Sitting with my brother-in-law at a recent family picnic, I made a joke about him draining his beer so fast that he must be in a hurry to get drunk. He insisted, against my good natured scoffing, that he drinks beer for the flavor.

I howled in laughter, telling him,"Man, you are in denial!"

His wife chimed in at this point, with a quip along the line of, "Sure honey, and sometimes you enjoy the flavor SO MUCH that you drink 5 or 6 and fall asleep on the couch."

Rod mentioned the addictiveness of tobacco in his RDR "Starbucks and Joe Camel" and how tobacco has been shown to be harder to quit HEROIN. So I ask, rhetorically, of anyone who is a current/active smoker: do you smoke just for the taste?

Or how about the coffee, tea or other caffeinated beverages many of us swill throughout the day or the alcoholic beverages which are so omnipresent that we actually have people who make a living as "wine critics"?

Would we indulge in these legal drugs if they didn't have their particular "kick"? I doubt it.

To a beer drinker such as myself, non-alcoholic beer is about as inviting as pond water. Low-tar cigarettes never made a serious dent in their market, except with folks who thought they were going to "cut back"; truth is, they just smoked MORE of them "low-tar" babies, generating more profits for Big Tobacco.

Doug McDaniel said in his article on "Bidis", those noxious little Indian cigarettes,"it could be wet hay wrapped in a maple leaf" - but he would still smoke them.

Ed Cantarella

Senator Wendall Ford of Kentucky has even proposed a $28 Billion dollar proposal, to retrain displaced tobacco workers, compensate farmers who have revenue losses due to government regulations, etc.; plus, the subsidies will continue. The United States government had a long-standing policy of issuing cigarettes to soldiers in our Armed Forces, at reduced or no cost.

Through recent legislation the Veterans Administration (VA) has been allowed to disallow treatment for tobacco-related illnesses to veterans, even those who can show they started smoking while in the service Veterans Getting "Burned" - saving the VA $10-15 billion over the next five years.

After all of the Evil Empire's assistance in the production and distribution of this "killer weed", it seems a little unfair to me for a government established court system to "burn" Joe Camel.

It seems to me, applying the same logic that was applied to Big Tobacco, the United States government should take on Big Alcohol next.

Just like Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol intentionally whips up stronger versions of their products: you can get anything from 3.2% alcohol beer to 170 Proof (85% alcohol) rum.

Just like Big Tobacco, Big Alcohol intentionally gives many of its products a look, feel and taste that attracts young people.

The known negative health affects of alcohol are well known to scientists and non-scientists alike, and (in a most sad irony) victims of alcohol are clustered primarily in the first three decades of life, unlike tobacco where the majority of the victims are clustered in the last three decades of life.

Fetal alcohol syndrome ruins the potential that was within the genes of the infant victims for their entire miserable lives. Alcohol dependancies are tremendously hard to break. And Big Alcohol enjoys much greater profits then Big Tobacco.

But I forget, the United States government already tried and failed at that eighty years ago: Prohibition.

Prohibition's main legacy is that it allowed "organized crime" an opportunity to amass enough money and power to BECOME an organization and made ordinary citizens into criminals. Similar to the ongoing "war on drugs" waged by many governments.

"Self-medication" some folks call their legal "consumer drugs" and/or their illegal counterparts. Look at some of the things they are trying to cure:

• Loneliness;
• Depression;
• Physical pain;
• Frustration;
• Exhaustion;
• Insomnia;
• Weight-gain;
• Over/Under-excitement;
• PMS;
• Travel Sickness;
• Anxiety;
• Shyness;
• Sexual dysfunctions/inhibitions and so on.

If you look closely at this list, you'll notice that, with only a few exceptions, these "illnesses" are psychological conditions, brought on by social situations.

There are medically sanctified prescription drugs for the same litany of ills, but they lack the "socializing" potential of the informal "consumer drugs". Smokers get to cluster together outside office buildings, alcohol consumers have whole business establishments dedicated to their drug of choice , and"Coffee Houses" - hey, things just don't get much cozier then that. Even illegal drugs are shared, at least initially, in highly socialized settings and rituals.

Many of the arguments against the "consumer drugs", both the legal and the illicit, revolve around ethics or morality issues. Escapism and time-wasting are two of the "big guns" that are usually rolled out.

Apparently, for the large percentage of the world's population that seems to have settled on a drug of choice for themselves, the happiness felt during the "escape from life", albeit temporary, brought on by a puff of some burnable plant material, or the glow of a few drinks of alcohol, IS of some tangible value.

Is the happiness real? The legendary Swedish drug and alcohol researchers Nils Christie and Kettil Bruun posited the question this way: "is the happiness of a sports star upon winning 'true',while that of the spectators is 'false?'"

"Consumer drugs" may have no readily apparent value toward our physical sustenance, and in fact, most are well documented to speed up our demise. But then again, we don't live by bread alone.