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Tabin: you fight the good fight, my friend, but this law is a chaos factory. "Several doses" of heroin for a first-time user is a fine ticket for a round trip ride on the midnight train, more than enough to teach a man how to ride a horse -- all the way to town. His eventual addiction will outpace, outlast, and finally outsmart even the Mexican government.

The law will, by then, have succeeded only in delaying the smack-fueled crossing of its redrawn line in the sand. Which, I suppose, has its appeal when one's too busy trying to keep cops from going crooked to keep kids from getting bent.

But let's get serious. The two-pound rule on peyote is good for all occasions, if I'm not mistaken, not just spiritual ones; and even a paltry four-line or two-hit concession creates demand by increasing and sanctifying availability. Now you can argue that Mexico has bigger problems on its hands than a country full of potheads. True enough -- so do we. But higher-order drugs like cocaine and speed make you remember -- if you've done the LA club circuit, for example -- why it's so tiring and difficult to be around hard drug users, even recreational ones. Daily life is ruined by the attitudes these drugs create. Productivity suffers. People spaz out. And that's leaving out acid and ecstasy. Two hits of either, even twice a week, can turn a regular human being into a space alien for months at a time.

I suggest I am not alone in proposing that Mexico went too far by treating profoundly dangerous drugs -- from a sheer health and functionality perspective -- on the same level as pot. It is neither the task nor the prerogative of the state to demote the general welfare.

You're on, John. Let's make it a bottle of Wild Turkey.

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