THE PROF'S PUFFS

Our old friend, the distinguished Harvard Law School professor
Charles Nesson, is up to some new tricks. Nesson, otherwise known as
"Billion-Dollar Charlie" because of his inclination to sue for vast
sums, last appeared in the column for posting a nasty e-mail exchange
between two law school colleagues on his evidence-class Web site.

His latest Internet posting is a real trip. It's an audiotape of his
interview with the prestigious Harvard Law Record, in which Nesson
brags that he has long used illegal drugs, including marijuana and
LSD, and occasionally before delivering lectures to his students, who
- -- not counting room and board -- pay $27,500 annually to hear
Nesson's thoughts (in addition to the wisdom of his colleagues).

"I guess it would have been 1966 when I first smoked marijuana and
then did LSD, like '69, something like that," Nesson is heard telling
the Record's Owen Alterman. "Well, it came along with the period. I
tried cocaine once and got nothing from it, and that was that. And
I've tried ecstasy and amphetamines some in college. I remember
Dexedrine got me through statistics. And that's basically it. I don't
do any drugs now except marijuana."

The renowned legal scholar explained that he likes to have a puff or
two of marijuana -- "that's all it takes, my boy" -- on his morning
walks. On a morning before he teaches class, Alterman asked? "I don't
do it on a morning before I have class," Nesson replied. Have you
done ever it before class? Alterman pressed. "Yes, yes," Nesson
replied.

Yesterday, we asked the professor to clarify.

"No, not immediately before class," Nesson told us. "When Owen asked
me if it had ever had any effect on my classes, I responded that the
things I think about naturally affect anything I do. I don't
guarantee that nothing negative comes out."

Alterman's questions about Nesson's drug use were prompted, it seems,
by an e-mail he sent his students from a recent trip to Jamaica.
"Jamaican marijuana is at least to me of the same quality as Jamaican
blue mountain coffee," he told Alterman. "Extraordinary. And very
expressive of Jamaica."

As for this column, Nesson, 63, cautioned us not to be "snide or
salacious or snickering. . . . I think that the serious question that
this touches on is one of hypocrisy and how people deal with it, how
law deals with it, how I deal with it." He refused to tell us where
he gets the drugs.

"These kids come to me and there's probably not one of them who
hasn't used a forged ID. Probably not one of them -- maybe not one or
two -- who've never violated a drug law. But most of the kids I'm
talking to are already schooled in illegal underage drinking and
experimentation with small violations of law."

At this writing, Harvard Law School spokesman Michael Rodman said the
law school "declined to comment," but we're still hoping for further
guidance from the Harvard administration.

Until then, all we can say is: Groovy, baby! Yeah!