Pubdate: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 Source: Providence Journal-Bulletin (RI) Copyright: 1999 The Providence Journal Company Contact: http://projo.com/ Author: Bob Kerr Related: http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0121.html THE QUESTION IS INEVITABLE BUT POINTLESS Outside the Today show, among the people dressed as cheese wedges and maple trees, stands a man dressed as a quahog with a sign that says: ``Hi, Matt. I'm running for Senate from Rhode Island and I've shot, snorted, and smoked every illegal pharmaceutical known to man or animal.'' After yesterday, it might get to that. After the engaging Matt Lauer claimed a place in the Rhode Island Senate race with one of those perfectly paced interviews of his, the contest to succeed John Chafee could turn into a costume party. And why not? Since Warwick Mayor and Senate candidate Lincoln Chafee was asked on Channel 10 the pointless question about his past drug use, the campaign has been turned toward such shallow, meaningless territory that a walking quahog with a drug habit might seem a natural. This is the wasteland, where real ideas are pushed aside in favor of the easy quick hit. Drug use is the all-purpose taking-off-the-gloves question. The only problem is, it bounces back and forth between television and newspaper reporters while barely touching the viewers and readers. Last year, Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse, then a candidate, was asked the question about past drug use. He handled it so ineptly that it became an issue less for its substance than for his bumbling response. But come Election Day, he wiped out his opponent. There was a message in Whitehouse's victory: Voters don't really care much about drug use from long ago. But the message apparently didn't get through. The question has been dragged out yet again, all beat up and sure to divert attention from things that matter. As Scott MacKay, The Journal's fine political reporter, points out, there has never been a large demonstration of voters demanding to know when a candidate smoked a joint. (BR)(BR) The probe into a candidate's drug history has become, instead, an exercise for the press -- a cheap and empty way of looking tough. Ever since Texas governor and presidential hopeful George W. Bush crumbled in his resolve to keep the question off limits, the press has been hot on the trail of past snorts and tokes. Mayor Chafee said he could understand Governor Bush's position when Bush said, ``When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.'' As were we all, for varying numbers of years. The question about past drug use is really about whether a candidate has lived a normal life -- whether he or she passed through the usual minefield of alluring choices or decided, instead, to abstain from everything that felt good. Reporters know that. We've passed through the minefield. Trying to turn a very familiar experience into a test of character is silly and unfair. Lincoln Chafee, meanwhile, seems to have made the most of his time in the ever-shifting drug spotlight. He answered the question on Channel 10 last weekend by admitting to marijuana and cocaine use while a student at Brown, in the mid-1970s. And, despite sharing the screen with the motor-mouthed governor of New Mexico yesterday, he responded to the trend-seeking Matt Lauer with what seemed a comfortable openness about his admissions. Also, in an interview this week with The Journal's M. Charles Bakst, Chafee had the good sense to say that decriminalizing drug use is something that bears consideration. Now that's a real question. With the war on drugs such an abysmal failure, the idea of decriminalizing illegal drugs in order to gain some control is something that candidates for national office should be asked about -- along with health care, Social Security, the poor, taxes, the environment . . . - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake