LATEST HYPOCRISY ON SUBJECT OF DRUGS

Teenage boys might be forgiven if the government's mixed drug message comes
off as just more adult hypocrisy.

"Don't do drugs" and "don't do steroids" are among the powerful admonitions
aimed at young people in general and young men in particular. Baseball
players already have confused the steroid issue, but now the government,
too, is looking for "a better warrior through chemistry."

It seems the nation's military services are doing serious research into how
they can better produce drug-enhanced warriors, the sort who can go for
days under extreme conditions with limited supplies and no sleep.

What the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has in mind
is a "radical approach" meant to achieve "continuous assisted performance"
for up to a week. That, for those young people not yet familiar with
government legalese, means better and longer performance through drugs.

The military has a long history of combat-induced use of amphetamines
followed by "downers" that force sleep. This was a cycle that some U.S.
pilots say they used to their benefit during the Persian Gulf War. But
other observers are skeptical. They warn that the risks of drug use by
military personnel - even controlled use - differ little from the potential
hazards that face civilian users. Those risks include unwanted side
effects, such as paranoia or misdirected aggression, and possible addiction.

Moreover, there is little doubt the military's promotion of "assisted
performance" is a far cry from "Just Say No." For young men, then, the
message from the government is "don't do this" or we will continue to fill
prisons with your drug-abusing kind. Unless of course, you abuse them for us.

It probably has young people shaking their heads. But, in fact, this is not
the only time the U.S. government has said one thing and done another.

For years, it propped up Southern tobacco farmers with price supports. Now
it is suing them for having promoted an unhealthy product, conveniently
forgetting it was government itself that helped make those sales possible.

That very same government has long paid farmers not to grow certain crops,
despite the fact that kids go to bed hungry in America every night. Other
examples are easy to cite.

Thus, teens are not the only ones who have been confused by the government.

The warrior enhancements are sometimes couched in odd phrases - "ergogenic
substances," for example, rather than the plainer "drugs." But sometimes
not. In one part of a memo outlining military objectives, blood doping is a
suggested method.

Just say no, then, until we tell you to say yes. Now that's clarity.