(NLNS)--No, wait, there may be something to the federal government's campaign to combat drugs. Really.
I used to smoke. When I tried to quit, I got terrible cravings. But when they hit, I'd just buy a helicopter, a flame-thrower and a few air-to-ground missiles and the cravings would pass. Eventually, I kicked the habit. So maybe the feds are on the right track.
Arriving at the strategy the feds seek to use in the war on drugs was not as easy as getting divorced by putting a note on the refrigerator, invading Panama or voting for a Congressional pay raise. It took a few minutes. Some of the ideas studied included:
* Showing cocaine was high in cholesterol, sodium and poly-unsaturated fats. This was expected to have a great impact in California. Imagine what would happen to the demand if it was known that each snort of coke cut one-tenth of a second per mile off a jogger's time. The idea was dropped when a lab tech rolled up the study and smoked it.
* Aversion therapy. Hit addicts up the side of the head with a ballpeen hammer when they snorted up. This idea was dropped when tests subjects became addicted to getting hit up side the head with a ballpeen hammer. * It was also decided that cutting down the supply was a flawed strategy. It would just drive prices up and addicts would have to steal even larger TV sets to get high.
* Shifting the blame to the Democrats got some early attention because everybody blames them for everything else anyway and they were cheaper targets. Just blame the Democrats, the rationale went, snap a few sleezy pictures. destroy the Democratic Party and--viola!--announce the drug problem was solved. But the Demos took the White House and the Bimbo's Union recently got a wage increase so the idea was dropped. * A variation on that smoke and mirrors theme was to get some Middle East country to invade a neighbor, taking the public's attention off the drug problem. The idea was abandoned when nobody in the CIA could find a country dumb enough to buy into the scheme.
The current policy is based on a report issued by a committee chaired by CBS President Lawrence Tisch, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and CBS reporter Marvin Kalb. The "Larry, Curly and Moe Report" was also called "The ASN-9 Report."
The Report had three main brilliant political insights and nine lesser evils. They were:
1. Anything. Do anything. Since there's a lot that can be done, something must work.
2. Something. Do something. Going by results, whatever is being done so far is nothing.
3. Nothing. Do nothing. Obviously nothing works.
The nine other zingers were:
1. Legalize everything. Make drug traffickers legitimate taxpayers just like Imelda Marcos, Neil Bush or Exxon officials. They would be no more condemned in polite society than the average American hazerdous waste producer, defense contractor or attorney.
2. Buy out drug dealers. Why not? We pay farmers not to grow food, legislators not to grow food, legislators not to listen to us and teachers not to teach. Let's pay drug dealers not to grow dope.
3. Kill them. It deters litterers, so why not drug dealers?
4. Ignore the problem. If ignorance is bliss, it can be sold as an alternative high. Like Republican politics or TV news.
5. Employ drug dealers. Maybe they could teach farmers better growing techniques, bankers better market techniques or the military better infiltration techniques. Mayb the CIA would loan some of their own drug trafficers to help.
6. Create a new energy source. Attach little generators to addicts nostrils. Studies at MIT have shown that snorting one gram of cocaine generates .000158 watts of electricity. Multiplied by 20 million users, this could become a staggering new energy source, maintaining coal reserves into the next century.
7. Pave Columbia.
8. Use growth hormones to flood the matket. When people have as much cocaine as they do zucchini, drug dealers will turn to other crimes, like making country and western music.
9. Make the war on drugs a TV series. It almost is, judging by TV news coverage. (Surely, Anheuser-Busch would want to sponsor it.) Run it opposite "Roseanne." Let the ratings kill the problem, then declare victory.I think the government is on the right track in the war on drugs. If you agree, you can help. Send your spare helicopters, tanks, automatic weapons, mortars, grenades, missiles and armored assault vehicles to Washington, D.C.
Ken Rand can be reached at 1498 Bora Bora Dr., West Jordan, UT 84084; (801) 568-1666