ASIDES

These Are Personal Views Of Members Of The Editorial Board.

BILL CLINTON, George Pataki, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bradley. Alan
Hevesi, Mary Donohue, Connie Mack, Lawton Chiles, Fernando Ferrer, Ruth
Messinger and now New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. What do all these
highly successful people have in common? They all admit having smoked
marijuana at some point in their illustrious lives.

I don't think teens or pre-teens should use intoxicants of any kind. And
marijuana is not a totally innocuous drug (there is no such thing), despite
claims of proponents. But for this long list of high- profile people,
marijuana wasn't the gateway to addiction and ruin that antidrug crusaders
paint it to be.

We should stop jailing thousands of people every year and criminalizing
sick people for doing what we realistically dismiss as a youthful
indiscretion of people trusted to run the nation, state and city. That kind
of hypocrisy won't help the nation win its war on drugs.

Alvin Bessent

A STATE POLICE crackdown on aggressive drivers has brought to the
imagination of most non-aggressive drivers their favorite outrages. Here's
mine:

The less-than-optimal entrance ramps on Long Island's parkways do not leave
drivers room to accelerate properly before entering the stream of traffic.
Crazed drivers make it worse: Perversely, they assume they have the right
of way and cars zipping past on the parkway should yield to them. So they
enter recklessly and act aggrieved if you don't veer out of harm's way and
let them in.

Traffic gurus say: Don't sit at the bottom of the entrance ramp, next to
fast-moving traffic, and jump onto the road from a dead stop. Do stop as
far up the entrance ramp as you can, wait for a good gap in traffic, then
accelerate to enter the parkway at sufficient speed. And remember: Those
already on the main road have the right of way.

Bob Keeler

MY FAVORITE highway outrage is drivers leaving the Long Island Expressway.
At the exit I cross paths with regularly, motorists come charging off the
LIE full tilt and demand drivers on the service road to get out of their
way. Over the years I've been assured by state highway officials that it is
the service-road traffic that has the right of way. But over those same
years the state has ignored the need to install "Yield" signs at LIE exits,
so that the high flyers would at least not have ignorance as an excuse.

Phineas Fiske

HONESTLY, PHINEAS, do you really think signs would do any good? My gripe is
cars that speed through family neighborhoods, utterly ignoring the speed
limit, endangering moms, dads and kids.

I live near a crosswalk that has been brick-paved to create a low speedbump
to "calm" traffic. A speed limit sign says "15." In recent weeks, new
neon-green stanchions have been installed warning that pedestrians have the
right of way.

Ha. The signs don't work. While walking the dog, I see cars speed so
aggressively over the crosswalk that they become airborne. In my fantasy,
an aircraft-carrier-type tailhook rises from the crosswalk and grabs the
speeder's bumper, pulling the car up short. The driver would get the
message dramatically, and the dog and I would have a good laugh.

Carol Richards

These are personal views of members of the editorial board.