
very public and fiercely partisan environment of the
Legislature.

So it was hard not to snicker at Rep. Kasha Kelley's proposal to
start randomly drug-testing state legislators.

Or it would have been, anyway, if not for the fact that Kelley's
suggestion - which she apparently made with a straight face - would
result in a waste of perfectly good time and money if adopted.

Granted, there may be some legislators who go to work buzzed. As
House Minority Leader Paul Davis joked, that might explain some of
the Legislature's decisions.

Pretty funny, and so was watching legislators react to the proposal.
Talk about an awkward position. There's no pragmatic, urgent reason
for them to support Kelley's idea, which is a classic case of a
solution in search of a problem, but opposing it might suggest that
they're trying to avoid drug testing for some reason.

Like, you know, maybe they occasionally medicate themselves to get
through those committee hearings on the technical nuances of tax codes.

Is there drug use in the Legislature? Maybe. After all, it's a group
of 165 people and a lot of them are Baby Boomers or younger, so draw
your own conclusions. But it's safe to say drugs aren't a problem of
anywhere close to critical proportions. Unless they're absolute
geniuses at hiding it, lawmakers generally seem pretty square - or at
least discreet about where and when they walk on the wild side.

Here's hoping the proposal wafts away like a puff of smoke.

Ric Anderson agrees with a CJOnline visitor who said it would be more fun
to subject legislators to mandatory polygraph tests.