THE LATEST DRUG WAR IS JUST SMOKE AND MIRRORS

I'm convinced the people in charge of America's drug war are smoking crack.

If I ever had even the slightest doubt about how out of touch with reality
our attorney general and Drug Enforcement Administration are, it was erased
last week when Operation Pipe Dreams was revealed to the public.

This newest addition to the 30-year failure that is the war on drugs is a
taxpayer-funded sting aimed at -- you ready for this -- Internet sales of
pipes and bongs that might be used to smoke pot.

This is comically stupid, even by the standards of the DEA, whose
stormtroopers have wasted three decades and tens of billions of your dollars
on a war that hasn't dented America's drug problem. The war on drugs is the
greatest social and economic failure -- bar none -- in recent American
history largely because the dopes in charge of it never fail to come up with
ideas like this.

Even if Operation Pipe Dreams were to achieve its mission of bong
eradication, it would succeed only in maybe forcing college kids to
temporarily go back to rolling joints again.

Marijuana is the low man on the totem poll. It's the jaywalking of
narcotics. It isn't addictive, it doesn't make you steal your mama's
pocketbook and the people who sell it and use it are generally not violent.
Compared to half the poison you can buy at your local liquor store or
pharmacy, it may as well be a Flintstones vitamin.

And don't give me that gateway drug crap. Yes, most heroin and cocaine
addicts started with pot, but most people who smoke pot tried cigarettes or
alcohol first. If cigarettes or alcohol were illegal, they would be the
gateway drugs.

But none of that matters because, although it shouldn't be, pot is illegal.
But even the police are smart enough to use their limited resources in order
of priority. The people who sell drugs are prosecuted harder than the people
who use them, because bottom-to-top drug enforcement would be a pretty silly
endeavor.

But the federal government -- the guys in charge of our country -- have
skipped the people who sell and distribute pot, skipped the people who smoke
pot and used your nickel for a ridiculous sting operation targeting the Web
sites that sell things people might use to smoke pot with.

I really admire that. With Abbott districts and sleeper cells and
non-existent arts programs screaming for a home in the federal checkbook,
these geniuses had the foresight to realize that water pipes are what's
killing America.

If this doesn't work, I say we go after those lava lamps next.

Forget for a moment that alcohol and tobacco -- the most addictive and
destructive poisons we've ever invented for ourselves -- are perfectly
legal. Forget that in thousands of years of recorded usage, not one death
has ever been attributed to marijuana. Forget that 80 million Americans who
are otherwise law-abiding citizens admitted in the federal government's own
survey that they have smoked pot.

If you need some insight into the senselessness of the bong patrol's
priorities, look no further than the state of the union.

Out of the 20 most industrialized nations on Earth, America boasts the
highest rate of firearm deaths, rapes, child firearm murders, child
suicides, highway deaths and births to mothers under the age of 20. Of these
nations, we consume the most oil and natural gas, we produce the largest
amount of hazardous waste, we have the lowest voter turnout and produce the
worst eighth-grade math scores.

The "compassionate" conservatives who rule this land have these same
statistics on hand. They're the ones who gave them to me. Yet, they've
thrown the full weight of the criminal justice system behind an effort to
spoil late-night dorm room fun.

If you can sort through this mess and agree with John Ashcroft that
Operation Pipe Dreams is anything but ridiculous, I have just two questions
for you: What have you been smoking, and where can I get some?